By Mason Dare
The Scene Staff
Locks on doors at Forest Park have been causing problems for years.
Sometimes faculty and staff can’t get into their offices or classrooms because key cards aren’t working. They have to call campus police or find other employees to open doors.
“It’s a failing system,” said former Facilities Manager Tim Carey before he retired in October.
Carey was referring to the Safe Lock system, which includes electronic locks on campus doors and the key cards inserted into them. The same system is commonly found in older hotels.
Forest Park’s locks were installed more than 25 years ago, according to Carey and Eric Wille, current facilities manager. That was before everyone had cellphones.
Cellphones can demagnetize key cards. So can credit cards, desks, computers and anything else made with metal parts.
“This makes it hard to carry, except in your wallet,” Carey said. “Even the metal on a key chain can make the key (card) demagnetize.”
Key cards can be reprogrammed, but a limited number of facilities employees know how to do it. More are learning.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the key cards. It’s the outdated software or locks themselves.
“It is 50-50,” Carey said. “The key’s not working, as well as the locks being dirty and old.”
Occasionally, Carey would be called out to fix a malfunctioning lock and find that someone had poured something into it. Once, it was pudding.
St. Louis Community College is looking at options for fixing the problem, according to Wille.
“The Edelen company is redoing that system,” he said, speaking of a St. Louis-based company that does door and window installation and repair.
“Basically, they’re deleting everything we have, redoing it, so we can make files in a system that is not currently able to.”
“It’s definitely going to be a process,” Wille added.
STLCC also is getting bids on a new system with manual locks and metal keys. That’s what all the other campuses have instead of electronic locks and key cards.
“It could either be a Band-Aid fix or an entire fix,” Carey said. “We aren’t sure which way they’re going with that.”
Peter Stamper, a member of the Forest Park housekeeping staff, said he personally hasn’t had that much of a problem with key cards.
When he does, it’s mainly the result of “wear and tear.”
“Locks are more of a problem,” Stamper said. “Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.”
Stamper wonders about the possible security risk of an outdated system. Software can be downloaded online to duplicate key cards, much like getting metal keys made at Home Depot.
The Safe Lock system doesn’t allow a single person to be assigned a key card for a particular room, so multiple people have key cards to many rooms.
Lt. David Berryman, commander of Forest Park campus police, said he isn’t that concerned about the security threat with key duplication, as it hasn’t been an issue in the past.
“The door is still secure even if the lock malfunctions,” he said.