Security Increased at VIP Parking Garage in Capitol’s Basement

For years, lost tourists and other wayward motorists wheeled into what was supposed to be the off-limits VIP parking garage in the basement of the state Capitol.

“How do I get to Old Sacramento?” was an appeal familiar to garage attendants as they parked the cars of the governor, other top state officials and legislators.

People with criminal intent also casually drove into the vast parking arena, including occasional car thieves and even a gunman in the 1970s who demanded a meeting with the governor and tried to run over a policeman.

Officials now hope such problems are behind them as workers put the final touches on security improvements at the garage and a pair of inviting driveways that errant motorists easily mistook for a city street.

“I’m not going to tell you the place is 100% safe from a car bomb. It isn’t. But I’d rather have it go off [a block away] than right here,” said Senate Chief Sergeant at Arms Tony Beard Jr., who helped plan and implement a sometimes controversial program of Capitol security upgrades over the past few years.

Concerns about security at the domed hub of California government have bubbled on and off since armed Black Panthers invaded a meeting of the Assembly in 1967, sending members scrambling for cover.

But the safety of the historic building, perhaps the most publicly accessible state government structure in California, got renewed attention in the aftermath of the terrorist bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 that killed 168 people.

An analysis of the California Capitol concluded in 1996 that because public access was so unrestricted, the building--especially the basement garage--offered a tempting target for troublemakers.

“The basement area contains a number of terrorist target opportunities that if attacked could have a devastating effect on the Capitol building and its operational recovery,” said the analysis by the California Highway Patrol.

Among other things, the analysis said that despite gradual security improvements during the 1980s and 1990s, it still would be relatively easy for an intruder to enter the basement unobserved, hide, “quickly place an explosive device and then leave unnoticed.”

Officials decline to discuss details of security at the Capitol, which have included closed-circuit television cameras, a beefed-up police presence including officers on horseback, a bomb-sniffing dog and emergency preparedness training for employees.

The most conspicuous change is the construction of prominent police kiosks at the head of the driveways and realignment of the drives themselves.

From the kiosks, which replaced tiny, closet-size shacks that held one officer, single officers or pairs have a more expanded view of leafy Capitol Park and greater manual and electronic control over incoming and departing traffic.

At the officers’ command is a battery of closed-circuit cameras and monitors that scan the park, the garage and the Capitol’s interior.

A driver--legislator, employee, delivery worker or lost tourist--can expect to be videotaped by at least three cameras en route to the basement garage, the Senate’s Beard said. Some cameras, he said, can read the license plate number of a vehicle two blocks away.

Beard said the improved security is meant not only to protect the safety of occupants and visitors to the 125-year-old building, but also to prevent embarrassing thefts of legislators’ cars and state vehicles.

Earlier this year, a Dodge sedan assigned to Assemblyman Bob Margett (R-Arcadia) was stolen from the garage moments after it was parked. A camera recorded its exit, and the car was found disabled several blocks away.

A few years ago, a convicted child molester strolled into the garage and drove away in a state van. The thief was captured at a shopping mall about four miles away.

The new security features also include tall fences of steel bars that block public access to the driveways from Capitol Park, a favorite site for political demonstrations. Previously, only trees and easily penetrated foliage stood between the drives and the park.

The fences are a lingering reminder of a controversy over a plan to surround the Capitol with a 4-foot fence intended to deter potential car bombers and tighten vehicular access to the building.

The fence, approved without public notice by the 1997 Legislature and then-Gov. Pete Wilson, was intended to enclose the equivalent of six city blocks. The Legislature abandoned the project last year under pressure from a variety of critics.

Some argued that such a fence would not stop a determined bomber. Others complained that it would be a historically inaccurate fixture. Still others charged that it would dash cold water on the prized notion of a statehouse open to the people.

Highway Patrol Commissioner D.O. “Spike” Helmick noted last week that the driveway fences escaped entanglement in the bigger controversy over a low-slung fence that would encircle the Capitol.

But Helmick, who had advocated far tougher security steps than have been accepted by the Legislature, refused to say directly whether he was satisfied with the measures taken so far.

“Put it this way: I’m much more satisfied than I was before,” Helmick said.