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Wednesday
High: 93; Low: 74; Partly cloudy
Thursday
High: 93; Low: 71; Mostly Cloudy
Friday
High: 93; Low: 70; Isolated T-Storms
1937
— Orson Welles produces, directs, and stars in Les Miserables,
the first radio play to be produced by the fledging Mercury Theater
group.
1939 — In response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain
and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany
1957 — Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus enlists the National
Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering Central High
School in Little Rock.
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Texas
governor delays plan to tighten security at capitol
Perry wants an increasingly expensive security
plan meant to be voted on Sept. 10 to cover the entire Capitol complex.
By CONNIE MABIN
Associated Press
AUSTIN
(AP) — Gov. Rick Perry has told the State Preservation Board
to call off its plans to tighten security at the state Capitol because
he wants a broader security study to include surrounding buildings.
Perry also was concerned about the escalating cost of the Preservation
Board plan and wanted other companies to have a chance to bid on
the work, spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Tuesday.
The Preservation Board oversees the state Capitol. This summer,
officials drafted a $2.7 million plan to improve the security by
January after last fall’s terrorist attacks in Washington,
D.C. and New York.
The plan was set to be voted on at a Sept. 10 meeting with acting
Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff and House Speaker Pete Laney, but Perry called
off that meeting late last Thursday.
Rick Crawford, executive director of the board, said he was on vacation
last week and found out his plan was spiked when he returned Tuesday
and was greeted by a letter written by Perry’s chief of staff
Mike McKinney.
The letter said a meeting was not needed because Perry wanted a
broader “review of security measures in and around the Capitol
Complex.”
The Department of Public Safety was asked to complete the study,
which could include the Governor’s Mansion and state offices
located near the Capitol.
“Our plan has been put on hold, or canceled,” Crawford
said. “I’m going to do what the governor asked me to do
and send my plan to the DPS.”
“Anytime you can broaden the perimeter, that’s probably
a good thing,” he said.
The price tag on his plan grew from $2.7 million to $3.98 million
after visiting Capitols in Pennsylvania and Washington and studying
security problems in other states, Crawford said.
“We found out it was a little bit more expensive than we first
thought,” he said.
The plan called for using money from a $8.5 million maintenance
fund to install retractable barriers around the Capitol, add hydraulic
barricades to parking garages and restore high curbs around the
building. New facilities for guards also were planned.
Perry wants to study security at the entire Capitol complex, which
spans several blocks in downtown Austin, and make sure the public
has adequate say in changes to the buildings, Walt said.
For now, the current security measures will remain in effect, she
said
Since the attacks, DPS troopers have been stationed at the building’s
entrances.
Troopers randomly search visitors and screen vehicles entering the
complex, and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the grounds.
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