For added security, Miami Beach City Hall will soon have a single, guarded entrance
.jpg "The city of Miami Beach soon will create a single point of entry to its municipal headquarters with metal detectors and guards.")
The ripples of multiple mass shootings, from Parkland to El Paso, are reaching the wide-open, easy-to-access Miami Beach City Hall.
The city will create a single point of entry to its municipal headquarters, 1700 Convention Center Drive, the building where residents can clear building plans, obtain permits and visit elected officials. Beach City Hall has long been one of the most open government buildings in South Florida. Anyone can enter the commission chamber and multiple offices without ever passing a guard.
That will soon change after commissioners met in a closed session Monday morning and voted to implement a single, centralized access point with metal detectors and guards.
Mayor Dan Gelber, who has advocated for the change, said no specific emergency spurred the change — but repeated mass shootings have concerned him since 17 students and staffers were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. Beach commissioners were in the middle of a meeting that day when the shooting occurred.
“Over the next two months this along with other security measures will be implemented,” wrote Gelber, in a Facebook post announcing the change. “I believe these actions are necessary to balance the paramount need to keep our residents and employees safe with the equally important goal of keeping our city’s government accessible to its residents. It is obviously unfortunate that we are compelled to take such measures, but to do nothing given the world around us is clearly not an option.”
Commissioners met in a private session Monday morning, closed to the public. Under Florida law, elected bodies are allowed to discuss such security topics in closed meetings.
Other local governments have taken similar measures recently. In Miami, where the bulk of the city’s workforce and public services are available at an administration building downtown, guards and metal detectors were placed at the entrance earlier this year. Miami-Dade’s government has done the same at Government Center.
This story was originally published August 26, 2019 at 7:28 PM.