In the most recent edition of the Hillpost, you reported that the parking fines would be increasing, thus bringing more revenue from such fees as well as (hopefully) preventing parking violations. Although it has been reported that parking violations were down in 2009, I believe that number is misconstrued.

The university wouldn’t have to take the time and money to have special meetings to vote for higher parking fees if the Campus Police would actually do their job and give people tickets on a regular basis. I live in the Family Student Housing and time after time I come home with nowhere to park. I have called the Campus Police on several occasions to come do their rounds and write people tickets. Their response to the parking violations (as related to me): “There is really nothing I can do other than give tickets. That doesn’t really stop people.”

When I attended Northeastern State University at Broken Arrow, the visitor and faculty parking spaces were generally the spaces that had illegally parked vehicles. The Campus Police at NSU’s campus would patrol troublesome parking lots on foot and give tickets to everyone who was in violation. If they parked illegally 4 days out of the week, then they got 4 tickets that week. When prevented from enrolling in the next semester or applying for graduation due to unpaid fines, students will definitely think twice about parking were they shouldn’t. Even if the fees for parking illegally at RSU are only five dollars, think about this: if one student received a ticket every time they parked illegally, lets say three days a week, that would bring in $300 dollars in parking fee revenue for just one student in a semester. Multiply that times the multiple students who are parking illegally and the University probably could have paid for the new cigarette and trash receptacles without having to use the leftover funds from the new construction.

My point in writing this  is simple. Look into doing the job properly before spending time and money to think of new ways to deter the problem. If the Campus Police spent their time at problem parking lots, such as the one by Herrington Hall, on foot writing tickets for only a few peek hours during the week, they would deter parking violations and increase revenue without needing to spend time and money to increase parking fees.

Jillian Tobin

Business Administration Senio