Gas scare intensifies safety risk

KEN GIGLIOTTI / FREE PRESS ARCHIVES Enlarge Image

A man is removed by a commissionaire Wednesday after walking into the council chamber with a bottle of gasoline.

City hall was warned about inadequate security more than 18 months before a man walked into a council meeting with an open bottle of gasoline.

On Wednesday morning, during the final city council meeting of 2009, a man walked into the council chamber with a liquor bottle full of gas that eventually was spilled on a set of steps in the east gallery.

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A man is removed. ( COURTESY OF CTV WINNIPEG )

"Remember Louis Riel!" he shouted as he was escorted out of the chamber by the commissionaires who serve as security guards at city hall. The man also accused councillors of "trying to steal each other's money" and trying to eat as much food as possible.

As the smell of petroleum wafted through the chamber, council Speaker Harry Lazarenko told city clerk Richard Kachur, "We have to seriously take a look at the type of security we have in this building."

But city hall has already been warned to make no less than 24 security improvements to the council building. In April 2008, the city clerk's office was presented with a security review that recommended installing metal detectors, cordoning off a secure room to hold disruptive visitors until police arrive and constructing a security gate that would require all visitors to sign in and wear identity badges.

The Manitoba legislature already has these measures in place, but access to Winnipeg's council building is relatively unrestricted.

"When it comes to security at city hall, we don't have very much security," an angry Mayor Sam Katz told reporters following the meeting. "The realities are, when a person walks into city hall and then comes into the council chamber with a very large bottle of kerosene or whatever was in there, it's obvious people can walk into city hall with anything."

Security has been a sore spot since 2007, when a man who was angry about his social service benefits barged into the mayor's office and began hurling furniture and other objects.

The city ordered a review and set aside $300,000 in the 2009 capital budget to bolster security at the council building. Those improvements have yet to be made, though the security kitty was increased to $500,000 in the 2010 capital budget.

"There was money put into the city clerk's budget and obviously nothing has happened," Katz said, before suggesting city officials are now pointing fingers at each other in the wake of Wednesday's gasoline incident.

But the city has moved forward with plans to improve security, city clerk Richard Kachur said.

Another report has been commissioned and a meeting that was scheduled before the incident will take place next week, Kachur said.

Lazarenko and Katz said council must have security on par with that at the legislature, even though the city council building receives more casual visitors.

"I like to have as open a city hall as possible. I've been to other cities where I think they go overboard on security. But the realities are, we don't have any security," Katz said.

Though police arrived within minutes of Wednesday's incident, it's unclear whether the man who brought gasoline into the meeting was sniffing it or intended to light something on fire.

"I don't know what... kind of message that person was trying to give us, whether he was giving us a Christmas message or what," Lazarenko said.

Elmwood-East Kildonan Coun. Lillian Thomas, who plans to run for mayor in 2010, said people are frustrated with city hall over the events of the past four years.

Council committee meetings resume on Jan. 4.

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River Heights condos

Council voted 11-5 to allow one-storey condos along a strip of former railway land in River Heights. The city centre community committee had rejected it, but the more senior property committee reversed the decision. Couns. John Orlikow (River Heights), Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge), Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre), Lillian Thomas (Elmwood) and Dan Vandal (St. Boniface) voted against it.

Council expenses

A plan to post councillors' expenses online was put off till January, when council's secretariat committee will review minor changes to the wording. Mayor Sam Katz and six other councillors voted against the delay.

BRT expropriation

Council voted unanimously to spend $3.4 million to buy Osborne Village's Midtown Car Wash, whose footprint was reduced due to the construction of the southwest rapid-transit corridor.

Assiniboine Park

Council voted unanimously to approve $1 million in operating cash to tide over the fledgling Assiniboine Park Conservancy until the end of March, when Winnipeg's operating budget is passed.

-- Kives

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 17, 2009 A3