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CATALYST
WALL PREVIEWS ADJUNCT PROFESSORS pg.
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NETFLIX AND KILL pg.
OCTOBER 21, 2015 VOLUME XXXIII ISSUE V
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A student newspaper of New College of Florida
Housing to replace card readers with new master system Third-year Hannah Coker tries to open a door with her encoded card.
BY RYAN PAICE One of the least talked about problems on campus this semester has been the card encoding system. While in most cases it is only a minor inconvenience – as keys can still be used – the problem is not a small one that can be swept under the rug. There are entire buildings across campus that are
Kaylie Stokes/Catalyst
inaccessible with encoded cards due to broken card readers. “In a nutshell, our current system is outdated and the company no longer supports the hardware,” Mark Stier, associate dean of student affairs, said in an email interview. “So when the card readers go out we are unable to repair them.” The company no longer makes
the replacement parts needed for the broken card readers. “The doors are 100 percent secured still, students just have to use their hard keys instead of their cards,” Stier said. Mark Stier and Alan Burr – director of facilities maintenance and construction – are working on creating a proposal to replace the current system. Replacing the current system
would restore access to buildings using encoded ID’s, and a new card encoding system would bring several new bells and whistles to the formerly plain security system. One of the possible bells and whistles would give Housing the ability to track which door was accessed and the student ID which
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Houseless individuals file suit against Sarasota and police BY PARIESA YOUNG Nearly 900 homeless individuals have been arrested in Sarasota for sleeping outdoors, according to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and six houseless men on Sept. 30. The suit has brought the city of Sarasota into the spotlight for practices which the plaintiffs say criminalize the homeless and hinder them from lifesustaining activities. Three of the plaintiffs are currently residing in transitional shelters and will lack adequate housing when they leave those facilities. The other three are currently without any nighttime residence and live in fear of being criminally prosecuted for sleeping in a park or public place. Plaintiff David Cross spends a significant amount of each day reading books in the Selby Library downtown. In August, he was found sleeping in the bushes outside of the library by a police officer and subsequently trespassed from the property. Until Cross was able to appeal his trespass warning, he was
WHAT’S INSIDE
Pariesa Young/Catalyst
A sign on Kumquat Court prohibits homeless individuals from storing personal property on public property. Kumquat Court was home for many houseless people, but since these city ordinances were passed, they are nowhere to be seen.
banned from the library, a public, airconditioned, safe space where he read everyday. The lawsuit presents what plaintiffs say is an aggressive enforcement of an ordinance that bans sleeping outdoors. The city set forth
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this policy to “solve” the problem of homelessness by forcing the homeless to either leave Sarasota or face criminal prosecution. This is not the first time the city has been accused of trying to get rid of Sarasota’s homeless; last year, the city commission put $1,000 into a
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fund dedicated to buying one-way bus tickets for homeless residents. The suit explains that such ordinances – enacted by city government and enforced by the Sarasota Police Department (SPD) – are unconstitutional. The plaintiffs added that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment because Sarasota is lacking in housing and shelter space for the homeless. A similar lawsuit was brought against the city of Boise, Idaho by homeless plaintiffs in 2009. The Department of Justice filed a statement of interest saying that it is a crime to penalize homeless people for sleeping in public places when there is insufficient shelter space or housing. In 2011, Sarasota city and county submitted a Consolidated Plan which addressed the large need for homeless services. The major strategy for meeting this need was the building of a homeless shelter in North Sarasota by 2015. Last year, when several sites
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