By: Shaya Rogers, Staff Reporter
Safety and Security staff members have been working to fix security issues on all campuses.
The CNM Chronicle Volume 18, Issue 10 article of the titled “Second Safety Walk Finds More Campus Hazards” reported problems discovered during the Campus Safety Walk and the Volume 18, Issue 11 article titled “Lack of Accessibility Disrupts Learning Environment ” reported accessibility issues with automatic door openers.
S a f e t y Director Gilbert Gallegos said CNM staff and contractors have been repairing the code blue phones so they are more visible around campus and more accessible in case of an emergency.
“You’ll probably be seeing vendors on campus in the coming weeks, doing a little cosmetic work, buffing and polishing them, giving them wax jobs, bringing out the color of the code blues,” he said.
The college has contracted with vendors to service the blue emergency posts but trying to get them to come out in a reasonable amount of time is sometimes difficult, and is an extra expense, he said.
“Due to the safety walk, the project was given more of a priority. Because of this inspection, we were able to get funding to entice the vendors to come out and take care of these issues,” he said.
The safety walk was sponsored by the Executive Council of Students in November, 2012. During the walk, many emergency call boxes were found to be broken or poorly maintained, said ECOS President Stephen Martos.
“I am very happy that we were able to help in finding these problems and I am even happier that the problems were attended to so quickly,” he said.
Gallegos said the school has a long-term plan to replace most of the boxes with new ones, but for now they are working on improving the existing ones.
“The college has been really good about funding the repairs. It wasn’t due to funding or repairs, it was a matter of trying to get qualified vendors to come out,” he said.
Safety and Security is also working on replacing the lights on the boxes with LED bulbs to save money and energy.
“CNM is all about the green initiative so we’ve been trying to change out all of our code blue lights with LEDs,” he said.
As for the automated door openers, a locksmith was sent out to discover why they were not working and he was able to pinpoint a few different reasons.
Some of the devices just had a weak signal, while many of them had drained batteries, he said.
“[The locksmith] worked with a door company that specializes in ADA openers and they switched out some with a stronger signal, but unfortunately with those, they go through the batteries quicker,” he said.
The Safety and Security team members have created a schedule to ensure that the buttons are better maintained, he said.
“I don’t know if they actually had a maintenance routine before, but they have one now and what they will do now is switch out the batteries at the beginning of each semester and maybe more often in certain areas,” he said.
Safety Specialist Jim Moffett said that he recently scoured all CNM campuses looking for trip hazards.
“I got together with Dennis Serna, who is the head of maintenance. He and I walked every inch of all of our campuses to check for uneven surfaces, making a determination for if it needed to be ground down, if it needed to be uplifted, or replaced all together,” he said.
The areas they found have been recorded and they are working on getting every one of them fixed, he said.
“We have identified the areas that need some type of repair, and now the repairs are in process,” he said.
He and Serna have also added stop signs and crosswalks to the parking lot by the Smith-Brasher building to ensure fewer accidents, Moffett said.
Moffett and Gallegos would both like students to know that if they notice anything that needs attention, especially if it is a high security concern, that they should contact a teacher, administrator, or a work-study student so that the problem can be fixed.
