MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 11A
NEWS
Fee increases for faux permits
Parking department officer John Kruzel drops a ticket on the windshield of a car parked illegally outside Murphy Hall last Friday afternoon. The number of falsified parking permits has increased during the past four years because hangtags are easier to replicate than stickers.
told Mary more she will beakes on the
is his
Maska
Parking Department strategizes to stop artistic offenders
BY NATE KARLIN
editor@kansan.com
SPECIAL TO THE KANSKI
As she looked around the car's front dash, rear-view mirror and back window, Rachael, a student ticket writer for the University of Kansas Parking Department, checked for a valid parking permit.
Rachel, who prefers her last name not be used, found one, but it looked slightly bent. As she looked more closely, she noticed the bottom of the permit had been altered to validate its expiration date.
In the past four years, the Parking Department has confiscated 108 fake parking permits. Each year, the number has increased.
This year, students caught with a fake permit will be fined $100 plus a $30 towing fee. The fine — an increase of $35 from last year — went into effect Aug. 1. It is intended to stress the crime of falsifying parking permits.
"There's sort of an attitude out there that it's not really stealing, it's only parking," said Donna Hultine, Parking Department director.
In addition to the fine, the department may revoke the guilty student's parking privileges for one year, and it sends a breach of conduct letter to the dean of students. Often, the conduct officer in the office of the dean of students places the student on disciplinary probation.
According to Jane Tuttle, assistant to the dean of students and conduct officer, the University works to ensure students understand the seriousness of their offense.
So far its process has worked,
Over the years, the Parking Department has changed the medium of the permits to balance the department's needs with those of the permit holders.
In 1993, the Parking Department replaced the window sticker permit with a tag that hangs from the car's rear-view mirror as part of a five-year permit for faculty and staff that could be renewed.
she said — she hasn't had a repeat customer yet.
Because the parking pass was only moderately successful, Hultine said the department decided to return to the original yearly permit and window sticker.
"It'll be so much easier to just walk down a row of cars and hit [the tag] with a bar code wand to make sure it hasn't been stolen or make sure it's valid," Hultine said.
sticker. However, the faculty and staff wanted to keep the hanging tag, Hultine said. In 1998, the department gave the faculty, staff and students a choice between the sticker and the hanging tag.
Hultine said she hoped that the new permit would be nearly impossible for students to copy: Made from a more translucent material with a hologram, it is more difficult to replicate.
Try as they might, the department can't stop everyone.
mits also provided students with a better opportunity to create fake permits because hangtags are more maneuverable.
But this choice between per-
Rachael laughed at the memory of some of the permits the department had found. This one was larger than the normal proportional three-by-six-inch shape, she said. But that wasn't the only clue it was fake. The permit was colored in with a crayon.
It was at this time that the department started noticing more fake permits.
The number of tickets written for this violation has risen from 15 in 2001 to 36 tickets in 2004
These growing numbers have forced the department to change its policy. The department raised the fine because a yearlong parking permit costs $85.
— Edited by Janette Crawford
This static-cling sticker will be placed on the car's front windshield, but can also be moved from car to car.
The new $100 ticket ties the fine for parking in a handicap space as the largest ticket amount in the department. Beginning in fall 2005, the department will once again revert to the sticker permit, this time offering no secondary option.
Hultine said it isn't fair that students with fake permits could pay less than students who pay for real permits.
BY STEPHANE FARLEY
sfarley@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
Company recieves national research grant
A drug that developers hope will help treat ovarian cancer patients has earned the Lawrence company that developed it a grant to help fund more research.
The National Institutes of Health awarded a $100,000 grant to CrillTech, a Lawrence company working in cooperation with the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.
CritiTech has been working with the center on a new cancer drug, Nanotax, which will treat ovarian cancer. CritiTech researched and developed a process that converts existing drugs into very small particles, or nanoparticles. Nanoparticles help the spread of the drug throughout the body and increase the effectiveness of the drug in humans. Bala Subramaniam, director of the KU Center of Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, developed the process.
MIAMI—Actor Danny Glover backed out of a cruise commemorating the Haitian bicentennial, saying he did not want to appear to support the government installed after Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted as president.
Katherine Roby, research associate professor of anatomy and cell biology and member of the Kansas Masonic Cancer Research Institute, said the grant from NIH would provide more funding for testing. Testing of Nanotax will involve looking closer at how the drug works and where it goes in the body, Roby said.
NATION
Actor Glover turns down going on Haitian cruise
Poet Sonia Sanchez also canceled.
Nanotax is a new form of a standard chemotherapeutic drug, Taxol. Nanotax is different from Taxol, because Nanotox consists of fine particles suspended in a physiological solution, which is less harsh on the body. Taxol is dissolved in cremaphor, which is a harsh solvent. Cremaphor allows the cancer cells to receive Taxol, but it also causes severe side effects in cancer patients. Nanotox would cause fewer severe side effects.
Roby said when researchers tested Nanotax on mice, the results showed that Nanotax had worked better than Taxol and had extended the life of the mouse.
"Due to the increasingly critical political situation in Haiti, which resulted in a loss of life, oppression and incarceration of thousands of Haitians, I have canceled my participation," Glover told The Miami Herald before the Caribbean cruise set sail on Saturday.
"Our hope is to have better treatment for cancer patients," Roby said.
Roby said the grant and CritTech's research showed how the University can support a small business and help it become successful. Without the support of the University, the grant and research might not have happened, Roby said.
Sam Campbell, chief executive officer and chairman of CritiTech said the grant gave a lot of people recognition for the hard work they had done.
"It is a good example of how the University can work with companies and enterprises to bring about significant results," Campbell said.
Edited by Ashley Doyle
About 500 people paid $1,500 to $2,500 to take the seven-day cruise. Celebrities taking part include dancer Katherine Dunham and National Urban League President Marc Morial.
The Associated Press
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