Quad residents still rankled by mail thefts

Misplaced package slips and stolen greeting cards continue to vex college house residents. Students who live in the Quadrangle have filed more than 200 official reports of stolen mail since the beginning of the academic year, University officials said yesterday. University Police are still investigating the thefts, which seem to only be happening in the Quad. Gordon Rickards, assistant director of services and security for the Department of Housing and Conference Services, urged all affected students to file an official complaint, which can be obtained and submitted in the Quad mailroom. But College freshman Michael Hartman said mailroom employees wouldn't give him a form when he requested one last week. "[The employee] said the only thing I could do was have the people who sent the letter fill out a form and send it back through the postal system," Hartman said. He added that "[mailroom employees] have no reason to pass complaints along because that would just get them in more trouble." University Police Det. John Peterson said the investigation has already yielded a list of recommendations for Rickards and his staff that should alleviate the problem. But Rickards said he has already changed the locks on the mailroom and "rearranged the staff," moving former Quad mailroom employees to other facilities and hiring new ones. "I have every confidence that it's not my staff taking the mail, but this is just a precaution," Gordon said. Police also recommended that mailroom employees check the PennCards of students who come to pick up packages and implement master key control over the mailroom. Peterson refused to comment further on the state of the investigation. According to Hartman, the solution may be as simple as more careful mail sorting. "Just today I noticed package slips scattered on the floor," he said. Hartman added that he received a package slip addressed to someone else three times in September before mailroom workers delivered it to its proper owner. Wharton junior Brett Weinheimer -- a residential advisor in Goldberg College House -- said he has trouble believing that University officials are doing everything in their power to resolve the issue. "If the University has known about this since October," Weinheimer asked, "why haven't there been any firings or arrests?" After six of his own letters were stolen, Weinheimer sent an e-mail to his residents urging them not to send cash through the mail and asking that they inform him if any of their own mail was missing. He has received 40 responses in the past two weeks. "An exorbitant number of e-mails have been from the past two weeks," Weinheimer said. "It's mainly Valentine's Day cards, birthday cards -- anything hand-addressed." U.S. Postal Inspector Charles McManus, who works at the 30th Street Post Office, said he was not aware of an official University investigation but added that mail theft has been a recurring problem over the past seven years. "The complaints are ongoing," he said. "We're looking for patterns that indicate theft in the postal service and when we find them we look into it." He added that the postal service has been "relatively successful" in controlling theft but said he could not elaborate for security reasons. Rickards said he will send a letter to parents of students living in the Quad to let families know that "we are aware of the problem" and to suggest that they use registered mail "so that it can be signed for and traced."

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