As car theft continues on the Mt. Hood Community College main campus, some students are making an effort to curb the incidence — though what propels them may be based on faulty information.

A petition to fund and install a camera in MHCC’s parking lot A began circulating in late October when a member of student government, Amy Bohanon, heard of the thefts, reportedly four cars stolen Oct. 11, all from Lot A.

“There was no multi-vehicle theft in one day,” said Al Sigala, head of the college’s office of college advancement.

Public Safety logs show that, since July 19, six vehicles have been documented as being stolen. Only one was stolen from Lot A, the rest from different lots, though all from the front, or the west parking lots nearest the academic center. Logs show one vehicle stolen Oct. 10, one Oct. 11 and one Oct. 12,

“Obviously it’s the front parking lots,” said Don Oliver, the head of public safety. “Very seldom do we get them way down by [the Child Development Center] because that parking lot is not used.

Public safety staffs its front desk 12 hours a day, but from their vantage, the courtyard, the bookstore, cosmetology and the main turnaround aren’t visible. Trees seem to be the common denominator when it comes to visibility of lots, but as Oliver said, “How can you watch for crime if you can’t see it?”

While public safety doesn’t document car thefts in detail, the cases are turned over to Gresham Police for further, official review.

However, as of earlier this week, GPD had no record of any auto thefts on Oct. 11.

“I have three vehicles reported stolen [Oct. 11], but none of them were from the college,” an information operator with Gresham Police said Tuesday.

But Don Oliver disagreed. “So, on the [Oct. 11] we had two stolen vehicles. Gresham Police Department took two stolen vehicle reports from our lots, and GPD also recovered two stolen vehicles from our lots,” said Oliver. “You can assume that more than likely the people that stole the two cars dumped the [two recovered] cars,” said Oliver. “Obviously they’re coming out here and they’re [also] stealing certain cars. Certain cars, statistically, are more apt to get stolen.”

In the GPD Crime Watch Newsletter, Jan Crace, records manager for GPD, found for the week of Oct. 10-16 that 12 vehicles were stolen in all of Gresham, and of those lifted, two Hondas, two Nissans and two Toyotas were the most sought after vehicle by thieves.
This dispels rumors that four cars were stolen in the same day, all from the same lot. But the rumor, supposedly started by someone within public safety, has already climbed to the status of fact to some.

Bohanon could not be reached for comment, but ASG Communications Officer Stephen Floyd recalled possible motivations for Bohanon’s crusade.

“Amy heard from public safety that four cars were stolen from the A Lot in one day,” said Floyd, adding that Bohanon became adamant that car theft shouldn’t occur on campus. “I don’t know the details of the petition, but it’s to somehow organize the funding and the placement of cameras around Lot A.”

According to Dick Magruder, MHCC’s student events coordinator, the issue came up in a Student Organizations and Clubs meeting.

“I think there were some problems in [Lot A] and the students were concerned about it,” said Magruder. “I think Andrea [Hitch] and Amy Bohanon are both charged with [looking into that].”

According to Oliver, cameras may not solve as much as one might think.

“The problem is, in Multnomah County, the cameras aren’t going to prevent the vehicles from being taken,” said Oliver. He said cameras may act as a deterrent and aid in prosecution of thieves, but they won’t stop the crimes from happening altogether. “If a camera was there and a car thief wanted to steal a car, they’d just walk up, look like they’re putting a key in, open the door and they’re in the car.” Cameras could provide a means to monitor, but even when someone is looking at the screen, said Oliver, how will the watcher know when a car is being stolen?

Asked whether he would support cameras on campus, Oliver said he was “for cameras to monitor lots” because they provide a deterrent.

But there are other aspects to MHCC’s efforts that permeate an atmosphere for car theft.

“The college was designed to keep parking lots hidden,” said Oliver.

The college – though concerned about the layout of the campus and how certain aspects of its makeup don’t lend to stronger realizations of safety and security – probably won’t be doing any major rebuilds to the main campus.

Gary Murph, MHCC’s chief financial officer, after agreeing to the pitfalls of MHCC’s design, told of a survey Gresham Police conducted last year. GPD found plant life on campus was allowed to grow too high, and recommended some trees and plants be trimmed, which the college did. But GPD also recommended the berms that block views of the parking lot be lowered, and justification for not lowering the berms, according to Murph, was based on the cost of that specific undertaking.

“That’s problematic,” said Murph. “You can’t lower the berms without totally eliminating every tree that’s sitting on the berms. That would be a massive project,” and given where the college is financially, the undertaking isn’t plausible, said Murph.

Murph contended it’s all a matter of funds. “With everything else we need to do on campus it’s just — we recognize the need for cameras, improved lighting, parking lot repair, roadway repaving, all of those are things we need.” He said if the college ever proposes a bond to the district, cameras will be on the consideration list. “But at this point we just don’t have money, the funds, to do it.”

The college has cameras spread across campus, but relatively few of them are capable of recording, and at this point, MHCC’s public safety department wouldn’t be able to handle the additional duties of maintaining the camera services, said Murph. At any one time only two public safety officers patrol the roughly 65-acre campus. “We have a lot of parking space to patrol, and, in fact, if you’ve ever seen a thief getting into a car, they can do it in a matter of seconds.”

Primary budget considerations focus on what Murph described as priorities influenced by tough financial times.

“Some choices have to be made, and right now we just don’t have the ability to even consider a lot of things because we just don’t have the money to do it,” said Murph. Murph said practically no improvements or upgrades have been made to the campus since its construction in 1966, aside from a few major additions, such as the Vista wing and other buildings on campus.

But in 39 years – with few upgrades to the campus layout – it may pose the question: When will a person’s car ever be considered a priority?

“It really isn’t fair to say that something like this, because it can’t be addressed, is not a priority. It just means we don’t have ability to address it,” Murph said. The college is compiling a list of projects that, if a bond were proposed, would be appropriate for inclusion in the package.

The district board is forming a committee to look at the possibility of a bond acceptance “because we haven’t had that much success with bonds,” said Murph. If the committee discovers the public may be more receptive than they’ve been in the past, the bond could be brought to district voters as soon as late next year. But even Murph acknowledged not everything on the list will be acceptable or fully realized. “The board is going to have to pick and choose,” said Murph, adding, “If [someone] wants to do a [petition], I would be glad to receive it because I would use that [petition] as backup” to provide rationale for the project being included on the list. But, said Murph, the college can’t do everything everybody wants.

Murph was given the chance to address Bohanon and Hitch via The Advocate, to which he said, “We recognize a need.” He doesn’t want to discourage the petition, and said he would try to communicate to the board that this issue has high student interest. “But probably the best statement to be made now is that we’re at risk because we’re a college, and we’re a commuter college. Thieves know there are a lot of cars here, and they’re going to go where the cars are. What students need to do is make sure they lock their cars, that they don’t have valuables out in plain sight, and probably the biggest deterrent is to probably have The Club – a device used to secure a steering wheel from use until unlocked by the owner – on a steering wheel.

Those deterrents won’t be a 100 percent protection from theft, but, said Murph, it’ll probably be better than doing nothing at all. “The student has a lot of ability to control their destiny,” he said, “by taking on some things they can do to discourage this.”