Efforts to revise parking on campus may have hit a roadblock. Following a string of student complaints and concerns, St. Bonaventure University’s Student Government Association has been working on new parking policy recommendations. However, its latest recommendation was not approved by the university’s parking committee.
SGA President Lara McCormick, a senior political science and international studies double major, discussed what led to the creation of a new recommendation.
“The issue of a commuter pass was brought up last year and discussed in SGA meetings. At the beginning of this year, we had received a lot of complaints from off-campus students that they were paying for an overnight pass. The pass was expensive, considering some commuter students are not even on campus five days a week,” said McCormick. “After much discussion, the student government as a whole decided a tiered system would be the fairest solution for all students.”
McCormick said SGA’s recommendation entailed a tiered payment system based on academic year. The plan also called for the creation of a reduced-price commuter parking pass that would allow students to park in any student parking space not designated for overnight parking.
“Overnight parking passes will be priced using a tiered system based on academic year. Freshmen would pay the highest price while seniors would pay the lowest price,” she said.
SGA’s Chief Justice Trevor North, a senior political science major, was appointed to the university’s parking committee this year. North presented SGA’s recommendation to the parking committee in a meeting last Friday.
“It was voted on by SGA through the legislative process, and that was the recommendation I was told to bring to the parking committee. Unfortunately, it didn’t get support from the committee as a whole,” said North. “Realistically, we can do only so much in SGA. We can offer recommendations for certain things, we can offer our opinions on certain things, but if it doesn’t get approved at the larger level, it’s really not going to become much, sadly. Even if the whole student body agrees on things, if administration and faculty do not agree with it, then it’s kind of stuck in that stage.”
North said that the rationale behind the idea of a tiered parking payment system was based on the principle of seniority. However, the parking committee did not believe it was a strong enough reason or idea.
Although this recommendation did not pass, North noted that other options were discussed and further agreed upon at the meeting. One such option was the idea of part-time and full-time student parking passes.
“The idea of a full-time and part-time pass came up, which means that people who are taking less than 12 credits can do a part-time pass, which is going to (hopefully) be $50. That would also increase the full time to around $150. That is the recommendation that the committee as a whole agreed on. Whether I personally agreed on it or not, at that point, didn’t really matter because as a committee we had to vote for the majority rule,” said North.
Even though this recommendation was agreed upon by the parking committee, it is not set in stone. It still needs to be approved by Katie O’Brien, vice president for student affairs.
“One of the committee members said how Katie is hesitant to increase funds and fees on students. So, there could be no increase or there could be an increase. It all depends on what is decided at the higher levels after this committee,” said North.
Regardless of what is decided on student parking passes in the future, North said he was proud to represent the student body on the parking committee.
“I really enjoyed the experience. I thought it was cool to better meet some of the faculty and staff on the committee and to try and make sure the students’ voices are heard,” said North. “I was the only student at that meeting, so it was nice to express what students have told me about the parking and actually have my voice heard on some issues.”
By Elizabeth Pantano, Staff Writer
pantanem18@bonaventure.edu
