Public Safety has their hands full with illegal parking on campus. As many as 125 parking tickets are issued every week.
“We’re not trying to be traffic cops,” Charlie Schaffner, the director of public safety, said. They have not had any moving violations so far this year. Schaffner continued, “Those don’t happen often.”
Tickets are generally given out for parking violations. A $25 fine is issued for a standard parking violation, but higher amounts are often assigned for greater offenses like parking without a permit or parking in a fire lane. “For the first two weeks we issued ‘Parking Monster’ tickets just to remind people to get their permits and park in the right places,” Schaffner said.
“I was ticketed for parking in the handicapped spot outside House One,” AnnMarie Greenwald, a sophomore, said. “I don’t think I’m going to fight it.”
“There’s always opposition when you get ticketed,” Schaffner said. “It’s one of the most controversial issues on campus.”
Junior Mike Cottone is a commuter. He does not have a parking sticker for his car and was ticketed for parking in the lot behind Founder’s Hall. “I lost my insurance card, so I had to call my insurance company to get a new one. I told the guy [at Public Safety] that, and they wouldn’t give me a temporary one. So I got a ticket while I was waiting for my new insurance card,” he said. Cottone received the standard $25 fine, which he intends to fight.
“When there’s no parking, we don’t issue tickets,” Schaffner said. “But a lot of times people don’t want to walk from the Dixon lot to Founder’s. I understand people want to be close to their classes.”
Freshmen violators are fined twice. They are charged for the initial parking violation, and they are charged again for parking without a pass, for a total of $50.
Freshmen exhibiting a legitimate need are often issued a parking sticker. Because of this, there are no more freshmen violations than in past years, despite their greater numbers. “We haven’t turned too many people down,” Schaffner said.
Sophomore Tom Langston was ticketed several times as a freshman. “Last year I wrote a letter requesting to have my car for the week, but apparently I requested to have my car too many times. When I brought my car back they told me I couldn’t have it for the week. They gave me three tickets during the course of the week.”
“I paid some of them,” Justin Gray said in reference to the tickets she received freshman year.
Unpaid parking tickets are billed to Cabrini accounts. “The registrar told me that I had to pay $155 in parking fines before I could register for classes,” Langston said.
