Res. Living head knew of sleeping guards in 1989

Residential Living Director Gigi Simeone knew about reports of McGinn Security Services guards asleep on the job as early as October 1989, according to minutes from a Univesity Council Safety and Security Committee meeting. Jeff Jacobson, 1992 College graduate and then-committee member, said yesterday that he kept a log of McGinn employees found asleep on the job in 1989 and presented the log to the committee at a meeting which Simeone attended. Simeone acknowledged yesterday that she was present at the meeting, but said she thought McGinn had corrected the problem at the time. She added that in the past year and a half, Residential Living has only had three reports of sleeping on the job. "I can't tell you what she knew," Jacobson said. "All I can tell you is that these issues have been discussed with Residential Living at least since 1989." "The response at the time was one of concern," Jacobson added. "Response was genuine and Residential Living promised at that time that they would look into the incident. My understanding is that they did. They spoke with [Joseph] McGinn and the employees were dealt with." Jacobson, who went on to co-chair the Safety and Security Committee with current chairperson Adelaide Delluva, said that during his tenure on the committee there had been several reports of sleeping on the job, hiring pre-teens for security positions and employees who were drinking and harassing students on the job. He added that in addition to the October meeting where the allegations were talked about in depth, several McGinn security violations were discussed in Resident Advisor meetings and at other Safety and Security Committee meetings in 1989. Jacobson said he had several concerns following recent allegations by some McGinn guards of sleeping on the job, and poor supervision, insufficient background checks and inadequate training by McGinn. "How many reports do we have to get of the same things?" Jacobson said. "Why do we keep awarding this contract to this vendor? What have they done to show they are deserving of this contract?" Jacobson said McGinn is very quick to fire workers, but said very little else comes out of reports of problems. "We're talking about security here," he said. Simeone said yesterday that an investigation will be conducted, but that the plans for the investigation are not fully in place. Undergraduate Assembly Safety and Security Committee chairman Mark Frederick said yesterday that an investigation is necessary to combat the problems. Frederick said last night that he had not yet read the articles about McGinn and that the UA committee had not discussed McGinn this year. "We didn't ever think that it was something for us to look into," he said. "I'm more than willing to get our little crew involved in finding a solution to the problem." Jacobson, who said he woke up a guard at Modern Language College House two months ago, said the University has to examine the problem thoroughly. And Simeone, without comparing current complaints about McGinn guards to the complaints in 1989, said that she is taking the allegations very seriously. "We are taking additional steps to make sure the problem doesn't reoccur," she said yesterday. (CUT LINE) Please see SIMEONE, page 7 SIMEONE, from page 1

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.