by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington City Council adapted a policy to remove “no concealed carry” signs from two of the buildings for which they were in place.

The council also directed city staff to implement a safety plan and to educate municipal employees in case of an attack by a gun-shooting intruder.

The new policy came at the request of the Kansas State Legislature who issued a proclamation that counties and municipalities must update its Concealed Carry Handgun policy to adhere to state policy or improve security measures within.

It may not be a huge issue anyway, considering that the city has only had two signs on the 20 municipal buildings in Wellington in the first place. Wellington City Manager Gus Collins said there was a “no concealed carry” sign at the front entrance of Wellington City Hall on S. Washington and the Electric/Water Department complex. Another sign was placed at the Wellington City Lake years ago, Collins said, but unbeknownst to him it was removed. 

The other 17 buildings never had signs in place to begin with.

The city’s CCH policy did generate plenty of discussion amongst council members. The council devoted almost 30 minutes to discussing the intricacies of the law at the meeting Tuesday, following a near one hour discussion during a work session in November. The policy will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, but there is a possibility that the state of Kansas could change the policy and the municipality must come up with a new plan, said Mike Brown, Wellington City Attorney.

The state’s CCH law, which was enacted at the 2013 legislative session, is a rather complex one and Wellington Police Chief Tracy Heath was on hand to explain it.

Basically, Heath said, the state legislature has made the CCH laws less restrictive and has encouraged municipalities and other governmental entities to implement similarly lenient policies as well. The state mandated that by January 1, 2014, all municipalities must submit a policy to either remove the signs, or to have the signs in place but have a security plan implemented that would protect employees.

Heath said the latter is an expensive proposition. Just to secure the Wellington city administration building the city would need a metal detector and two security guards.

“Even at minimum wage, that would cost the city anywhere from $90,000 to $100,000,” Heath said.

The other alternative is to allow people, who hold a licensed CCH permit, the right to enter a public building. The thinking being a person with a CCH license could protect themselves with a weapon on hand if the gun-shooting intruder enters the facility.

There are a lot of gray area to this law Heath said. For one thing, it does not address private property. A business or home owner can still restrict the use of concealed weapons.

Also, there is questions of what constitutes a concealed weapon. Heath said Kansas has never addressed an open weapon policy. For instance, people can legally carry a pistol in their holsters in the open for everyone to see, but they can only carry a gun hidden inside their pockets/coats only if they have a CCH permit. He estimates in Wellington there are around a 100 people who have CCH permits.

Heath also said the current CCH law is going to change in four years anyway, when the state will then prohibit any city/county policy from making any restrictions to concealed carry regardless. Thus there is no need to implement expensive security measures.

None of the council members had any issue with removing the CCH signs, but there was much debate over how far the city should go in protecting its employees from an intruder.

For instance, the city administration building is built in a way where a gun-shooting intruder can enter the front door and secure the building where there is little room for employees to escape.

Council member Jan Korte said she would like a door or something up at the council chambers that could get her out of the building if such a person came in ready to shoot.

Heath said he has spoken with other municipalities and he has yet to hear of any governing body ready to tackle the expenses of securing a building with metal detectors, bullet proof windows and security guards.

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Annexation revisited 

Due to a technicality in which at the previous meeting, the council’s apparent approval to annex the 11.5 acre property southeast of the Wellington Wal-Mart to build a 96-unit $7-8 million apartment complex (see story here) was apparently not approved after all. At that meeting, the vote was 3-2, with council member Kelly Green not in attendance. The vote did not constitute a majority required for an ordinance’s approval. A quorum is four votes on a six-member board. This was not discovered until the next day.

Tuesday, Green voted with the majority to make it 4-2, thus officially approving the ordinance.

At the same time, the Wellington City Planning Commission was meeting in a separate building and voted 5-0 to recommend the rezoning of the property from a I-1 to an R-2 multi-family zoned lot. The council will now need to determine whether to accept the Planning Commission’s rezoning recommendation at the Dec. 17 meeting or deny it.

•••••

Twelve employees recognized

The Wellington City Council recognized 12 employees for their service to the city for 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years.

Those employees were:

10 years –

Floyd Thompson, sanitation department;

Dewey Rhodd, sanitation department;

James McEachern, wastewater department;

Glen Berryman, wastewater department.

15 years –

Michael Tredway, police department;

Harold Parkey, fire department.

20 years –

Victor Sandell, fire department;

Douglas Kinney, lake department;

Mark Bales, golf department.

25 years –

Tracy Heath, police department;

Marry Green, clerk department.

30 years –

Judge Frank Korte, legal department.

•••••

In other business, the council approved:

•a resolution of the sale of city of Wellington public building commission bonds to help fund the new WRC center;

•extended the agreement between the Wellington Fire department and District No. 6 rural department for fire protection.

•allowing the financial statements and financial reports of the city to be prepared to show compliance with the cash basis and budget laws.

The city council also met in executive session for 20 minutes to discuss business practices.