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John McCain's Durango rally peaceful
Herald Staff Writer
Photo by JERRY McBRIDE/Herald
The police department estimated 6,000 people attended the speech at DHS, with an additional 1,000 to 2,000 left outside.
"There were no arrests - that is an amazing statistic for something like this," Capt. Micki Browning said.
McCain's visit placed him in three separate jurisdictions Friday night. The La Plata County Sheriff's Office was in charge when McCain's plane touched down and took off at the Durango-La Plata Airport; the Colorado State Patrol took over for the candidate's ride into and out of town; and the Durango Police Department oversaw his speech at Durango High School.
Browning said it will be a few days before she knows the exact number of law-enforcement personnel who worked the event. She said, though, that were at least 150 of them. In addition to local agencies, others that worked the event included the U.S. Secret Service, Federal and Colorado Bureaus of Investigation, Farmington and Ignacio police departments, Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado Mounted Rangers, Fort Lewis College, Transportation Security Administration and Durango School District 9-R.
"There will be a price tag, but we won't know it for several weeks. A lot of the costs are borne across several agencies," Browning said.
The police department estimated 6,000 people attended the speech at DHS, with an additional 1,000 to 2,000 left outside.
Each agency is responsible for paying its own personnel and operational costs for the McCain event. Browning said the assistance of neighboring and federal and state agencies is part of an interagency memorandum of understanding that pledges cooperation between the various groups.
"If Farmington had something similar, under the MOU, we would do the same for them. If they needed bodies, we would ship down as many as we could for their event at our cost," she said.
Durango City Manager Ron LeBlanc said city officials didn't have a choice when the Secret Service informed them McCain was coming. He said the federal agents gave officials a general estimate of the manpower needed for traffic and crowd control and began meeting with the local officials Oct. 21 - three days before McCain's visit. All decisions regarding where and when personnel were deployed were left to the professionals.
"One thing about an event like this, the campaign people have it dialed in. It's nice working with that level of experience," LeBlanc said.
He said the McCain event also served as a multi-jurisdictional training drill that allowed the agencies to test communication equipment and methods used in the national standard Incident Command System.
Outside the logistics of staging the event, local Republicans reacted favorably Saturday to McCain's appearance.
Sheri Rochford, a local Republican Party volunteer, drove a van to and from the airport with McCain's motorcade. She described the scene at the airport as "a well-oiled machine" reminiscent of an action movie, with sport utility vehicles scattered throughout the airport.
"I savored the moment, parking right on the tarmac with the candidate's plane. It really was very exciting," Rochford said, but added that her honored position behind the wheel caused her to miss the actual speech.
La Plata County commissioner candidate Harry Baxstrom said the high energy McCain maintains on a brutal travel schedule is a motivation for his own campaign. He also said he's happy that there were not any negative incidents at the event outside of healthy political debate.
"It was a great thing - regardless of party - to have a major presidential candidate come to town," Baxstrom said.
"It's an honor for Durango, and we should be ecstatic that we were not excluded from the process."
La Plata County Republican Party Chairman Ron Tate said local organizers were prepared for the worst in the event divergent political views escalated into something more, but he was pleasantly surprised.
"It was just a great day," Tate said.
Tate said he was slightly disappointed that he didn't get to meet McCain, but he was busy coordinating local volunteers to keep things running smoothly day and night.
Also busy was the crew at Durango Doughworks, which is located across the street from DHS. Doughworks owner Dylan Norton said it was not quite a record, but certainly one of his busiest Fridays in recent memory with a steady stream of customers wearing T-shirts advertising both presidential candidates.
Despite the spike in business, Norton said Doughworks closed at its regular time of 4 p.m.
"We didn't have anything left anyway," Norton said.
"We ran out of doughnuts. People must've wanted to get amped up on their sugar."
There was no word Saturday how McCain's Durango visit compared to similar campaign stops in small towns throughout the so-called "toss-up" states that are too close to call for presidential pollsters. McCain's Colorado Campaign Director Tom Kise could not be reached for comment Saturday afternoon.
But McCain's visit did register a blip on the national and international media radar. The Wall Street Journal quoted Arboles resident Sheri Ramsey in an article that referred to Durango as "a small town nestled in the mountains in the southwestern corner of the state," and also mentioned the hundreds of Barack Obama supporters who lined Main Avenue before and during McCain's speech at the high school.
The presence of supporters from both major parties also was a central theme chronicled in the British Telegraph, Kansas City Star, Reuters News Agency as well as FoxNews, CNN and other television networks.
Rochford said New York Times photographer Stephen Crowley told her Durango was the most beautiful stop he's seen in months on the campaign trail. He also said the number of Obama supporters was the most he's seen at any McCain event. He even commented about the civility shown by supporters and opposition toward each other.
"We can be proud of our town. The citizens of Durango and the surrounding communities behaved well and showed their support, and that's what we're supposed to do," Rochford said.
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