Editor,
One of the best things about November is a cool fall breeze wafting in through an open window. This holds true at any other college campus, where students prop open dorm windows to get some air while studying. Where UNM separates itself from the pack is in how one can also listen to a group of homeless people get in a heated dispute in the R Lot through the open window.
Imagine my joy when my work was interrupted by transient shenanigans, one of which decided he ought to punch the back window of a resident’s car. Campus PD was quick to react, but the offenders had dispersed and taken shelter in the overgrown area of the R Lot on the northwest corner of Girard and Central, from where they had originated.
While it would be asking the impossible to find some way to close off campus to the troublesome segment of the population, it is not unreasonable to ask that their little haven on the corner of Girard and Central be cleared of vegetation. Every night of the week, without fail, one can find a handful of non-residents and non-students camped out there in various states of responsiveness.
Rather than continuing to let this be a staging ground for malevolent acts on campus, a quick job of cutting down the bulk of the vegetation would do wonders in improving physical security at this corner of campus. Better yet would be a fence or barrier of some sort, perhaps a chain link fence with plants around the outside of it to prevent it from being an eyesore. Regardless, it would serve the students of UNM, especially the residents, well if this corner of campus were addressed in the manner described.
Tom Stivers
