On Thursday, Oct. 26, Mt. SAC President Martha Garcia held the second Campus Safety Forum after many expressed disappointment with the length of the first Safety Forum held on Oct. 11.
Mt. SAC published an article announcing the Campus Safety Forum on Oct. 23 with an invitation letter written by Garcia. “This event will have a different format,” Garcia stated. “I will personally moderate the forum. We will prioritize taking live comments and answering live questions on a first-come, first-served basis”
The second Campus Safety Forum began with a 30-minute report from President Garcia about the solutions that have been implemented since the Sept. 20 stabbing incident.
Garcia emphasized that the top priority is building 26 as many recent incidents occurred in that building.
The rest of the 2-hour-long Campus Safety Forum was entirely public comments directed at President Garcia, as well as administrators on stage:
Vice President of Administrative Services Morris Rodrigue
Associate Vice President of Administrative Services Shannon Carter
Vice President of Student Services Melba Castro.
Police and Campus Safety Chief Mike Williams did not return for the second Campus Safety Forum however Sergeant Brian Owens was present.
There were about 12 students who spoke during the public comment section and three faculty.
Among the topics that were brought up, some students said that they did not feel like there was an adequate amount of security on campus.
Arianna Tinoco, a Kinesiology major and Mt. SAC student, spoke up in public comment saying that she “did not feel safe” on the campus because of the lack of visible security. “I don’t see anybody patrolling the campus and our campus is just getting bigger and bigger,” Tinoco said. “As you can see the construction going on. Our campus safety isn’t as big.”
Naomi Chavez, 49, a Mt. SAC student who worked as a security guard for 11 years said that three campus safety officers was not enough to protect the student body. She said that in her experience, events have a security guard-to-person ratio of 1:100.
Additionally, Chavez spoke as a public speaker and said that the temporary security guards Mt. SAC hired are usually used for concerts and venues. “The company you guys chose, CSC,” Chavez said. “They are mainly used for concerts and crowd control and huge events. We are students. We’re not getting bags checked to go inside a rave.”
“I still don’t see [Campus Safety Officers] on campus, but if I do they’re chillin by the student center not doing anything,” Tinoco said. “I’m kinda just like, ‘Why are you even in uniform?’”
Deaf and hard-of-hearing students and faculty voiced their concerns about campus safety as well.
“I feel like often Mt. SAC prioritizes students who can hear, students who don’t have disabilities, and we’re left at the bottom of the totem pole,” Janet Recon, a DHH student said through a sign language interpreter.
Joey Perez, another DHH student recounted the Sept. 20 stabbing incident, revealing the communication barriers the DHH students experienced. “Suddenly, everyone was evacuating, and the deaf students had no idea what to do,” Perez said through an interpreter. “There were no flashing lights. There were no captions. There was no access to any of the information that was going on during that incident.”
Megan, an interpreter who works with DHH students at Mt. SAC, questioned the lack of safety measures for DHH students and faculty. “Often departments will say ‘We don’t know how to work with your population’,” Megan said. “‘We don’t know what to do,’ but there are literal schools that are deaf schools. They must have some kind of safety protocol implemented to match those accommodations, so why are we not reaching out?”
There have been no announcements about a third Campus Safety Forum, however, the conversation still continues at the Academic Senate and Board of Trustees Meetings.
