30 Sac State elevators operating with expired permits posted
Most have valid permits that are not displayed, officials say
Photo Illustration. Expired permits on campus have a wide range of expiration dates, from as far back as Sept. 2017 to as recent as Oct. 15 2019. In total, The State Hornet found thirty expired permits posted in campus elevators.
October 29, 2019
Thirty elevators on Sacramento State’s campus do not currently have valid permits posted.
On Tuesday Oct. 22, The State Hornet examined 65 campus elevator permits, 30 of which were expired.
Frank Polizzi, a public information officer with the California Department of Industrial Relations, said Sac State has updated elevator permits, but has not posted them.
“All but two of the elevators at Sacramento State have valid permits,” Polizzi said in an email. “(Sac State) is working with Cal/OSHA to correct issues with the two elevators that still have not been permitted.”
Anita Fitzhugh, a public information officer at Sac State, said all inspections of the elevators on campus were completed in June.
“It frequently takes (the Division of Occupational Safety & Health) some time to issue new certificates,” Fitzhugh wrote in an email. “Once we receive those, we will post them in the elevators.”
Polizzi identified the two elevators without valid permits as ones in Sequoia Hall and Folsom Hall.
According to an email from Daryn Ockey, facilities operations director at Sac State, the Sequoia Hall elevator was granted an extension on its permit in order to allow Sac State time to obtain new support cables for the elevator.
The elevator in Sequoia Hall has since been cleared for a new permit, though the permit has not been paid for according to Polizzi.
The elevator in Folsom Hall was granted an extension by the Department of Industrial Relations in order to perform preventative maintenance on a hydraulic pump, according to an email from Angela Rader, director of marketing and communications with University Enterprises, Inc.
The extension covers the elevator until Nov 25, and repairs are expected to happen this week.
Polizzi said that Sac State’s elevators are designed to stop in the case of any issue, such as when the power went out on Oct. 9 and Destiny Monreal, a child development major, was stuck in the elevator for two hours.
A girl has been stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes according to bystanders. Sacramento Fire Department is currently working on getting the elevator down and open. @TheStateHornet pic.twitter.com/sgkjRfKN8F
— Ronaldo Gomez (@ronaldogomezss) October 10, 2019
Despite all of this, 19 buildings on campus have at least one elevator with an expired permit posted.
The expired permits that are posted mostly expired in June, though the permit posted in the University Union west elevator expired Oct. 15.
English major Tyler Cernohlavek uses the elevators often, but said he is over worrying about the posted permits being expired.
“I lived in Riverview (Hall) for a couple of years and those were never not overdue, and they break every so often,” Cernohlavek said.
The State Hornet was unable to access the Riverview student housing complex as well as other dormitories on campus because they are only open to residents.
Student • Oct 29, 2019 at 9:02 pm
Funny, it took the AMC dorm over a year to replace a permit, and they hid it when people (me as well) started asking when it was going to be renewed. I know it does not take that long, and even now that the permit is renewed, the elevators in the AMC seem to get worse (slower, more people getting stuck in elevators, stopping on the wrong floors, etc) every semester.