Every student I’ve talked to about the University’s plan to increase parking fees next year is upset.
Except the student senators.
Most students say the plan to triple parking fees next year and double them the year after is simply too much. They say the fees should be applied only to those students who want to park in the garage, just as is being done with faculty and staff. They say the plan would actually create more congestion because there’s no incentive for students to take alternative modes of transportation like walking, biking or carpooling.
But apparently the Student Senate didn’t agree. A few weeks ago the Senate voted unanimously to support the proposal.
Initially, when I heard about the vote I didn’t give it a second thought. After all, the vote didn’t really have any binding power.
But then I thought about it.
When the administration wants to know how students feel about something they ask the Student Senate.
That’s because the Senate is supposed to represent the students. It’s supposed to be looking out for their best interests.
But obviously, that didn’t happen in this case.
The Student Senate’s unanimous vote gave the administration the message that students support the plan. But most don’t.
This means that at some point along the way there was a major breakdown in communication. How could every senator vote in favor of something that the majority of students oppose? Do they talk to any students besides other student senators? Do they just not care what students think?
I don’t think that’s the case.
But I think in this situation the Senate rushed a decision that was much more important than any of them realized.
Two members of the administration explained the proposal to the Senate’s Executive Board on the Wednesday night before their Friday meeting. The same two administrators presented the plan to the full Senate that Friday.
In that same meeting, the unanimous vote was cast to support the plan.
I know that many of the student senators are smart people, but in a plan that’s so complex which affects thousands of students, you’d think they’d take more than an hour or two to think about it (if it was that long). You’d think they’d at least wait a week so they could talk to their constituency, the people who voted them into office, to see what they thought about it.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, the Senate supported the measure, probably because, in the few moments they had to consider it, they thought it would help the parking crunch. That’s what students want, isn’t it? They’ve been saying it for years.
And as Senate Treasurer Justin LaBerge said, “It’s not going to come from the parking garage fairy.”
LaBerge is right. There are few who would say there shouldn’t be some increase in parking fees.
But the issue isn’t that the fees will increase, it’s that the plan unfairly puts the financial burden of the parking garage solely on the shoulders of the students, whether they drive or not. The issue is that students have no choice in the matter. The issue is that the plan was thrown together so the administration could get out of a mess with the Portland Planning Board.
I wouldn’t expect the average student to know any of that. It’s not the average student’s job to research such things or know the whole story.
That should have been the senators’ responsibility.
But in this case they failed.
The Senate has been saying for years that it wants to do more than simply dish out money. It just missed its big chance.