There was a time when elected leaders didn’t worry about security at city council meetings.

In Manteca’s case, it was in the 1980s when at one time all five members of the City Council had permits to carry concealed weapons.

It was — to refresh the memories of some who seem to have forgotten as well as to bring everyone else up to speed on the way things once were — cantankerous times in Manteca.

The concepts of “agreeing to disagree after making a decision and then moving on”, holding no personal grudges over local political disputes, as well as public decorum were abstract and absent.

It was bad, though not quite on the level of animosity at times that Stockton today seems to get wrapped up in at the price of moving that city forward as effectively as possible.

It was an era when council members would squabble for up to 90 minutes over approving minutes from previous meetings while attention to public finances and working in concert to steer growth for Manteca’s benefit suffered.

It is when Manteca’s police were getting “new vehicles” from the CHP that already had 90,000 miles on them and a new fire station on Louise Avenue sat vacant for 13 months as the city couldn’t afford to staff it even with two firefighters.

The general fund did not have reserves of $35.1 million as it does today.

Instead, it dipped to a low of $1,100 at one point.

It got a bit better in the 1990s.

That said, minority factions in the community were trying to turn council members out of office — or stop candidates that they didn’t like from getting elected — by injecting national politics into the local fray.

There were whispering campaigns launched to derail one candidate — a solid businessman with an extensive background in government finances — due to the fact he was gay.

That worked so well, they tried to make abortion a major issue in the following council election cycle that isn’t even a subject the City Council has any authority to impact save for perhaps paper saber rattling in the form of resolutions that have a nasty tendency to divide instead of unite local communities.

The abortion ploy flopped despite blanketing windshields in church parking lots citywide one Sunday morning with flyers describing then council member Dave Macedo as being adamantly pro-abortion.

It backfired spectacularly given it was a trumped up lie of mega-proportions verified by the fact he was adopted at birth and would be the last person manning the ramparts in the fight for abortion rights.

As Manteca headed into the 21st century, the temperature of local rhetoric lowered but it was still stuck in silliness mode.

That was when the infamous threat with a deadly finger incident occurred.

It was 18 months into the marathon side show that advancing the concept of building Big League Dreams had become. BLD pro and con discussions dominated council gatherings meeting after meeting.

At one council meeting, the project proponent pointed a finger at then Councilwoman Denise Giordano while making a strident point of how they were not going to back down.

She interpreted the gesture as a personal threat to her safety and filed a complaint with Manteca Police.

Given the position that put police in, they deferred the complaint to the district attorney’s office. The DA, after, a subsequent investigation, declined to pursue charges.

What brought this all up is the need, from the perspective of some members of the Lathrop City Council, to increase security at public council meetings.

It may be driven by local concerns or the indisputable fact that the concept of mutual respect and civility in the proverbial public square is viewed as a sign of weakness in today’s unfiltered “Me-Centric World.”

That said, belligerent and seemingly always angry people aren’t an invention of the 21st century world.

Getting in people’s faces non-stop may or may not be more invasive in society.

That’s because perceptions are clouded by endless videos of protesters going off the rails and human behavior more geared for the jungle than civilization

Add in vile attack verbiage through endless postings, streaming, scrolling, and such that never ends in today’s always unfiltered and always connected world.

Is anyone surprised public discourse seems to be becoming unhinged?

If indeed the quest to step up security measures is the result of political rhetoric, local or otherwise, the best move for Lathrop leaders would be to find ways to prevent public discourse from going down the rabbit hole in a city, that by all measures, appears to have its act together.

Finding a path that lowers the heat and gets people to respect one another is a proven way to find ways to solve problems and bolster a sense of security.

It’s also more effective in the long run and a lot cheaper.