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Show Pot & pans Unhappy with parking plan BY JOSEPH STIPANOVICH The reasoning behind the merger of upper-lower class parking exemplifies the inability of students to protect their interests in the face of a fumbling administration ad-ministration and their hirelings, the too often submissive sub-missive student "representatives." In one fell swoop the undergraduate students of this school have given up their one bit of bargaining power in any future parking squabble (i.e., the upper class designation) and they have been amalgamated into one unrepresentable unrepre-sentable blob from two comparatively smaller groupings of 'parkers.' This event can only delight the many supercilious bureaucrats who infest the area. Pete Dixon, member of the Campus Planning Committee, was quoted in the Chronicle (November 26) as saying: "The original purpose of having upper-lower class distinction. . . was to relieve inner campus congestion. However, with the Fifteenth East access road having been converted into a plaza, this purpose no longer has any valid substantiation." What Pete said, in effect, is that graduate students who utilize the "U" designation were not intended to receive recognition of baccalaureate achievment, in a small measure, through parking privilege. He is also intimating that there is no "inner campus." That's all well and good, but if Pete had looked closely at a map of the campus and shown it to his fellow committee members, he and they would have noticed, possibly, that Orson Spencer Hall and Union parking are smack dab in the geographical center of the campus. Archaic Idea Pete went on to state that, he personally, voted against continued "U" parking distinctions because he does "not believe the archaic idea of the upper class being some kind of elite holds up. . .we, as a parking student body, should try to establish unity. . ." Pete's homilies are very soothing, but he assumes too much by saying that parking designation designa-tion is not a stagnant perogative of a selfish few. It is a continually rotating usage of available resources (limited by nature) over a continuous number of years. If the upper class designation is removed what will students have left to work for in regards to parking? After the administration sees the droves of students flocking to OSH parking the first week of winter quarter it will all be over. By spring, all 20,000 students will be denied the most centrally located parking on campus. Pete's moral stand against "unfair privileged parking" park-ing" of any sort is admirable, but it ignores un pleasant realities. In the most recent i r called "The University Review" (a pron sent out to mislead the parents and" brothers and sisters of students) I saw a which made me wretch. The blurb discrihH?"r student contributed $1,000 to the Univ admitted into some "donators elite" which15"1 free parking privileges regardless of hisS?fe standing. In this instance, parking w,5 fiiti: though I'm sure that was not the prirna bo tion for the donation. If Pete's committee u'" real power in dealing with the administration would attack real cases of unfair privileged and do something about increasing parkin 1 and getting the rest of us to play musical cLi our automobiles. mc University Elite As for the upper classmen (including mi dents who do not utilize faculty or staff stick being an "archaic . . .elite," as Pete put it I have?" disagree. I believe they do constitute an 'elite in 1 limited sense. They form an elite in that generall' they have a stake in the university process by invesi ing two years into succeeding out of the system The university freshmen and sophomores form f opposite position for they provide most of the m versity dropouts, according to the last figures ha, which dated from 1965 and represented a nafa wide sampling. Most of the freshmen and sopho mores who dropped out did not list inadequate o-unfair o-unfair privileged parking as their motive for with drawal. Besides all that, seniority is a commor method by which limited parking is dealt out it areas of great congestion. In Washington, D.C, fo-example, fo-example, public and private lots, who operate or, profit motive, have established waiting lists upr which people wait for years to be provided parkin; space. I agree that parking at this University is a mes, but I lay the blame on what can be best described ss a callous administration which consistently overrides over-rides student interests and wishes for nebulous considerations con-siderations like prestige, local and national vested interests and money, upon which the former thrive. The responsibility for providing answers to the University's Uni-versity's parking problems does not lie entirely with the students for they are helpless without the operation of the administration which is supposed!;-here supposed!;-here to serve their best customers. Grandstani plays, like this parking merger, are not going lo solve the basic parking problems any more than i larger Campus security force will. But this is alloy: student representatives and administration feel v. should be provided with. |