Remembering a day of infamy
Area officials talk about impact of attacks
BY Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Thursday, September 11, 2008 11:16 AM PDT
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| People hold up flags during the memorial ceremony at the Pentagon, Thursday, marking the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. |
ONTARIO — Seven years after the attack on the Twin Towers of the International Trade Center in New York City, four people involved in the public and non-profit sectors in Malheur County say they feel more secure, but two of the four question whether the country can be really safe.
What all four individuals said they do like is, since the deadly attacks, local agencies and organizations work better together.
“I think we are paying more attention,” Peter Lawson, branch manager of the Southeast Oregon Regional Food Bank, said. “We have come to pay more attention to the (needs) of our communities.”
What the 9/11 attacks did was focus on how communities work on providing services people need, he said.
“We are more together as a nation,” he said.
Ontario Mayor Joe Dominick said he felt the nation’s overall security posture improved after the attacks.
“The security efforts are a lot better,” Dominick said. “There are some areas still lacking. We have a ways to go.”
Dominick, though, said one element to the new paradigm after 9/11 is still troubling.
“I’m concerned about a lot of our National Guard troops being gone, that we are more vulnerable. The National Guard was supposed to here for our nation.”
Malheur County Sheriff Andy Bentz agreed with Dominick regarding security. While the 9/11 attacks improved the overall security situation, more work needs to be done he said.
“We are more secure than we were,”
Bentz said. “Are we safe enough, yet.? No.”
Points of entry — airports, seaports and borders, north and south are of concern, he said.
“We really have no idea as to who is here and who is not here,” Bentz said.
The attacks prompted a new era in terms of planning for disasters locally Bentz said.
“Preparing and planning at the local level, we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were in 2001,” he said.
Cooperation between public agencies is 1,000 times better, he said.
“All of the public sector is now involved with each other,” he said.
That includes police, firefighters, public works, public health and hospitals.
“We’re all together and talking all the time,” Bentz said. “Nationally, the memory is very strong, and interest has not waned in Malheur County. Local public agencies meet every month, and there are numerous subcommittees meeting all the time.”
Bentz also said he believes there will be another strike at America by terrorists.
“On the national level, I fully expect we will get whacked again,” Bentz said. “Our sense of security has been affected. That is what terrorists do.”
The enhanced security situation also sparked civil liberty concerns, Bentz said.
“Law enforcement has a delicate fence to ride; protecting the community and protecting civil liberties,” Bentz continued. “We were not meant to be a police state,” he said, adding it falls to civilian law enforcement to project our freedoms.
“I think we are more aware as a nation,” Linda Simmons, director of Extended Learning at Treasure Valley Community College, said. Simmons also said Americans discovered this country is not invulnerable.
“Are we more safe? I’m not sure that we are. I think there are more world-wide terrorists.,” Simmons said.
One area where there has been a major change is in how international students are handled when they apply for admission and come to college, Simmons said. There is more tracking of those students, she said.
