MSA proposes parking plan based on seniority

RHA is planning a proposal to be ready by early next week.

By Kaylen Ralph

Published Feb. 5, 2010

MU student organizations and offices are, on varying levels, debating the issue of campus parking.

Missouri Students Association President Tim Noce approached the Parking & Transportation Services office with a parking system proposal that would give seniors and upperclassmen precedence over underclassmen, specifically freshmen.

"This large influx of freshmen who have come in are taking more spots in garages than they would have before," Noce said. "Each time the freshmen class gets bigger, more and more seniors lose their spots to freshmen."

Noce said a seniority-based system could contribute to alleviating that problem.

"The plan I want to have in place is that the garages will be based on seniority only instead of underclassmen who live in residence halls getting to pick before seniors," Noce said. "This is a system that will let the 75 percent of students who don't live on campus be able to have a better spot than they do right now."

In early October last year, the Residence Halls Association passed a resolution asking for the pricing of garages to be based upon their distance from campus and whether students assigned to those garages are required to move their cars on game days. Parking and Transportation Director Jim Joy said student government has not approached him with any type of proposal.

"I did attend a student informational meeting before they voted, then I think it was going to go back and get revisited," Joy said. "There is a lack of homework, it doesn't mean anything is wrong, it's just incomplete. The Parking Office coordinates parking for campus, faculty, staff, students, hospitals as well as the VA. Within all of those systems there's both histories as well as procedures."

RHA President Rachael Feuerborn said she would have a proposal regarding any parking restructuring ready by early next week.

"I'm not releasing our stance on restructuring the parking until I have the proposal finished," Feuerborn said. "It'll probably be Tuesday of next week, after I talk to MSA president and then the director of parking. After I talk to both of them, then I'll have my proposal ready on the parking changes."

In regard to Noce's plan, Joy said a seniority system is already in place.

"If an upperclassmen moved into the residence hall, they would get priority over an incoming freshman, but they're dealing with those areas we consider dedicated to residence halls," Joy said. "Now I hear they're only concerned about the garages."

Joy said in the Virginia Avenue Garage, approximately 500 spots are reserved for individual students in residence halls and more than 600 are reserved for non-residence hall students. Those 600 students are assigned spots based on a seniority system that starts with graduate students and assistants to seniors and so on. Spots are reserved first and foremost for employees of Life Sciences.

"I don't think it's fair to say there are 500 freshman parking in VAG when those spots could be for seniors, that's what the main problem is," Noce said.

Joy also brought up the point that Parking & Transportation Services provided an additional approximate 600 more parking spots for students when they took responsibility for the development and maintenance of the lots around the football stadium.

"There is absolutely a seniority system in place," Joy said. "The other thing that happens with this system is that we have windows of opportunity for renewals based on the same thing. It's a strict schedule."