Parking rules strive to serve all

Ken Kennedy - Director of Public Safety

Ken Kennedy – Director of Public Safety

Members of the Student Senate have recently expressed concern about equal enforcement of traffic rules on the MSSU campus. The situation has been exacerbated by parking spaces being temporarily eliminated due to construction projects.

As a result the MSSU Department of Public Safety enforcement practices have been examined and altered. A recent message from Bob Harrington (Director of Physical Plant) has made it clear that all members of the campus community, faculty, staff and students will receive citations each time they are in violation of parking regulations and will be required to pay the fines. Failure to pay the fine within 48 hours results in the fine doubling. If someone has a concern about a ticket they have received, they have the opportunity to fill out an appeal and have their grievance heard by the Ticket Appeals Board which is held the last Friday of each month.

In the past, Public Safety has issued some “hang tags” for a second vehicle. It has been found that the hang tags can be easily transferred from one vehicle to another and thus is not specific to any one vehicle. Since the intent of the parking sticker is to register a specific vehicle, hang tags will no longer be issued.

One issue brought up by the Student Senate involved labeling parking stickers identifying people as faculty/staff, resident or commuter students. Since the stickers are color coded, it was agreed upon that subsequent orders of parking stickers, the labeling will be eliminated.

Currently we are reviewing parking practices at other universities, which could result in more changes to our regulations in the future. In the near future you will be seeing “faculty/staff only” parking areas more clearly marked.

It is extremely important that all members of the campus community obey and abide by the campus parking regulations to enhance the safety and efficiency of daily operations. Specific requirements that must be followed by all are as follows:

1. All vehicles must be registered with the Department of Public Safety and have a parking sticker on the vehicle. Failure to register your vehicle will result in the vehicle being ticketed.

2. All “Reserved” parking spaces are just that. They are reserved for the individuals identified on the signs. Anyone parking in a “Reserved” parking place, that is not theirs, will be ticketed 24 hours every day.

3. Designated “Visitor” parking spaces are for visitors to our campus. Student, faculty or staff vehicles parking in designated “Visitor” parking spaces will be ticketed. Failure to register your vehicle and then parking in a “Visitor” parking space will result in two tickets, one for failure to register and one for parking in the “Visitor” space.

4. Designated “Disabled” parking spaces are only to be used by persons who have either a State issued disabled parking sticker, disabled license plate or a temporary sticker issued by the campus Department of Public Safety. All others parking in handicap spaces will be ticketed.

It is important to remember what Mr. Harrington said: “The campus has sufficient parking spaces to accommodate all students, faculty and staff. Granted, not all parking is as close to the campus facilities as we would like, but there are sufficient parking spaces on campus. Please be considerate of each other and abide by all campus parking regulations.”

If you have questions or comments you may contact Ken Kennedy ([email protected]) or Bob Harrington ([email protected]).