Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Ann Premer, Editor Jamie Holman, Business manager Gerry Doyle, Managing editor Sara Cropper, Retail sales manager Angie Kuhn, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news advisor Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Monday, April 26, 1999
Seth Jones / KANSAN
Editorial
Students should know their rights about appealing parking tickets
Parking tickets are nearly inevitable for any KU student who chooses to bring a vehicle onto or near campus.
Offenses can be as minor as not parking within the lines or as significant as illegally parking in a handicapped space. Either offense can be met with a glaring pink envelope full of monetary consequences.
In most cases, the person receiving a ticket is in the wrong. However, it is possible for the parking department to issue tickets in error.
Students should know when they have the right to challenge such tickets.
Don Kearns, parking services director, recently spoke about the topic to a group of residents at Battenfeld Scholarship Hall.
Kearns said cars without permits that are parked in residence hall lots can only receive one ticket a day. If a car is parked longer than 24 hours or has been moved to a different space in the lot, it may receive additional
Department not allowed to issue multiple tickets in residence hall lots.
tickets.
The parking department stresses that this is only true in residence hall lots. In other lots, as well as at metered spaces, more than one ticket may be issued.
If a student has received more than one ticket in a day, he or she has the right to confront the parking department through a personal appeal or an ex-parte appeal.
A personal appeal requires the student to fill out a form describing the wrongful issuing of the ticket, including drawings and photographs if necessary.
Three justices will review the appeal and decide whether a court appearance is necessary. If it is, an attorney will be assigned to represent the student at a 30-minute hearing at traffic court.
If a student does not wish to appear in court, he or she can file an ex-parte appeal, which will be judged solely on the content of the written appeal.
Students with questions or concerns about ticket appeals can examine the parking department's Web site at www.ukans.edu/~parking, which contains rules, regulations and other useful information.
The parking department, like any other University agency, is not perfect. It is capable of making mistakes.
Before students pay hard-earned money for a ticket, they should be aware of their rights. They also should be knowledgeable about ways to fix the problem.
This could not only ease the process of getting a ticket voided, but it also would ease the often tumultuous relationship between the parking department and students.
Kathryn Jensen for the editorial board
Feedback
Recreation groups deserve thanks
When working on the Recreation Advisory Board, I was able to see some of the nicest facilities in the country, many of which are at Big 12 Conference schools. On April 15, something happened that I did not think I would be around to witness: A new recrea-
I would like to thank all of the people who had put in so much hard work and effort, and thankless hours of blood, sweat and tears. I can't wait to come back in a few years as an alumnus and be able to see KU's wonderful new rec center.
ation center was approved by the students of the University of Kansas.
University realize the great opportunity that has now been presented to them. You are all very lucky, and I hope you will all enjoy the fruits of our labor. Congratulations, and thanks to the Recreation Task Force and Recreation Advisory Board. The best things come to those who wait.
Kansan staff
I hope that the students at the
Damon Miller Overland Park senior
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broaden your mind: Today's quote
"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Rene Descartes
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staufer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ryan Koerner or Jeromy Dekerhy at 864-4924.
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Perspective
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Campus needs Safewalk in face of parking woes
T am going on an adventure tonight.
I am packing pepper spray, hiking boots, a headlamp, three flashlights and food in case I get lost.
Am I going camping in the northern woods? No, not really.
Am I going to the Congo, you ask?
I am walking to Watson Library from my house.
You scoff at my preparation for this journey. I can hear you all screaming, "Drive! For Pete's sake, drive!"
Driving to Watson was Plan A. It would have
Jamie
Patterson
gopinion@kansan.co
worked just fine if Addendum 1 to Plan A had not been an issue. What is this slight detail? Parking, of course.
As almost every college student knows, when driving a car, one must eventually
Park — as in stop, pull over, remain in one place for a while.
As far as I know, pulling up onto the lawn of Watson and calling it a parking job just isn't cutting it these days.
Unfortunately, you also can't leave your car running, hazards flashing, for more than a few hours. Our friendly and persistent parking department will absolutely ensure it.
So the only option left is parking your car in a certified, official parking spot.
There is, of course, a problem with this. On any given night there are no spaces in the entire county where your car could fit in between two painted lines.
If, by chance, you find a spot, you can count on walking past where you came from on your way to the library.
Considering all this and more — I'm going with Plan B. and I am walking.
Instead of facing the relentless (and friendly) parking department and its regulations, I'm going to brave the journey on my own.
I'm going to face a campus scattered with emergency phones here, there, but not everywhere — dark streets, quiet corners and dangerous sidewalks with
only my pepper spray and my three heavy flashlights to protect me.
Funny, but I could have sworn that other nearby universities, such as Kansas State, have a safe-walk system where one call will get you two escorts wherever you need to go.
Now, why wouldn't a great big University like ours have something like that to offer its students?
Some of you may have asked yourself this question on campus, near your residence hall or in the Watson stacks. If you actually found a parking spot in Douglas County, it was probably behind Blake Hall if you were going to Watson, or by the stadium if you were going to the Kansas Union. These are the two buildings used the most after the sun goes down, yet the parking available is both sparse and potentially dangerous.
Many students find themselves walking to their destination to avoid parking, or walking long distances from where they parked their cars.
Considering all of this, and accepting that we will never have enough parking on campus to conveniently accommodate the masses, why aren't we trying to change something that won't cost the University millions of dollars in concrete?
The University needs to implement a safe-walk program that will ensure student safety, and students should demand it.
Remember those people last week who were diving through crowds to get a coalition pin on your backpack?
Now that they are elected,ask them about their plans for campus safety demand better and then hold them to their promises.
A safe-walk program would not only be beneficial for students late at night; it also would enable me to leave my pepper spray, headlamp and three flashlights at home.
I will, however, hold on to my hiking boots and the food. It is always better to be prepared.
After all, it is a jungle out there.
Patterson is a Minneapolis junior in English.
Distractions from news are sometimes welcome
I woke up, and I suppose that went well
The following story is almost completely true, except for the parts I made up, which are most of them.
enough. Something seemed wrong, though. Some sort of impending doom that was just waiting to ruin a perfect day before I'd even gotten out of bed.
I guess it was the sun.
We've never really gotten along that well,
and its bright light flooded my retinas in a way that seemed to mock my lack of enthusiasm for the day.
H.G.
Miller
opinion@kansan.com
"I got up on time," it seemed to say.
"What's your problem?"
Pulling the blinds shut, I began rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and walking to my bedroom door, which I missed by about four feet, thus walking into my closet.
After saying a few choice words to some of my favorite Biblical characters, I untangled myself from the hangers and headed for the safety of the bathroom. Here is where the real trouble began.
Maybe some of you have had this similar experience: The bar of soap has disintegrated into a few slivers about the size of toothpicks. Having learned that conservation is essential to our survival as a species, you carefully rub these shards of soap across your body, hoping to catch everything.
Needless to say, about halfway down your left leg, the soap disappears completely and you're left with nothing but some sudsy water to complete the job.
I happened to be leaning halfway out of the shower, one hand reaching for the cabinet containing a fresh bar of soap, while the other gripped the light-weight plastic shower curtain as my feet desperately hoped to remain in contact with the little grip strips my landlord so lovingly installed in the shower stall to keep me from hurting myself.
So, I don't remember a whole lot about the fall, just that when I came to, the shower curtain had failed to support my weight and was now working as a funnel for the ice cold water spouting out of the shower nozzle.
Don't I have a paper due for lit class today?
I had movement in all of my limbs, so I
One begins to have new perspectives on life when laying on the bathroom floor for reasons not related to alcohol.
What am I doing with my life?
Do you like this way with me?
My meditation was soon ended by a knocking sound at the front door. Still having trouble moving my body, I had just gotten into a kneeling position when the door opened.
"Maintenance," a cheerful voice echoed through my apartment as I quickly realized I had forgotten to bring a towel into the bathroom.
At about this point, most of you probably are wondering where the point is in all of this mess.
"Sure," you're saying to yourself, "we've got you in the bathroom, wrapped up in a plastic shower curtain and trying to explain the situation to a jovial maintenance man who probably doesn't have a full command of the English language, but how does this comment upon the problems of students at the University of Kansas?"
"Ahh, good point." I say.
I guess it seems to me that there are already too many "newsworthy," "timely" and "opinion-oriented" columns in the Kansan and not enough quotation marks. Maybe I'm just trying to justify my lack of interest in the happenings around campus and pawning them off to you as quirky little commentaries about everybody's lack of interest in campus activities.
Nah, that's too easy.
Why pretend any of this was written with a point when I've already forgotten what it is? This column contains no facts, no insights and really nothing of relevance to give you any reason to want to read it.
However, it does have mild violence, situations containing nudity and vague references to profanity.
I hope you have enjoyed my little diversion from the problems of the world, and you may now go back to the news part of this paper and read about politics, war and sports.
Miller is a Hutchinson senior in English.
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