Mason Koski sat bundled in his car with the heater running, attempting to keep warm on a cold, rainy October night. He stayed there for two hours while smoke slowly cleared out of the windowless kitchen on the first floor of Polly O’Meara Doyle Hall.

Koski and 351 other residents had begrudgingly evacuated the building due to a fire alarm at 2 a.m., just as they had a few hours earlier at 10:30 p.m., and before that at 6 p.m. Just as they have 40-plus times — in excess of once every 11 days — since the dormitory opened in August 2023.

For Koski and the other residents, fire alarms comprise only one of the several major problems that plagued the first year-and-a-half of dormitory life at Santa Rosa Junior College’s new Polly O’Meara Doyle Hall.

The dormitory is a public-private partnership funded by tax-exempt, project-based debt financing. Owned by the National Campus and Community Development Corporation (NCCD), it will transfer ownership after the debt is repaid, with no college funding involved.

Upon opening prior to the fall 2023 semester, the dormitory seemed like a great opportunity for students looking for affordable, on-campus housing. The 30-second commute to class certainly seemed like a benefit, but according to residents, the cons outweigh the pros.

Fire alarms, substandard fire safety, uncleanliness, an understaffed resident adviser (RA) program and an apathetic development and management company, Servitas, have made life at the dormitory potentially less appealing than off-campus housing, according to many of its residents.

Fire Hazards

“This is a brand-new building that I’m sure the SRJC touts as ‘State of the art’ but has major design flaws when it comes to fire safety,” Santa Rosa Engine 11 Capt. Gunnar Dean wrote in a Nov. 4, 2023, email to Battalion Chief Jason Jenkins.

On May 7, 2024, The Oak Leaf obtained email correspondences, through a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request, from officials with the Santa Rosa Fire Department that said they believed the constant evacuations created evacuation fatigue for students and could cause a serious threat to human life if an actual fire were to happen at the dormitory.

“Each of these incidents is displacing dozens to hundreds of students, each occurrence causing undue hardship as students evacuate until we allow them to re-occupy the building and winter weather has not even arrived yet,” Dean wrote.

For Chloe Crowder, a first-time resident in fall 2024, this fatigue has set in after only three months.

“I remember the last fire alarm, I was so annoyed,” she said. “I was like, ‘Do I have to leave? Can I just wait it out?’ And [my roommates] were like, ‘Yes Chloe, we have to go.’ I was so mad about that.”

In an interview with The Oak Leaf, David Braden, Servitas’ senior vice president of asset management and operations, blamed the fire alarm issues entirely on the residents.

“The fire alarms were actually caused by students not paying attention to their cooking,” Braden said. “Unfortunately we can’t do a great deal to solve that. I think the ventilation system is working properly.”

Braden seemed to imply that Servitas did not account for college students being inexperienced cooks, and according to Crowder, the alarm sometimes goes off for no reason.

“[The alarm] is horrible, and it’s very sensitive,” Crowder said. “Once I set off the fire alarm and I didn’t even burn anything. I was making a grilled cheese.”

A current RA — who requested to remain anonymous in fear of retaliation — who has lived at the dorms since they opened and has been an RA since the beginning of the fall 2024 semester, confirmed this.

“It doesn’t take much smoke to set that thing off,” they said.

The ventilation system was not set up properly, according to Fire Capt. Dean in the same Nov. 4, 2023, email. Dean said that the kitchen needs ventilation to outside air, such as windows that open, as well as a stove hood that pumps air outside the building rather than recycling the air back into the kitchen, contrary to Braden’s claim.

Dean also recommended adding an HVAC system in the kitchen to help clear the air of smoke before the fire alarm goes off.

Braden said that no updates have been made to the windows or ventilation, but he did mention that there were ongoing discussions about making improvements to the smoke detectors.

“We had a meeting with the fire department earlier this week and discussed some minor changes that could be made, like changing a smoke detector into a heat detector, that might alleviate some things,” Braden said in the Nov. 6, 2024 interview.

In an email obtained via a public records request from Oct. 16, 2023 — over a year before the interview with Braden — Assistant Fire Marshal Mike Johnson recommended that the smoke detectors be replaced with heat detectors. Servitas’ senior vice president of construction services, Steve Groh, was included in this email thread.

The ventilation isn’t the only potential fire hazard. In a Nov. 7, 2023, email, Assistant Fire Marshal Johnson expressed concern over the lack of Emergency Vehicular Access (EVA).

“When I was out there for the final walk there was access off Elliott Avenue as well as Armory Drive. Since then it appears the Elliot Avenue access has been eliminated. I am looking for any approval or agreement for the site plan,” Johnson said. “Having this many units (over 50) with only one EVA is not approved by us. The State doesn’t adopt Appendix D of the Fire Code (access requirements) so I am also curious what standard was used for this.”

Groh was included in this email thread as well. He replied with the approved plan, which had been signed off by Assistant Fire Marshal Ian Hardage.

Johnson expressed his frustration directly to Division Chief Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal after forwarding him the thread.

“Well, that sucks, but I’m glad it wasn’t me,” Lowenthal wrote in response.

“Ohhhh Ian, WTF,” Johnson responded in the email directly to fellow Assistant Fire Marshal’s Kemplen Robbins and Jared McDaniel.

Upon investigating the dormitory on Nov. 7, 2024, Oak Leaf reporters confirmed that there is still only one EVA more than a year later. Though no changes have been made to the lot’s EVAs, as of Nov. 19, 2024 Lowenthal claims the lot is compliant and meets fire codes.

“The building was approved for occupancy, but it’s important to understand that this is a [Division of the State Architecture] project,” Lowenthal wrote in an email to The Oak Leaf.

Another public records request made on Oct. 27, 2024, revealed an email sent on Aug. 29, 2024, from Assistant Fire Marshal Johnson to Groh expressing further concerns about fire safety.

“Not sure if this is still the correct working group for this issue, however as students are now back in the dorms, our crews have already begun responding to nuisance alarms at the dorms due to cooking smoke in the kitchens (three times in two days),” Johnson wrote in the email. “Apparently the hood exhaust from the oven/stove recirculates the air back into the kitchen and not outside. Can we confirm this? With the lack of openable windows it’s a very tedious and time consuming operation to evacuate the smoke so the alarm system will clear.”

Upon investigating the dormitory on Nov. 7, 2024, Oak Leaf reporters confirmed that the hood exhaust appears to still function the same as Johnson recalls.

The Oct. 27, 2024, CPRA request also revealed a draft for a letter written by Fire Marshall Lowenthal on Sept. 24, 2024, addressing the frequent nuisance alarms. The request did not reveal who exactly the letter was sent to. In an email chain with other SRFD colleagues, Lowenthal discussed what should go in the letter.

“I think there needs to be mention of the actions we’ve taken, options we’ve provided, maybe the number of attempts we’ve made to address their issue and their lack of taking measures to correct the actions,” he wrote.

Johnson replied and made edits to Lowenthal’s letter.

“Not sure if this is too direct on blaming them but they are aware and have been notified but do nothing,” Johnson wrote. In an email to The Oak Leaf, Lowenthal wrote about the results of this letter. “The letter prompted a beneficial and productive meeting between Santa Rosa Fire Department, Santa Rosa Junior College, and their service provider for the dormitory,” Lowenthal said.

Resident Advisers

In addition to frequent fire alarm evacuations, a lackluster RA program has made life at the dorms worse than anticipated, according to multiple residents, including, but not limited to, dorm residents like Koski and Crowder.

Of the 10 RAs employed at the beginning of the fall 2023 semester, only two made it to the end of the school year, according to Wilson, residents and RAs.

“Most of them got fired for either being intoxicated and getting high,” Koski said. “Another got fired for leaving his job during hours to go f*ck girls on one of the floors. Another one of them got fired for just being rude to people and not really giving a shit about the job.”

Koski saw the RA hiring standards continue to decline.

“They just kind of hired whoever,” he said. “I mean. They hired a minor. They turned 18, but they were still hired when they were a minor and were a minor for the first month that they were working.”

A current-semester RA verified this claim. Koski, Crowder and other residents, who requested to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, all agreed that the RA staff is absent and unhelpful when residents need them.

“How are you supposed to report it to the RAs when they are also partaking in these things — or are the problem — in these instances?” Koski said.

Ben Wilson, director of residence life, attributed the issues to a need for “better training from the Servitas side and the JC side to retain students and retain RAs.”

The anonymous RA confirmed that the training is subpar.

“We were given a week to train before move-in day,” they said. “That is not nearly enough.”

Cleanliness Issues

Crowder originally applied for and was approved to be in a double room with one roommate, but was switched into a six-person apartment after Servitas staff oversold the double rooms. Thankfully, Crowder still only pays the double room price of $1,020 a month as opposed to her roommates, who pay $1,700 monthly.

Crowder claims the suite she lives in isn’t worth the money, and it’s easy to see why. One of the two bathrooms in the apartment doesn’t even have a proper shower head.

“The shower is just a hole,” Crowder said. “It’s like a spigot. When they come in to fix it, it’s so funny, they just put grease on it and then leave.”

According to multiple residents, nobody took out the dormitory trash for nearly the entirety of April 2024. Flies swarmed the kitchens, bathrooms, trash room and several residents’ rooms.

Furthermore, Koski said the dormitory staff did not inform residents of the infestation until a month after the fact, by which time residents were buying their own fly traps for their rooms. He added that he still finds fruit flies to this day, seven months later.

In addition to the flies, the bathrooms are also a major issue.

“The shower curtains they had last year were very susceptible to mold growing,” Koski said. “In one of the bathrooms on my floor, there was mold growing in one of the stalls. There’s one that still doesn’t have a lock on it. There was one that had paint and plaster falling off the ceiling in one of the handicap stalls.”

Multiple residents claim there is black mold but The Oak Leaf was unable to verify this.

Koski said Servitas finally fixed the cheap and flimsy towel racks that previously broke with ease. But, according to Crowder, the dryers in the laundry room are still a major issue.

“A lot of the machines are always out, and the dryers are always broken,” Crowder said. “The dryers are disgusting. Even if you take out all of the lint and everything, your clothes would be gross after you put them in there. They just come out covered in hair.”

Upon investigating the first floor of the dormitory on Nov. 7, 2024, Oak Leaf reporters found stained couches in the lounge area, a foul-smelling kitchen with no windows and a refrigerator holding milk that had expired three months prior.

Servitas’ History of Unreliability

Looking back on Servitas’ history, not delivering on expectations appears to be a trend.

In an interview with The Oak Leaf, Bill Hudson—the editor of the Colorado-based Pagosa Daily Post—said Servitas is to blame for an affordable workforce housing project originally established to house nurses in Pagosa Springs during the Covid-19 pandemic that has still yet to be built.

“Servitas responded to a request for a project proposal and presented themselves as someone that could build affordable housing,” Hudson said. “At that point they hadn’t built any workforce housing.”

The Pagosa Springs City Council awarded the project to Servitas in 2021, according to Hudson. The Texas-based company has still yet to break ground. This has not stopped Servitas officials from announcing four new workforce housing projects set to open in 2025 and 2026, with three planned for Colorado and one in Miami.

Hudson explained that much like Santa Rosa, Pagosa Springs generates the majority of its income from tourism.

“People are making $15, maybe $20 an hour, and the houses are $600,000. It’s just not functional for our economy at the moment,” he said.

This contradicts Servitas’ claims of bringing “missing middle” housing supply to much-needed areas. Servitas also hasn’t delivered on several promises for Polly O’Meara Doyle Hall.

According to the company’s website, the SRJC dormitory features a “roof terrace” with a view of the property and a “kitchen garden” where they claim students can grow their own food to “support healthy living.”

Braden confirmed that the “roof terrace” does not exist.

According to Koski this rooftop deck and garden aren’t the only things that Servitas falsely advertised. When he first moved into the dorms, Koski expected the closet described in the lease agreement, however he was met with what he describes as “a shelf.”

Though the absence of the promised closet was disappointing, this breach in honesty hinted at a larger problem with the student housing company.

“You have people pay for a dorm thinking that there would be closets. It’s that it just kind of gave me the idea of, oh, this company is not going to care,” Koski said.

Residents were also falsely told there would be a meal plan.

“They tried to first say in the very beginning that there would be a meal plan,” Koski said. “Then they tried to argue that a meal plan is giving dorm students the access to a card that they can load money on and get slight discounts at the school cafeteria. That’s not what a f*cking meal plan is.”

According to the anonymous RA, Servitas is notoriously difficult to get in touch with. “I have a lot of personal grievances against Servitas and how they don’t really tend to get back to us very easily,” they said.

Looking Ahead

According to Koski, conditions at the dorms have improved since last year. The RA program is now competently staffed, and outside of the first floor kitchen and lounge area, the dormitory staff cleans the facilities and common spaces more often.

“I would say that the quality of living has increased exponentially,” Koski said. “There’s still obviously a lot of lingering things, but it has gotten a lot better.”

Hoping to influence change for himself and his fellow residents, Koski spoke to SRJC President Dr. Angélica Garcia, Vice President of Student Services Molly Senecal and Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services Kate Jolley, all of whom were unaware of the dormitory issues, and said that change began after these conversations.

“The school is now being like, ‘You need to tell us what’s going on. If there are any issues, you need to fix those ASAP,’” Koski said. “I’m grateful that the board of trustees also put a lot of pressure on both [Servitas] and also on admin to actually start doing something.”

Sarah Pew, SRJC senior director of marketing, communications and public affairs, wrote about SRJC’s involvement with the dormitory in an email to The Oak Leaf.

“SRJC is dedicated to providing students with a safe, supportive, and healthy environment where they can achieve their academic and personal goals, including those residing in Polly O’Meara Doyle Hall,” Pew wrote. “Student health and safety are our top priorities, and we work diligently to uphold these standards.“

Kaya Clark, a member of student government who lives in the dormitory, has been appointed as a representative of the housing complex. Though she only recently started in her new role, she plans to act as a communication bridge between the residents and SGA.

“Finding ways to improve [communication] or create a system where it can be improved are some of my top priorities,” Clark said.

Koski is hopeful for the future but believes Servitas won’t make improvements without continued pressure from SRJC administration.

“This is like keeping track of a petulant little child,” Koski said. “You have to keep putting that pressure. You have to keep holding [Servitas] accountable. I think if they keep doing that, you will see great improvement.”

Additional reporting by Nicholas Vides