U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge will be
at Saint Louis University next Wednesday, for the first in a series
of town hall meetings in different U.S. cities, to explore
citizens’ attitudes about homeland security.

Sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government, a
nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., the
event will be limited to 250 people, 35 of whom could be SLU
students.

Event Services Director Leslie Pinkston explained that, although
the Busch Student Center ballroom where the event will take place
can seat 800, the CEG and DHS wish to keep the group small so that
the meeting will remain intimate.

Pinkston said she has left the designation of the 35 students,
20 as audience members and 15 as volunteer hosts, to the Student
Government Association, the multicultural center and the
Presidential Scholar Society.

SGA President Nick Sarcone said that, since he needed to fill
the seats by this morning, he offered the spots to to those
attending last night’s SGA meeting, and consequently filled all of
the spots. He said he had wanted to open it to the rest of the
student body but didn’t have time.

“It wasn’t just open to senators,” Sarcone said, “That was just
the best way to get 20 people in 12 hours.”

CEG’s Sarah Howe said FOCUS-St. Louis, a local nonprofit, aided
CEG in determining which 215 St. Louis citizens would be invited to
the the meeting. Howe said CEG sought “a broad cross-section of
people from the community.”

Pinkston said the meeting’s organizers approached Event Services
on Sept. 15 while they were in St. Louis surveying different venues
for the event. They ultimately chose SLU because of its location,
Pinkston said.

CEG and DHS made no payment offers to any of the venues they
considered, including SLU, Pinkston said, adding, “The exposure
that we will get is parallel to the amount of money that we would
have charged them.”

According to a CEG advisory, the meeting, entitled, “Homeland
Security from the Citizens’ Perspective,” is designed “To explore
citizens’ attitudes about homeland security, identify critical
areas of concern and recommend strategies for strengthening our
nation’s response, in the event of future terrorist threats and
other national emergencies.”

DHS, the 15th and latest addition to the presidential cabinet,
is an outgrowth of the Office of Homeland Security, which President
George W. Bush established shortly after the terrorist attacks on
Sept. 11, 2001.

Pooling the efforts of 22 government agencies, DHS was
established in late 2002. It has come under fire for its support of
the USA PATRIOT Act and the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, which some
critics say threaten the civil rights of U.S. citizens.

The town hall meeting will run from noon to 2 p.m. on Oct. 8 in
the BSC ballroom. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and University
President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., will also attend the event. CEG
and the DHS will host similar meetings in six other cities,
including Miami, Houston and Seattle.