UH campuses urge passage of security bill

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

The University of Hawai'i Student Caucus is keeping its fingers crossed — and doing some last-minute lobbying — with the hope the House Finance Committee will hear legislation to beef up security on all 10 campuses before an April 8 deadline to process bills.

"Early in the school year, we identified security as the top concern of all 10 campuses," said Gary Nakamura, a co-chairman of the Student Caucus advocacy committee and a student at Honolulu Community College.

Caucus secretary Katie Barry said that last October, students were galvanized into action by a series of sexual assaults on the Manoa campus. The caucus surveyed students and put the information together to develop a bill that was introduced by both chairmen of the Legislature's education committees.

The bill originally asked for $2.5 million for a series of security measures appropriate to each campus. The security measures requested vary by campus and are as basic and inexpensive as emergency phones at community colleges that don't have them, or as expensive as adding multiple security guards to campuses such as Kapi'olani Community College.

"On Maui, we don't have any security phones," said Barry, who represents that campus in the caucus. "They have places for 12 ... but they haven't got them in."

The situation is the same at Kaua'i Community College, she said.

Maui also has experienced a series of attacks, said Barry, with at least three students and the lone security guard being assaulted. The campus needs another full-time guard and one part-time guard to monitor the dorm area exclusively, she said.

The crime rate at HCC is low, but Nakamura said the campus hopes to see more corner mirrors and 10 emergency phones installed.

"We have the lines in, but we don't have the emergency phones," said Nakamura. "We have evening and weekend classes, and we've already had peeping toms."

Lighting recently was improved at HCC, and it has helped, he said.

UH President Evan Dobelle met with students at the last Student Caucus meeting to give his support, Nakamura said.

Since then, UH administrators Doris Ching and Sam Callejo have been working with the caucus to move the bill forward, he said.

In addition to an online petition, handwritten petitions are circulating on the campuses.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.