By RASSEY DE LOS SANTOS
Contributing Writer
College is hard enough; students have to worry about being on time to class, their workload in class, and their workload outside of class. But something that also adds on to the stress are tickets. No one enjoys receiving a ticket in general, but recently The College of Saint Rose has been giving out numerous tickets to students and staff members. Most of these are unfair. Some receive a ticket with a false time; arriving at the time the ticket has been “given.”
“Parking on the streets isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I received a ticket while I was in class, I couldn’t find parking in the streets and I had no choice but to park in a parking lot or else I would have missed my class completely. When I had walked up to my car the ticket said 3:00, but it was really 2:45,” said Ian Hartman, a sophomore at Saint Rose.
The tickets are already expensive, $50 for not having a parking permit, not parking in the right parking spot, or having an expired parking permit, and $100 if you are parked in a handicap spot without a handicap permit. The parking tickets double every 14 to 15 days if not paid on time, and if you’re a Saint Rose student who does not pay your ticket, your grades will be held from you until you make the payment.
The College of Saint Rose has many events, which people are welcome to attend, but when they happen there are no warnings about the ticketing; no signs stating people cannot park in a certain parking lot, so they come back to their cars only to see a ticket.
What some people do not know is if you’re not a Saint Rose student, for example a parent or a University at Albany student visiting campus, and are parked in one of the Saint Rose parking lots and receive a ticket, you do not have to pay the ticket. If you’re not a part of the Saint Rose community you don’t have to worry about paying it, unlike the people who are a part of the Saint Rose community.
The workers who give out the tickets are expected to give out a certain amount of tickets. Working a five-hour shift and coming back with only five to seven tickets is not be acceptable. You are expected to give out as many tickets as possible. That doesn’t seem too fair.
Ticketing should be more reasonable at Saint Rose. Prices should be lowered for Saint Rose students and staff members to $25 a ticket for not having a permit, parking in the wrong parking lot, or having an expired permit. Handicap space tickets should be lowered to $50 a ticket, and the tickets should let students and staff members have more time to pay. Workers who hand out the tickets should be more honest about the times, and finally tickets should be doubled every 20 days, instead of 14 to 15 days. College is hard enough with the workload and all the sources of stress. Ticketing shouldn’t be one of them.
