South Campus Commons management has lost track of at least one of its master keys that can open any door in a building, officials said, forcing the replacement of every key for six of the complex’s seven apartment buildings.
Commons residents began receiving new keys and lock components June 7, a process that will continue in Commons 1-6 through July 12, according to Commons Associate Director Erika Poindexter. Commons 7 is unaffected.
“As a part of a recent audit, Capstone On-Campus Management has identified that one or more keys to your building are unable to be accounted for,” Poindexter and Commons Director Gina Brasty wrote in an e-mail to residents.
Poindexter and other Commons officials were tight-lipped on what exactly had happened or when. Capstone — the company that oversees Commons — and the Resident Life Department made the decision to rekey the buildings in April, but officials would not say how long the master key or keys might have been missing, how long they had known about the issue, how any keys were lost or what might have happened to ones that were lost.
The e-mail said officials “have no evidence of key misuse,” and Resident Life Assistant Director for Housing Partnerships Dennis Passarella George said not knowing where keys are doesn’t necessarily represent a safety risk.
“We don’t really have security concerns. It’s not a hole in the system so much as a range of different ways of accounting over the years,” Passarella George said. “We’re streamlining the system and starting fresh.”
Nonetheless, some students — like Commons 4 resident Deepa Jonnagadla, a senior electrical engineering major — said they still felt uneasy.
“It’s kind of scary that someone could have gotten a hold of the keys,” Jonnagadla said.
Commons is replacing the key core — the part of the door handle that accepts keys — of each apartment’s front and bedroom doors. Residents who lose their keys are charged $150 for that same replacement; Brasty said the cost of this ongoing operation “is different” but would not say what Capstone is spending except to say that residents face no charge.
In describing the incident, Poindexter and Brasty said only that there were “inconsistencies” in accounting practices used to record keys, but would not say what those inconsistencies are.
“We cannot make public how we handle securities issues like that,” Brasty said. “Keys are a very sensitive issue. We have to be careful on what information we give out.”
Officials also would not say which buildings have already been rekeyed or the schedule for which buildings are coming next, citing similar security concerns. Notices posted to residents’ doors inform them when they will have their keys replaced, and door hangtags will remind residents to collect replacement keys from their service desks.
According to the e-mail, residents will never lose access to their apartments, including during the 30-minute rekeying process, which relieved some residents.
The rekeying procedures “don’t seem like an inconvenience” to Adi Lang, a senior electrical engineering major who lives in Commons 2.
“If rekeying makes the buildings safer, it’s fine,” Lang said.
Officials blamed a recent streak of vandalism in Commons on non-student, non-residents let into the buildings, saying it is “not related in any way” to the key mishap.
news at umdbk dot com
