BRISTOL, Va. – Long before Barack Obama arrives in Bristol today, his advance team stepped on the toes of some city officials.The city, which is hosting the town hall meeting inside Virginia High School and providing police, fire and emergency medical personnel to staff it, has largely been left out of the loop on planning the hastily arranged event, City Manager Bill Dennison said
“There are any number of things we could have done to assist with this,” Dennison said. “But they [campaign advance team] did not see fit to request our assistance or inform anyone – other than [VHS principal] Ina Danko. Most of what I know about this, I learned from the news media.”
Dennison said he began hearing rumors about the visit Tuesday morning, but was never contacted by anyone from the campaign.
Members of the Obama advance team working inside the high school gym Wednesday said they couldn’t comment on the record about anything.
The city would have rearranged its bus schedules to help the elderly and handicapped have better access to the event or offered other assistance, Dennison said.
In a Wednesday afternoon phone interview, Dennison said he hadn’t been notified that Long Crescent – the street in front of the gym entrance – would be closed during the event.
The city manager said he has complained to the Secret Service, who contacted police Chief Bill Price to have the department assist with security.
“We would have done it. But to have a third party calling to use our officers on overtime was a mistake,” Dennison said. “I told the Secret Service that the chain of command starts at the top.
“The event puts the spotlight on the city and gives people a chance to meet one of the candidates, which are good things. But it certainly could have been handled better from the standpoint of local participation,” the city manager said.
All 2,000 tickets for the event were given away by about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, prompting a flood of phone calls to the high school.
“A lot of people were calling and asking for tickets,” Danko said. “Whole groups of people came this morning [Wednesday] trying to get tickets, but I understand they were all gone early.”
Distributing tickets was only the tip of the iceberg as about 20 electricians and workers spent hours preparing the “Bearcat Den” for today’s event, under the watchful eyes of the campaign advance team and Secret Service agents.
Outside the building, parking is expected to be at a premium, police Capt. Maynard Ratcliff said.
“People should plan to get here early in order to get a close parking place,” Ratcliff said. “There are plenty of lots around the school, but if you don’t get here early you might wind up walking quite a ways.”
Anyone not attending today’s event is asked to avoid the area around the high school.
One lane of Long Crescent will be closed starting about 7 a.m. and both lanes will be closed during the event, Ratcliff said. Parking won’t be allowed along the south side of the street and people parking along other streets should avoid fire hydrants, driveways and not park on street corners. Violators will be ticketed or towed.
dmcgee@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2532
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