Erie City Council will be considering an ordinance to appropriate funds for the City Hall Security Project, which is the next step in safely re-opening City Hall.
“We have spent the last several months planning and seeking proposals and cost estimates for the safest options to re-open City Hall,” said Dave Mulvihill, Public Works Director. “Now, we are ready to begin implementing the plan.”
In accordance with the 2021 City of Erie Budget, the funding will be appropriated from “unappropriated and unanticipated revenue” from the City of Erie Capital Fund.
“We have been looking at COVID safety precautions as well as security issues since the onset of the pandemic. My concern with reopening City Hall has been the safety of our employees and the public we serve. I just lost a very close family member to COVID-19, and I don’t want anyone else to have to deal with that. I had to make sure that we could put the recommended precautions in place before moving forward with reopening. In the meantime, we have ensured that all services have been available via phone, email, and online. Our public works team has done their due diligence in vetting options and put together an excellent plan to reopen City Hall safely,” explained Mayor Joe Schember.
The proposed upgrades to City Hall include:
- Exterior and interior surveillance cameras
- Access control for doors
- Visitor management system
- Garage entrance controlled with long-range readers
- Video intercom at the Erie Police Department’s Peach St. entrance
- Walk-through metal detectors and pass-through X-ray scanner in the lobby via the State St. entrance
- Self-serve visitor kiosk with host notification to alert employee that guest has arrived
- COVID-19 package to screen guests for COVID symptoms
- Network servers and access control platform
- Infrastructure improvements and five years of software upgrades
- Power and network connections for all equipment
City Hall security upgrades are designed to protect residents, City employees, and elected officials from potential safety threats and COVID-19 transmission.
The access control and security services portions of the project will be presented for first reading on City Council’s April 21, 2021 agenda.
Schember explained, “If everything goes according to the plan, case counts are kept under control, and all city employees have the opportunity to be vaccinated, we hope to reopen City Hall on June 1. In fact, we have already begun a phased-in return of employees who are fully vaccinated.”
