New security manager protecting council from press?

Re: Article “Security most restrictive in the North,” which appeared in the March 4 edition of Northern Life.

Could it be that American-style homeland security tactics are coming our way thanks to the new city manager of corporate security — a nifty title.

He was, we are informed, a former security worker for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, certainly a good recommendation for the city intent on having a new casino. However, he was hired it seems, to protect our councillors from the press and public.

Perhaps the new security guru had looked back in time some 36 years, maybe before he was born, to our only incident of local council violence when a certified insane individual shot Nickel City Mayor Mike Solski in 1978 during council proceedings in Coniston.

Mike recovered and council meetings continued uneventfully, at least as far as public violence was concerned, in our region ever since.

Regardless, it is difficult to see how the new “barriers” and security proceedings and access limitations proposed would prevent an insane or even sane individual from gunning down a councillor during a meeting.

It is not guns, however, but knives our new security guy is seemingly more concerned about because many of us, according to him, carry around this potential weapon.

Does this mean we have to undergo “pat down” procedures before being allowed to enter meetings or maybe go through a metal detector or full body scan or worse?

I think we are really more like Alice in Wonderland with the continued mad hatter approach to many other wise mundane matters, like having ordinary citizens sign a seven-page disclosure and liability release document to be even permitted to pick up garbage on city streets and parks.

And speaking of garbage, maybe we should be prepared to throw out some of our political waste in this year’s municipal election to save us from more of this foolishness.

John Lindsay
Greater Sudbury