’Bula police chief grilled about courthouse security

By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

December 03, 2008 12:16 am

— ASHTABULA — Visitors to the Ashtabula Justice Center may have noticed a new security system.
Visitors now must pass through a metal detector 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., part of a security upgrade that began about a year ago.
Ashtabula Police Capt. Gerald Cornelius, the department’s second-in-command, is in charge of court security.
The security checkpoint was added a few months ago, but it’s not in operation 100 percent of the time because of staffing troubles, Chief Robert Stell said at Monday night’s City Council meeting.
The metal detector operates Monday through Friday, and two officers run it, he said.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Ericka Severino said the Justice Center opens at 7 a.m.
“If (the security system) is not effective, did you ask for additional staff in 2009?” she asked.
Stell said he doesn’t do the hiring.
“We need to take it more seriously,” Severino said. “There’s a captain and a patrolman doing it.”
Stell said, “Ideally, I need part-time people doing the work and a police officer to oversee it.”
Council vice president Betty Kist said it sounds like the security checkpoint isn’t working.
“We really don’t have a viable security system there,” she said.
Stell said it’s better than nothing.
“We had an officer take a large buck knife off of a felon,” he said. “When it’s up, it’s effective.”
Severino argued the current arrangement also takes a patrol officer and a veteran police captain off the road.
“I would like to see solid security and make it effective,” she said. “But to put a captain — on the salary he’s making — on security doesn’t seem feasible.”
President Rodger Altier said the issue can be discussed at Friday’s budget hearing, slated to begin at 8 a.m. in the upstairs conference room at City Hall. The public is invited to attend.