Oh, the parking outside is frightful
Student complaints abound concerning parking violation penalties around USU’s campus, and much of the problems stem from the discipline of off-campus parking enforcement agencies, as well as on-campus parking enforcement issuing more passes than parking stalls available.
“Students have to realize that the reason why we’re here is because we need to ensure that people actually have a place to go at night,” said Patrick, a driver from Utah Cache Valley Auto, a prominent agency contracted with Logan City that patrols apartments near campus. Patrick asked to be identified only by his first name.
“I enjoy it,” Patrick said of his job. “I like to people-watch and see how they react. Most people handle their emotions well, even though they’re ticked off,” he said, while noting that booting incidences are increased from last year because the company is extending coverage to more properties than they had during last semester.
Patrick said that some of those properties include lots nearby USU, including Pine View, Cobble Creek, Darwin Ave. and Bridgerland apartments.
Patrick said he does not deny that the Cache Valley Auto employees are paid commission for each boot they place on a car.
“That’s what we’re told,” he said.
While people, like Patrick, may enjoy their interactions associated with booting and ticketing, others such as James Nye, director of USU parking and transportation, hold different sentiments.
“We try to use ticketing and booting as a learning process,” he said. “Our first-year students, yeah, we’ll work with them. We are simply not out to get people.”
Nye acknowledged that the USU Parking Department issues more passes than available stalls because a vehicle may be parked in a stall for “a couple of hours at a time” during a given day.
However, he did acknowledge a conflict in on-campus parking does arise between the busiest hours of 9:30-11:30 a.m. He said he warns students buying an on-campus pass that they might have to seek out other parking options, including parking meters along 800 East, during that period of time.
Teresa Johnson, business manager for parking and transportation, said students also have the option of spending $23 per year on a pass for stadium parking, which is along campus bus routes. She said excuses for tickets are not tolerated.
“We hate booting vehicles. It takes up manpower and time,” Nye said. “If students get a ticket, they should pay. It’s procrastination at that point.”
Johnson said if a student is parked in the wrong location on campus, they will be given three tickets before being dealt a boot. Usually the first ticket ranges from $12-15.
Off campus, private agencies are contracted to handle parking regulations, and are what students have reported to be a thorn in their side.
Senior Alicia Alvarez said she had an experience last school year where she estimated 30 people were booted at once at an off-campus location. After she and others wondered where the sign forbidding parking without a designated pass could be found, a Cache Valley Auto employee pointed his flashlight to a corner of the lot to indicate the sign, she said.
Alvarez said she went to court to battle the penalty, but was told the courtroom in Logan couldn’t handle cases of that nature.
“I think it’s ridiculous that (the boot) is $75, that it’s more than the price of a ticket,” Alvarez said. “I also don’t like that they don’t answer questions,” she said of the Cache Valley Auto employees.
Cody Fullmer, an undeclared sophomore, was also booted by Utah Cache Valley Auto. Fullmer’s car was booted off-campus because his parking sticker was on the front windshield, rather than the back windshield. Fullmer said he didn’t want to put the sticker on the back because the tinted windows in the rear might have made the parking sticker difficult to view from the perspective of a booter.
“I was very frustrated with it,” he said. “I’d been gone five minutes and they had placed a parking ticket on my window,” Fullmer said. “Logan is a joke for parking.”
Fuller believes that many quick boots are issued by off-campus parking enforcement agencies because the employees are paid by commission.
There are students who have not yet experienced being penalized for a parking violation on or near campus, yet still feel the parking policies are unjust.
Brittany Hall, a junior who lives off-campus, said she is strongly opposed to private parking lots who do not have enough stalls for their residents, putting students who arrive home late at risk to be ticketed by law enforcement for parking on the street between the hours of one and six a.m. during the winter.
“It’s pretty ridiculous,” Hall said. “If you pay money, you should be guaranteed a spot. That’s annoying because you have no choice to park somewhere else if the other spots are taken in your parking lot.”
Darci Denney, who has been dealt boots for off-campus parking violations five times in her four years at USU, described the penalties as “ridiculous.”
She said although she was gracious toward Kirt, a Cache Valley auto employee who also asked that only his first name be printed and who has removed Denney’s boots in the past, the gesture was hardly reciprocated.
“I said ‘thank you’ for taking (the boot) off, and he just didn’t say anything and left,” Denney said. “The last time this happened to me, I finally said, ‘You know, you can say you’re welcome. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.'”
Denney also said she is sure that many of the quick boots have come because the Cache Valley Auto employees work by commission.
Patrick estimated that five percent of those booted are hostile and need to have law enforcement called on them.
Among these, he said, are those who have urinated on the boot and walked away before paying the fee later.
“I can’t count how many times I’ve been threatened,” Patrick said.
Patrick said he is required by company policy to bring law enforcement when returning to the vehicle of a hostile boot recipient, but said that he wouldn’t bring them with him if it was his choice.
“With my background, I find it entertaining that they threaten me,” he said. “I’m an ex-Marine, so I think you don’t know what I could do to you.
Sometime along the way, they realize ‘that guy has the keys to setting my car free, and I just ticked him off. That’s not good.'”
But, no level of civility would satisfy some students who have experience with parking authorities on- or off-campus.
“The parking policy is out of control and taking advantage of students,” Denney said. “They know it’s a college town, and we need the car, so they take advantage of that vulnerability. I think it’s a monopoly.”
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu