To the Editor:
Strongly opposed to the price hike for parking at USM in the upcoming years, I’ve been reading the editorial section of The Free Press for the past couple of weeks to see how my fellow schoolmates feel. I see that there are mixed feelings, and various offers for solutions.
I have a few solutions to offer as well.
First of all, when the proposal for the garage and lecture hall was released, I found that the advertisement promoting “yes” votes was very misleading. It mentioned in big, bold letters that, should the proposal pass, USM would be granted money for a new parking garage. In tiny print below, it also mentioned that a new lecture hall would be built as well. The major thing with this was, from what I gather, students didn’t read the fine print. They didn’t care about a new lecture hall, as long as the parking garage was constructed. I happened to see the fine print, and voted “no” on this proposal. I felt that we could do without the lecture hall, and just work on the parking issue. My vote didn’t make a difference, as the proposal was passed. Now, the state awarded USM $8 million, which is not enough to complete the whole project as it was proposed.
Because USM fell short of funds, new, ludicrous parking fees were introduced. Many students were outraged and offered several ideas to take the place of raising parking fees. One solution in the most recent edition of The Free Press was to have students car pool. This is a good idea, to a certain extent. How many people in your class have a schedule identical to yours? Not many. I know of one girl this semester who is in two of my classes on the same day. We have psychology in Gorham and then creative writing in Portland right after. We could carpool, yes, but what if she has another class afterwards? What would she do for a ride? Also, what if I had errands to run after class and couldn’t give my classmate a ride? If it were more convenient for my classmates and me, rather than such a scheduling hassle, I would carpool. Carpooling is a great idea, but it isn’t very applicable for the majority of the students at USM.
One thing that I find students are overlooking is that we fall short in funds not only for the parking garage, but also for the lecture hall. Now, what if we didn’t build the proposed lecture hall? Would we then have enough funds to build the new parking garage? I think that $8 million is more than adequate for one. We have enough teaching room at USM, so why push for a lecture hall? Yes, the new building would have office space for professors as well, but why not buy a building a few blocks away for a fraction of the cost of building a whole new building? This would also prevent overcrowding in an already crowded city. If you don’t like that solution, how about this one? Raise parking decals to about $50 instead of $192. To make up for the difference, raise the fees for parking violations.
I agree that we, as USM students, should pay for some of the cost for a new parking garage, but it is not our fault that we have a shortage of parking. If the University is going to allow 10,000 students to enroll, then it should make sure that they have proper accommodations for each and every one of the 10,000 students that they are allowing to enroll. If students are made to pay to make up for the $4 million that USM lacks to carry out its proposed building plans, then perhaps the students will also be charged to pay for teachers during a shortage of funding.
There are alternate solutions to the problem at hand. The people that tend to have a hard time seeing this are some of the university’s officials, those who will not incur the effects of the price hike, and those who can afford to pay the $200 as if it were pocket change. Hopefully they will soon see this problem from a more practical point of view.
Cheri Collin
Freshman, communication major