PSU President Sarah Jayne Steen did not approve a proposal to hike the lot maintenance parking violation fee one hundred percent last week. The PSU Parking Committee brought the proposal forth earlier this month.
There was controversy surrounding the proposed fee increase due to the fact that the Parking Committee made the motion to raise the fine during a meeting where student representatives were not present.
The vetoed proposal would have raised the fee from fifty dollars to one hundred dollars.
President Steen issued an official statement regarding the dismissal of the proposal stating, “The issue is thata we need to assure that students’ cars are moved, oth to ensure community safety and to reduce environmental impacts. I have asked that we first explore with students wheter other alternatives would accomplish our goal.”
The embattled proposal originally came up during the spring semester. The winter of 2008 saw heavy snowfall, and for reasons unclear, many students did not move their cars during scheduled lot maintenance. This led to poorly maintained lots around campus. The state of the snow and ice covered lots was then viewed as a campus safety concern.
“There were safety issues here,” Jeff Furlone said. Thick ice and snow caused treacherous driving and walking conditions.
Furlone, the head of the Parking Committee, spoke to Student Senate during their Sun. Oct. 19 meeting about the rejected proposal, and the means behind the suggested increase, “The dollar amount was not as important to us as the deterrent,” Furlone said.
A deterrent to illegal parking was needed last winter because of high the number of parking citations issued for refusal to move during scheduled lot maintenance. In the 2006-2007 school year, campus police issued a total of 4,293 parking citations to illegally parked vehicles. In the 2007-2008 school year, 4,140 parking citations were issued, down 153 from the year before.
There was an increase in cars left in lots during maintenance. In the 2006-2007 school year, 1,211 citations were issued to students who left cars in lots during maintenance. By the 2007-2008 winter, that number had jumped by 498, with 1,709 vehicles left behind and ticketed.
“We can’t understand why those 498 people decided not to move their cars,” Furlone said.
Currently, there are no solid numbers available as to who is leaving their cars during lot maintenance, but it appears that it may be older students who are not moving. Furlone noted that during scheduled lot maintenance, most of the vehicles were removed from the facilities and P.E. center parking lots.
This was the case in the Residential North Parking lots in Langdon Woods, where many students would not move his or her car on the weekly basis.
While Furlone did make it clear that the fine increase was not directly related to revenue flow, money does matter when it comes to lot maintenance, “There’s a lot of money behind it,” Furlone said. A lot of this money loss comes from burnt fuel, often times physical plant workers have to wait in plow trucks as students trickle into the lots to move vehicles.
Furlone asked the Senate to recommend ways to get the word out about lot maintenance and the necessity to move vehicles. The general consensus from the Senate was that a rate hike would not be the best solution, “I don’t think it [the violation fee] should jump,” Senator Lindsey Harrington said.
The violation will stay at fifty dollars per violation, but the Parking Committee will continue to look for ways to coerce students into moving their vehicles. The next parking committee meeting will be held on Nov. 14.