Parking in the Red Zone

The University's parking scandal has finally been unearthed. The parking reserve is in a deficit and student, staff and faculty permit prices will increase next year. This has left many people asking "Why?" There is a simple answer: the University of Oregon administration.

In 1988, the University raised parking permit prices to raise revenue for a parking garage. The garage was never built, and University Vice President Dan Williams and former President Myles Brand found more destructive ways to spend the money.

Williams had the power to go ahead with the construction of a parking structure in 1988. In a letter to the entire University community, Williams stated that the University president endorsed the construction of two multilevel parking structures with the approved 3.6 million dollar bonding authority. After the lots were approved by the students, faculty and Oregon Public Employees Union, the University used a number of excuses not to build the structure after the increase in permit fees had gone into effect.

The University did not want to "damage its relationship with the surrounding community," Williams said. Residents in the West University area allegedly complained about the proposed construction site in front of the School of Music citing that the noise and traffic would increase dramatically. However, the relationship with the rest of the students, faculty and staff was not taken into consideration when the University dumped all of the plans for a parking structure down the drain.

"You don't make a judgment by counting the votes on both sides of the issue," Williams said. In this case, Williams made the judgment that left the University void of a parking structure. This decision has affected the attitude that students, staff and faculty have for the University.

Residents who live in front of the School of Music live in the sororities and co-ops. This usually means that they live in the area for four to five years or even less, and then leave. Faculty and staff work for decades at the University, but their votes did not count. Bicycle safety was another concern that residents had. Bicyclists said that the cars would drive down Alder Street too quickly. The University ignored the idea of implementing speed bumps, so the bicyclists and neighbors won. If Williams had made the judgment by counting the votes, he would not have had so much of the University's money to throw around.

"At present, the parking fund is in a deficit and has been for two years. This deficit was created when the expenditure side passed the revenue side," Williams said. This is often the case when any program runs into a deficit, but it does not tell us where the money went.

Williams signed the papers that "loaned" $170,000 from the parking fund to the Intercollegiate Athletic Department in 1988. The "interest free loan" has not been paid back. According to Williams, the loan was not discovered until this year. The athletic department will pay back the loan in two installments, one this year and one next year. Evidently, there was a mix-up between the parking and athletic departments, the athletic department considered the loan a gift.

Another $410,000 was loaned to the communications department for the purchase of the Rainier Building. This loan was immediately paid back, without interest.

The rest of the parking fund was used to purchase LTD parking passes for faculty and staff, cover the cost of living increases, pay a fee to the Eugene Police Department and pay the salaries for campus security guards. None of the loans were used for parking. When interviewed, Parking Program Coordinator Rand Stamm stated that the permit increases were based upon the increases in the costs of living and lot construction/maintenance. He neglected to mention the interest free loans that in no way benefited the students, faculty and staff who paid for the loans with the increase in parking permit prices.

"If you want to be technical," Williams said, "I could say that no student funds were used in the loans." Student funds though, were included in the loans. The permit prices were raised, and this created an excess of money which was not used on parking. According to Williams, "The President has the authority to use the money in the reserve accounts to serve the best interests of the University." In this case, Brand and Williams did not serve the students.

When asked why the loans were interest free, Williams said, "I don't recall quite frankly, we loan money between reserve accounts like that all of the time. And I don't think that there was any interest, probably, to be earned on the housing loan... It's not normal for us to charge interest because interest would not have been earned on that account anyways [sic]. I mean, I don't believe that we earn any money on the reserves." Williams' answers went into circles, much like the never-ending circles that students drive in daily.

At a recent University Senate meeting, faculty senators complained about the lack of parking. Women are citing that safety is a hazard if they have to walk to the bus or to a vehicle late at night. Others would like the University to recognize that working mothers and children should fit into the equation. If a mother has to care for an ill child and return to work in the same day, the possibilities for finding parking are slim.

University Law Senator Wayne Westling accused Williams of fraud. If the funds were raised for a parking structure, and no parking structure was built, and the money was loaned to the athletic department, and not used for parking, then allegations of fraud may not be off course.

Williams addressed this accusation by saying, "To insinuate that we've been dishonest, well, I think it's a bit of a stretch. They [the senators and faculty] would never let their students get away with some of the shoddy thinking some of them are going through... They don't have to like what we do."

"We've created a lot of parking spots. We've also taken every opportunity to address the problem in a different way," Williams said. The problem certainly was addressed in a different way, and "a lot of parking spots" was not the solution. The money was also used to build 700 new parking spaces. Unfortunately, 500 of those spaces were lost to building expansion leaving students and faculty with only 200 new spaces. On basketball game days, the students also lose 50-60 spaces in front of Mac Court.

"It's only 50-60 spaces out of 2,800 spaces," Williams said, "so for the most part, it is only a small fraction."

It is obvious that Williams should retake a remedial math class. If only 50-60 spaces is a small fraction, how could 200 spaces be "a lot"? The students do not have 2,800 spaces to choose from. According to parking figures, the math goes like this: There are 2,820 parking spaces on campus, including meters. Subtract the 63 spaces that are behind a security barrier behind the physical plant, and the 17 spaces at the rear of Esslinger and the total comes down to 2,214 spaces. Then subtract the number of service, handicapped, reserved and metered spaces and the total comes down to 2,124. The only other spaces available to permit holders are the "override" meters which total 158. Permit holders now have 2,292 spaces to park in, but students cannot park in half of those lots because they are reserved for faculty. Students now only have less than 1,200 spaces to park in, and the Parking Program sells 5,924 parking permits.

The increasing numbers of permits sold increases the competition for available spaces. The numbers of spaces only increased by eight percent since 1990 while permit sales have increased by 53 percent. There is no cap on the amount of permits that can be sold. Student permit sales increased by 78.8 percent since 1990, and the sales will continue to rise when the University boosts enrollment by a few thousand.

Students aren't notified when they purchase their permits that they are purchasing the equivalent to a hunting license. Only the odds of finding a parking space are as likely as someone finding Bigfoot. Students feed meters with their weekly laundry money because their permits become worthless.

Attendance at basketball games seems to be more important to Williams than attendance in class. "If people are going to attend basketball games and buy tickets, then we have to provide some place for them to park to come to campus... So we reserve the spots for buses," Williams said. The parking spaces in front of Mac Court are reserved all day for the buses and press satellites and take more spaces away from students. Williams should use the same philosophy towards student parking as he does to athletic parking, but he doesn't.

Faculty members often complain about the prices they pay for parking permits and also want their fair share of parking. True, faculty and staff do pay twice as much for parking than students, but they are also allowed to park in student lots. Students also have a higher amount of permits sold, which means that there are more students vying for less than half of the amount of parking that faculty and staff have. Faculty and staff also seem to forget that unlike students who pay for their LTD bus passes with incidental fees, the students also pay for faculty and staff LTD passes with the permit money that goes into the parking fund. In this respect, students pay twice for LTD passes and their teachers get the free ride. Williams does not believe that the loans in any way damaged the faculty, staff, students or their

opportunities to park. Williams has his own reserved space that he pays for every year. Ironically, the permit price for a reserved space will not increase next year. Williams said that he takes the students concerns seriously. This seems hard to believe, considering the fact that he only has to walk a few yards from his vehicle to get to his office in Johnson.

When the plans for a parking structure fell through, Brand and Williams said that they would try to find other ways to create more parking spaces on campus. Williams then contradicted himself this year when he said, "It's very hard to meet supply and demand... We're not doing as good of a job as we could, but I'm not sure what we could be able to do given the variations of demands. Iım not too quick to put more concrete on campus." He isn't real quick to do anything else about the parking situation either.

The parking reserve received a substantial increase in revenue over the years from the permit fees. These fees were supposed to supply the University with more spaces. So far, only 200 spaces have been built. The money has been loaned out and now the fund is in a deficit. "I really believe that we're never going to solve the problem," Williams said. He is correct--the parking problem will not be solved if the parking money does not go to parking. This is a common sense equation that no one seems to comprehend.

The University's administration is blind. The persons in charge of campus parking do not know how the students feel. When the administration is told of the students frustration, the administration simply says that there is nothing that can be done. Eight years ago, they knew that there was a problem, and there was a solution. They had made plans to put "more concrete" on campus, but then decided that the relationship with the West University area was more important than solving the problem.

The West University neighborhood already has problems with noise, violence, drugs and vagrants. A parking structure wouldn't have changed a thing. In fact, fewer people will be driving around the area in circles if a parking structure is built.

The University must stop throwing our money around. The parking reserve gives a percentage of its money to the EPD. In return, the spaces around the campus area are patrolled, but the University does not receive any revenue from the city's tickets, or the meters. Oregon Administrative Rule 352.360 states, "Parking fees shall be established at levels no greater than those required to finance the construction, operation and maintenance of parking facilities on the same campus of the institution of higher education in which the parking is provided." OPS officers are also paid with funds from the parking reserve. However, their duties are not limited to parking, and we cannot find out how much of their work is in fact parking related.

Once again, the University is taking the money from the students' hands and pocketing it. The administration is even stooping so low as to take more money from the faculty and staff too. The relationship that students once had with the University is going down the drain faster than a 24 carat ring, and the University keeps pouring the Liquid Plumber on. The only solution that will benefit staff, students, faculty and their relationship with the University is a parking garage. It was promised to us once, it can be given to us now. It wonıt take long for people on campus to realize that they are being scammed by the parking program and the administration. With any luck, the administration will confess their sins, take some responsibility for the problems it has created and refrain from making more problems in the future. Unfortunately, the administration and the parking program have already proven what their words are worth: less than nothing.

Autumn K. DePoe, majoring in something, is a something-or-rather for the Oregon Commentator