Students to buy non-existent spaces
Campus Times
March 12, 1999
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Often
it is just seconds, a few ticks of the clock, that separate the winners
and the losers. The sport in mind ... luge, sprinting, downhill skiing,
of course not. The Chariot of Fire in mind is attempting to find a parking
space on the University of La Verne campus.
Recently the Campus Times learned that the University has formed a task
force comprised of John Lentz, director of campus safety and transportation,
Brian Worley, director of facilities management and Vice President Phillip
Hawkey to work on ways to improve parking in and around the University.
To quote Dickens, "God bless you, one and all."
Moses was able to part the Red Sea with his staff, however, unless President
Stephen Morgan and the Board of Trustees have some form of divine power,
then they are fighting a losing battle.
Lentz and Worley approached the resident and program assistants about
the possibility of issuing parking permits to on-campus residents.
It has been hypothesized that local residents have been taking advantage
of the parking lots at the Oaks, Stu-Han and Brandt residence halls to park
their cars in order to avoid receiving tickets from the La Verne Police
Department for overnight parking violations.
The permits would be a means of differentiating between University of
La Verne students and those who park there to avoid tickets from the police.
The idea was in essence tabled so that more information could be gathered.
However, the parking permit issue does not end with the residence halls.
Worley and Lentz also recently addressed the Associated Student Federation
(ASF) Forum about the prospects of implementing a campus-wide parking permit
system that would be available to students at a charge. This concept is
still in its infancy with regard to specifics and the actual plan of attack.
Lentz, Worley or Hawkey are not to blame for the parking problem. Further,
it appears that they have been given a concrete block and assigned the unenviable
task of re-inventing the wheel.
Now, disclaimers aside, the truth must be told. Parking at the ULV has
been a problem for several years and applying a Band-aid like parking permits
will not solve the lack of parking on this campus.
The question begs, if permits are issued and students still have to
park blocks away from school, what purpose will the permits serve? The comparison
has been made between La Verne and state institutions and how those schools
charge students for parking. This may be true; however, a state student
may have to hike from where they parked across campus to get to class, but
they are hiking from a parking spot that exists and that their permit affords
them.
If permit parking was instituted, it would seem like putting the buggy
before the horse. All of the parking permits in the world will not create
parking spaces that do not exist. It is time to put away the Neosporin and
the Band-aids and do constructive surgery on this campus.
The solution to La Verne's parking ills is not a temporary fix like
parking permits, but rather to build a multi-level parking structure. The
cost will be immense, but it is time to invest in what the students, staff
and faculty need, that being someplace to park.
