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Show Notify students about their parking tickets, fines Some of the major concerns of the Campus Affairs Board are dealing with the campus traffic problems and representing student concerns on traffic problems through committee appointments and faculty-administration lobbying. lobby-ing. Last year's board recommended sweeping reforms that would, hopefully, solve our present parking problems and correct any situation that could become a problem for future students. This recommendation needs official recognition rec-ognition and acceptance by President James C. Fletcher. And we are still waiting for the outcome. However, there is one irritating problem that the board can help to solve immediately without waiting for the president's verdict on the new parking proposal. This problem is car-impoundment as a penalty for non-payment of tickets. Although we see the merit of issuing tickets to cars parked illegally, the practice of towing cars away without notice to the car owner is unnecessary. Why can't Campus Security, the Campus Planning and Traffic committee, com-mittee, Campus Affairs Board, or even a new committee, if it is necessary to create one, inform students by letter that they have five unpaid tickets and that unless these tickets are taken care of within two days their car will be impounded the next time it is discovered on campus. Most students would respond to such a warning and pay the tickets to avoid going through the inconvenience involved with having their cars towed away at their own expense. A lot of students are ignorant of the fact that they have five or more unpaid tickets. A student who has received no tickets this school year recently had his car towed away for tickets that were issued over a year ago. He had no idea that he had any tickets, or that his car could have allowed him to avoid the towing. The Traffic Appeals division of the University has balked at the suggestion of sending letters to students with five or more tickets. There is presently a list of 300 students with over five tickets, so the traffic division says that sending letters would involve too much work and too much money. Elementary arithmetic shows that it would cost $18 in stamps to send out 300 letters. (This actually would be cheaper if it went by bulk mail.) Compare this cost with the $3,000 it will cost those students who have their cars towed away. Previously, the University has sent out a parking-violation parking-violation card listing the student's fines in the fall advanced registration. The ticket must be paid before registration can be completed. But this practice has not been reliable in the past, and it does not take some students one year to receive over 5 tickets. Perhaps an improved version of this method could be used on a quarterly basis. The student elections brought out the issue that student stu-dent government should be more concerned with student needs. The towing problem could be handled quickly and successfully, and if it is, it will gain the applause of the students - - especially 300 unsuspecting souls. |