Caroline Rhoads
The Communicator

Within the first three days of spring quarter 1,358 students had obtained their parking pass  and by April 14th, security had already issued 155 citations. The majority of tickets came from parking within the white lines, which are reserved for faculty, expired meters, and failing to either obtain or display a parking pass.
Chief Administrative Officer Greg Stevens, said the revenue generated from passes and paid citations goes to three places: security, parking facilities, and commute.
The commute portion gets two percent of the revenue and helps the school pay a portion of the fees for bus passes.
One of the goals for this was to cut down on the demand for parking, according to the parking services task force final report for 2011.
According to that same report, CCS believes that parking should be “a self-supporting enterprise that does not draw budget resources away from the operating budget.” The school is “not allowed to use state money to maintain parking,” Stevens said.
The 49 percent going to facilities covers important services such as keeping the lots drivable in the winter by laying out de-icer or sand (and removing it) and snow removal. It also covers general maintenance like re-paving it, filling potholes and painting lines.
In 2009-2010, when the winter was so bad, the parking budget actually went into a deficit, according to Stevens, but this year since the winter was milder there might end up being a surplus. In that case it would be saved for future use or projects such as paving lot P-3, the one by building 24. That project would cost around $700,000.
Security also gets 49 percent of the revenue from citations, which pays for training officers, paying salaries of the part-time workers, contracting outside security on nights and weekends, and buying equipment,.
One such piece of equipment is the T2 ticketing device, which allows officers to take pictures and print out citations on the spot. “We’d like to get two more” said head of SFCC campus Security Ken Demello. These devices are limited by their inability to access and send data in real time. Upgrading them to wireless would be costly.
Currently, students who receive citations must wait 24 hours to make an appeal, since the devices must be docked at night to upload information via cable. Wireless capabilities could influence whether or not a student receives a warning versus a citation, “the more information we have to make a decision, the better decision we can make,” Demello said.
Students and faculty that receive a citation but don’t want to pay the ticket have the option of submitting an appeal online. The appeal will be seen by an appeals board that is made up of students, faculty, and staff. According to WAC 132Q-20-265, the appeals court should look for “institutional error(s)”, “good faith effort(s)” and “extenuating circumstances” among other things.
Larry Massey, a current communications professor at SFCC, served as a board member for four years, but left nine months ago.  “What I’d look for is a trend” said Massey, “we had students and faculty who were consistent offenders.” Common considerations include the number of other tickets, severity of the infraction and logicality of the excuse.