The Hall County Government Center is beefing up security eight months after Tax Commissioner Darla Eden sent a letter to the county administrator saying she was “deeply concerned” about the safety of the building’s employees. 

Her letter was prompted by an agitated taxpayer who “asked our clerk if the glass was bulletproof,” she wrote in June. 

An additional marshal was hired in December to guard the front lobby, and commissioners are expected to approve just over $76,000 on Thursday for extra security equipment, such as key card readers on a couple dozen doors “to limit access to areas in which public access is not necessary,” county spokeswoman Sarah Crowe said over email. 

“As of next week, we will have eight marshals that work for Hall County including one dedicated marshal on the first floor, in addition to two security guards,” Crowe said, adding that staff also participated in active threat training provided by the Hall County Sheriff’s Office in January. 

The equipment vendor, a Gainesville-based company called Electronic Sales, installed the current security system and will oversee the upgrades, according to the Feb. 6 work session agenda. 

“We've been trying to be proactive on building security even before those concerns were raised, and it's really just an ongoing effort,” Cpt. Barry Shaw of the Hall County Marshal's Office said. “We're just trying to be as proactive as we can to make the building as safe as it can be for anyone that's coming to do business here or that works here.” 

Following Eden’s letter in June, the county conducted a “comprehensive safety and security assessment,” Crowe said, though when The Times asked for a copy of the report she said it is exempt from release under Georgia’s open records law. 

“The report has some great content and good ideas to implement,” Eden told The Times last week, adding that she received a copy in November. “There are ideas in there such as additional security guards, securing access points, additional signage, changing out doors and locks.” 

Casey Ramsey, who oversaw the report as the director of the county’s Emergency Management Agency, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He was promoted to assistant county administrator in November. 

“Security for our employees is always a top priority,” said District 4 Commissioner Jeff Stowe. “Darla (Eden) pointed out some things,” and Ramsey led a “very good assessment of what potential weaknesses we may have at the building.” 

“I'm not positive they'll all be addressed in what we're doing with Electronic Sales,” Stowe said, “but I know this will enhance our security and access to different areas.” 

Eden also called in her letter for screening people who come into the building and checking their bags, though it is not clear whether that would be legal in a government building that is not a courthouse. County Attorney Van Stephens could not be reached Tuesday afternoon. 

A bizarre encounter over the summer with an agitated taxpayer who touched the glass partition and asked the clerk if it was bulletproof heightened Eden’s concerns about security. This and a couple other incidents — which she declined to detail — were set against a backdrop of a summer plagued by gun violence, including the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers. 

“There are thousands of visitors a day coming into that building — thousands,” she said in the summer. “It’s way past time with all the gun violence that's happening in the United States that we look at securing that building and protecting our employees and the public.”