Gas is for Lighting, Cars are for Parking

GAS IS FOR LIGHTING, CARS ARE FOR PARKING

Riddle me this one, Robyn…

BY JACOB INGRAM

It’s time for a polemic aimed at parking services. Polemic— a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something. Parking. You know it; you probably hate it. How do we really get down to the bottom of this parking clusterfuck? Let’s start with the history of this so-called “service.” The oldest parking permit price I could dig up was from the 1975 to 1976 school year, found in the old course catalog. In the fall of 1975, before the first episode of Saturday Night Live, before Muhammad Ali downed Joe Frazier, it cost $15 per semester to park. Tuition and fees for 12+ units? $95. Minimum wage? $2 per hour. Wouldn’t it be nice to pay for tuition and fees with as little as a week and a half of work?

But hey! This is a parking attack piece, so let’s keep it moving. In 1992, I was a baby, but LBSU students were paying $54 per semester for parking while tuition had ballooned to approximately $1,300. Today in 2022, we enjoy parking rates that have grown out of control. $250 per semester. It is just completely indefensible. Even more so, as our school rolls around the pig shit label of being a “social mobility” university while turning the screw on every student possible for that sweet parking cash.

The parking website hides so much critical information such as the department line item budget behind an excessive number of clicks. When you don’t even offer the names or pictures of your staff, what makes you think people will side with you? Among five separate FAQ sections on the website, the first question they tried to answer was: “Why do I have to pay for parking?”

The answer starts exactly how you would expect: “Parking fees are shared and equitable. All individuals who utilize parking facilities on campus must also share in the cost of providing these facilities and services regardless of status (employee, faculty, student, etc.) or guest designation.”

First off, it’s not equitable, you dummies. Equity has to do with outcomes. How is it equitable when you compare a student’s commute with a career-level staff member’s commute? An art student might commute from the other side of Los Angeles everyday, be relegated to a distant parking lot, then enjoy a slow-bake in their windowless, unventilated room while career admins who make six-figure salaries have parking spots just a hop and a skip from their office door.

The parking fees are not equitable in how they are assessed and administered. Those making full-time salaries should absolutely be paying more than students. This preferential treatment of staff members goes all the way up to the top, as President Jane Conoley and her office love to help Parking and Transportation Services astroturf, or artificially beautify, their annual reports.

From the 2017 to 2018 annual report to the most recent one, you will find the parking annual reports filled with a section bragging: “We Deliver Superior Customer Service!” My question is, for who? The 2017 to 2018 report features feedback from a single student and it was a past ASI student president thanking them for fast responses. The 2018 to 2019 report had zero student feedback. The 2019 to 2020 report: one student. The 2020 to 2021 report obscures the source of the feedback further; while previous years included the job titles of people leaving feedback, including lots of deans, full time professors, and director-level staff, this year’s report doesn’t feature that. But it does feature repeat feedback givers from the President’s Office; shout out Neal Schnoor.

When the only people giving you anything resembling a compliment about your service are affiliated with you, is this a fair and equitable service? We’ve barely scratched the surface of what you might not know about parking.

There is the lingering scar tissue around the parking offices lack of actual incentives to get people taking alternative transportation on and off campus. The Metro U-Pass program used to provide students with a “free” bus pass. This program has eroded into a shitty discounted bus pass. Meanwhile, parking cannot even pretend they care. If you really cared, you would be helping the City of Long Beach build a light rail across town.

Instead of light rail efforts, we get overflow parking efforts that would have you park in the next county over. Total farce. Instead of student workers getting a parking perk or benefit, we got our remote working options rescinded in the middle of summer and still couldn’t even park in the lot closest to the 22 West Office. But it's okay, the usual administrative pencil pushers will eventually get back to you, except they will not until they need a cheap DJ for Smorgasport on a Saturday.

Instead of a bus pass that works, we get social media posts explaining how the G-15 lot actually isn’t a general parking lot at all, you dumbass. Instead, it’s all short-term parking, but hey, at least there is the illusion of general parking on that side of campus. There’s also the sneaky removal of parking alternatives. Local homeowners have complained for decades about LBSU students parking in their neighborhoods; preferential parking arrived and now the city will ticket and tow your ass.

So, as affordable parking options dwindle ever further, you find the parking fee schedule to be an increasingly dastardly power and money grab on campus. It takes a lot of nerve on this campus to empty your pockets and flop a five-year long plan for fee increases on the table.

As we are in the second of the five years of these fee increases, let’s ponder this orb. How much money do they need? And how much money will they get? Compared to the $210 semester parking pass last year, and this years’ $250 joint, the fifth year parking fees at $380 per semester has students looking at campus inequity in the face. Let’s get budget-y real quick. The 2019 to 2020 school year reflects $10.4 million in revenue from permit purchases at a time when the parking permit cost $140 per semester. Campus enrollment figures place the student population in the fall of 2019 at 38,076. If everyone had paid $280 for a year of parking, you would hit $10.6 million dollars. Pretty good conversion rate overall.

Let’s assume that there are 40,000 students on campus in 2025, the final year of this five-year, fee-hiking gulag. If 40,000 future students all paying $760 per year to park would balloon that hypothetical $10.6 million to an eye-watering $30.4 million in 2025. Will every student buy one? No. While $30.4 million may seem like a skewed number, the high-water mark for Parking and Transportation Services budgeting is around $12 million in revenue and $12.8 million in budget expense, both 2017 to 2018. So $30.4 million is the absolute best case estimate, if they even hit $15 million. As a result of this, the parking office has successfully conned students and made out like bandits.

Where the hell is all this parking money going? We have already built over the campus unless President Jane is about to get real saucy in regard to Puvungna, or we will just see another parking structure go up that will take decades to pay off and then the undergrads for 2030 can deal with the mess we leave them. The current budget already allocates almost $3 million per year toward debt service, stuffing another $2.3 million into a “construction reserve” that then makes their budget run in the red with a deficit totaling $1.08 million, meaning if they held off on juicing the construction reserve this past year, they would have a balanced budget. Full stop. Why do the fees increase again?

I won't pretend to know their budget inside and out, but with fees only ever going up, the parking office is begging to be the subject of an investigation around financial transparency and accountability. The whole school could benefit from an auditor’s microscope crawling up some departmental asses, but then again the Foundation Building is such a special, special place, they get their own designation on the parking map. Lastly, without any evidence to prove it beyond some hearsay from a few birdies around campus, Parking and Transportation Services apparently is operated via a 3rd Party contractor? Can’t find a single thing about that on the website or the parking reports, but I would love to print something salacious to force a reply. Afterall, I have been through the woodwork before.

You can throw boo Jake online @QuantumGeography Formal reprisals can be directed to radiomanager@22westmedia.com The bravest souls can visit 22 West on the first floor of the USU. Inquire within.