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CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL

Interview with Rocky Anderson, Martin O'Malley, Bart Peterson

Aired October 7, 2001 - 23:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we don't know exactly how you measure national nervousness, but we are reasonably certain it's running pretty high tonight. If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, there is plenty of reason to be concerned about the reaction, and what it will be to the attacks today.

We're joined now by the mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson, mayor of Baltimore, Martin O'Malley, and the mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana, Bart Peterson.

Good evening to all of you.

ROCKY ANDERSON, MAYOR, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH: Good evening.

CNN ANCHORMAN: Mayor Anderson, let me start with you, since there's- perhaps you have a little bit more reason to be on edge tonight. You have the whole world coming to your city in February for the winter games.

What's it like out there? Do you have all the help you need right now? Have you ratcheted up security in the last 12, 24 hours?

ANDERSON: Well, we have ratcheted up security. We've gotten into a heightened state of alert.

We have dedicated more police officers at certain buildings where we think there is a greater likelihood of some kind of retaliation from one or the other side. We want to make certain that those in our Muslim community are protected, as well as everybody else in the community.

And then, of course, as you mentioned, we have the Olympics coming in February of 2002. And we have been in the planning- engaged in rigorous planning for four years, now.

It's been a great collaboration between national, state and local law enforcement, and with the meetings we had last week with Speaker of the House, Denny Hastert, the director of the FBI, director of Secret Service, the Attorney General, Secretary of the Army.

We have received every assurance that we will be provided everything necessary to reduce the risk to an absolute minimum during those Olympic games in Salt Lake City. BROWN: And Mayor O'Malley in Baltimore, did you have a homeland defense- I don't know what it would have been called, civil defense, Baltimore defense- did you have a plan in place, prior to September 11th? And have you changed it since?

MARTIN O'MALLEY, MAYOR, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: Well, the answers to that are yes and yes. I mean, all of us have plans for, you know, natural emergencies and hurricanes and things of that nature.

But we very quickly refined our plan. You know, we had a security consultant come in. And we looked at the city's vulnerabilities in terms of our infrastructure, not only public infrastructure, you know, the water supply and things of that nature, but also, you know, the bridges and the dams and the railways and the rail yards. And we have a port, as well, so ...

BROWN: Were you surprised ...

O'MALLEY: ...all of those things have ...

BROWN: ...were you...

O'MALLEY: ...gotten an...

BROWN: ...I'm sorry ...

O'MALLEY: ...additional attention. That's all right.

BROWN: Were you surprised by anything that the security consultant told you?

O'MALLEY: Not really. I tell you, you know, a lot of these things, you know, some of them changed from what we initially did on September 11th. There were some things that had a higher priority for us as we, you know, reflected on it, and having some more time to think about it.

But, you know, all of this is a new way of looking at all of these things.

We also have a bio-surveillance network in place on -- and we have, you know, bio-terrorism and plans now in place at all of our hospitals.

And we're doing a lot more than we've ever had to do before, and I suspect there'll be more yet to come.

BROWN: And Mayor Peterson in Indianapolis, the same question. Is there a plan -- I'm also a little bit curious about how cities are paying for all of this. I assume you have a lot of police officers on overtime these days. It gets a bit expensive.

Are you having budget problems on account of all this?

BART PETERSON, MAYOR, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA: Well, budget is an impact -- or there is a budgetary impact to all of this. But so far, it hasn't been a serious problem.

We have an advantage, in that we hold the three largest, single- day sporting events in the world here in Indianapolis -- the Indianapolis 500, the Brickyard 400, and now the United States Grand Prix.

So we're used to security for very, very large events. We're used to mobilizing large numbers of police officers and firefighters and emergency management personnel. So, that is helpful.

In addition, we have a terrorism expert who's a consultant to the city, and was really already available to us before September 11th.

And we just had a group of our firefighters and emergency response personnel go out to ground zero, less than 24 hours after the attacks on the World Trade Center. So we've got some experienced response personnel, as well.

It does have a budgetary impact. So far, most of that has been reimbursable expenses by the federal government. But we can't focus -- we have to keep some eye on the budget, but we have to focus first and foremost on the safety and security of our citizens.

BROWN: Let me ask you each, very quickly, and I mean by that maybe 10, 15 seconds each -- and I ask this because basically, I've been in New York for the last month until today.

Outside the city, how nervous, starting in Salt Lake, how nervous is the city of Salt Lake, or the citizens of Salt Lake?

ANDERSON: Well there's been a lot of concern expressed, but mostly focused on the February 2002 Winter Games. And I think ...

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ANDERSON: ... I think the best thing we can try to get the people of all of our cities to do, is to remain calm, understand that everybody's doing absolutely everything we can to minimize the risks.

BROWN: Mayor O'Malley, how nervous are they in Baltimore?

O'MALLEY: Oh, well I think there's an appropriate level of anxiety and apprehension.

And the way we've been able to ease that is to be able to show our citizens that we actually are taking steps on the local level, with our hospitals or with our security, and the other sort of preparedness and intelligence things, in order to prepare for this as best we possibly can.

BROWN: And in the placid -- in Midwest, mayor, they a little nervous in Indianapolis, these days?

PETERSON: Sure they are, but it's the same as everywhere else. And people have a great deal of confidence in our president. They have a great deal of confidence in our local police, fire and emergency response personnel.

And people are holding up very well. I'm very proud of them.

BROWN: Gentlemen, all, thank you for joining us. Good to talk to you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

BROWN: We'll talk to you again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. The mayors of Salt Lake, Baltimore and Indianapolis, Indiana.

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