COVINGTON — A lobby guard, visitors' passes and immense concrete flower pots n are among the security changes visitors to the Kenton County Administration building may soon see.

        At Tuesday's Kenton County Fiscal Court meeting, Kenton Judge-executive Dick Murgatroyd is expected to recommend that county officials institute those and other enhanced security measures within two weeks.

        Although office workers for the county clerk and property valuation administrator (PVA) have periodically had to deal with disgruntled customers, the proposed security changes “are strictly precautionary,” and are not being made as a result of threats against any county employees or departments, said Scott Kimmich, Kenton County's deputy judge-executive.

        “I think these measures are long overdue,” Mr. Kimmich said Friday. “It just takes incidents beyond our control to bring (security needs) to our attention.”

        On Tuesday, Mr. Murgatroyd is expected to seek authorization from his fellow fiscal court members to spend about $6,000 for 10 to 12 concrete flower pots, each weighing 800 pounds. The flower pots will contain evergreens and will be placed in front of the county building at 303 Court St., Mr. Kimmich said.

        Mr. Kimmich said staff is still “working on numbers” for the cost of paying a deputy sheriff who would issue passes to visitors entering the building's front lobby.

        In other changes, all employees of the county building will receive photo IDs, and they will be instructed to notify anyone roaming the building without a pass to get one, Mr. Kimmich said.

        Also, the side doors of the county administration building on Park and Third Streets will be emergency access only, Mr. Kimmich said. In an emergency, people would be able to exit via the side doors, but an alarm would sound.

        A proposal to install metal detectors in the lobby was rejected as “overkill,” Mr. Kimmich said.

        At the Kenton County courthouse in Independence, which has offices for the county clerk and circuit clerk, a deputy is already on duty, and the Independence police are based upstairs, Mr. Kimmich said. The only change there would be a requirement that employees wear ID badges, he said.

        “It will be an inconvenience, but I think most people will see that it's a necessary inconvenience,” Kenton County Clerk Bill Aylor said of the proposed security measures.

        Two years ago, the Kenton County sheriff's office — previously located across from the county clerk's office near the main entrance of the county building on Court Street — moved from the first to the fourth floor. That same year, the courts also moved to the new Kenton County Justice Center at 230 Madison Ave.

        Mr. Aylor said that he has had some customers “blow up” and slam a door, or even knock one off its hinges when his workers have told them that they have to get their car inspected. Others have become upset when they realize that they weren't registered to vote by the required deadline, he said.

        “We've called the sheriff's office a few times when people have gotten upset,” Mr. Aylor said. “A uniformed guard (in the lobby) would be a deterrent.”

        Elsewhere in Northern Kentucky, county officials say they are urging employees to be more vigilant in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and dozens of local anthrax scares. However, officials in Boone and Campbell counties say they are not yet resorting to the measures that Kenton County is considering.

        In Boone County, Judge-executive Gary Moore said the back doors of the county courthouse in Burlington are now locked, and maintenance workers have been advised to be alert for any unauthorized personnel in the building's mechanical area.

        “We've advised our people of some precautions to follow when it comes to handling mail or dealing with anything suspicious,” Mr. Moore said. “We are going to continue to keep our eyes open, and if we feel any other actions are necessary, we'll take them.”

        At the Kenton County Justice Center in Covington — the building where the courts are housed — the building's emergency plan was amended on Oct. 15 to specify how to deal with a chemical or biological attack or exposure to suspicious substances.

        Those include moving someone who has possibly been exposed to a hazardous substance outside the building to a “wash-down” facility on the main floor and an isolation/contamination room to await the arrival of hazardous materials teams personnel.

        In the past month, many Northern Kentucky cities also have instituted new security measures at their municipal buildings. Those include adopting guidelines on how to handle suspicious mail, keeping city vehicles and fire bays locked, limiting access to stairwells and private offices in government buildings, installing cameras in lobbies and/or parking lots, and requiring visitors to sign in and wear special badges.

        “We'd been talking about making some changes anyway, but all this other stuff triggered it,” said Erlanger City Administrator Bill Scheyer.

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