Campus safety updates, including the appointment of a new night shift deputy, were announced at Thursday’s Pierce College Council meeting.
Vice President of Administration Services Rolf Schleicher delivered the campus safety report on behalf of L.A. Sheriff’s Department Deputy Al Guerrero, head of the Pierce College Sheriff’s Station. Schleicher said for the most part, the campus’ safety record has improved consistently.
“In 2015, we’re a little bit lower than the previous year. That can be for a number of reasons,” Schleicher said. “We like to encourage students and faculty members in general not to leave so many things in their cars.”
Deputy Guerrero introduced the newly appointed night shift deputy, Devonte Brown. Guerrero said the arrest made on Friday, Nov. 12 was “not a danger to the campus.” Guerrero elaborated on the arrest in his address to the PCC about campus safety.
“That’s a concern all the time, a crime that starts off campus and comes to us,” Guerrero said. “Still, the crime rate is down overall, but we do have a few missing phones. Please do not leave your phones plugged into walls unattended, that seems to be a genuine issue.”
Pierce Projects Manager Ed Cadena addressed the North of Mall construction project, and said there has been a lot of progress. He said the campuswide fiber optics project that will bring Pierce’s technology into the 21st century.
“The campuswide fiber project finally hit a substantial completion date on Oct. 31,” Cadena said. “We can now say the project is essentially complete.”
He did not specify when students and faculty will results from the project.
Paul Nieman from the facilities advisory committee revealed plans to move the gate on the De Soto Avenue entrance forward to make them more visible from the road, theoretically lowering the risk of rear-end collisions due to stopped cars in the driveway.
Wendy Bass from the Technology Committee said Pierce has officially run out of phone lines.
“We’re going to reclaim student-worker phone lines to give to faculty while we work on solutions,” Bass said.
A budget bump for horticulture was unanimously approved to help buy necessary supplies such as chainsaws, water pipes and other gardening essentials to coincide with a newly added floristry class.
A motion to approve a task force to move forward with plans to design drought tolerant landscapes was also unanimously approved.
“We were tasked with reducing water consumption North of Mall by 25 percent, which may be difficult because we haven’t really been watering there,” said Nieman.
The next PCC meeting will take place on Dec 17.
