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I-Lock, He/She/It-Lock, We Lock, They Lock…What’s missing?
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In their final meeting before Thanksgiving break, the ASPC Senate turned its attention to a serious issue on campus: bike theft. Campus Safety has been working to fix the situation by raising awareness through emails, but the Senate felt compelled to also come up with solutions to the problem. Sophomore Class President Reina Buenconsejo PO ’15 suggested adding more bike racks to the SCC and Rains as well as a bike safety campaign to promote safe bike storage, which is weirdly necessary because only at Pomona would you find kids who can handle O-Chem but don’t know how to use a U-Lock.
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Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Bike*
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In the same meeting Director of Campus Safety Sharahm Ariane visited the Senate to discuss an increase in crime on campus, mostly involving bike theft. Ariane showed the Senate a PowerPoint presentation full of mug shots of perpetrators caught on security cameras placed around campus. Currently there are 60 security cameras placed strategically near technological assets on campus (e.g., ITS, print centers), but Ariane used the effectiveness of these cameras to explain why installing more cameras near bike racks in particular would be a good idea.
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Commissioner of Off Campus Relations Ryan Dodson PO ’15 asked the important question of whether or not the PowerPoint would be made public seeing as it contained some valuable information for students about crime on campus (fun fact: In July, $7,500** worth of copper wire was stolen from Pomona College’s then-under construction Maintenance and Ground facility). Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum (also present at the meeting) said that it would be made public in due time, but not until some point in the future.***
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Although Campus Safety does not intend to add cameras to residence halls or inside buildings, there has been some student pushback to adding cameras on campus. Perhaps this is because of bike racks’ unfortunate habit of being located right next to residence halls, but one can never be sure. Convenience or conspiracy? You decide.
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*That’s right. Same joke, different topic. Deal with it.
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**Or 750,000 pennies-worth
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***Probably because they’re waiting for a few more dozen bikes to be stolen. So give it a week.
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Bank of Pomona
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Vice President for Finance Faye Wang updated the Senate on the Reserves Investment Oversight Committee, which apparently has $250,000 to invest. Recently, 5C students have organized a fossil-fuel divestment campaign to encourage the colleges to invest their reserves in alternative energy companies instead of the fossil fuel industry. With that in mind, Wang suggested that class presidents send out a class listserv email to ask if students have suggestions to where they want to invest the money. Of course, $250,000 is no chump change, so this could definitely help out the divestment campaign’s initial phases. Or it could cover all the money the Coop lost last year.