TRANSPORTATION

public sector unions like the Texas State Employees Union are ineffective when negotiating with the university for pay raises.

This is not a union campaign, but rather a wage campaign. With this in mind, the purpose of the informational picket and press conference in November was not only to launch the campaign but also to help gain awareness for the cause.

"I think for a lot of people who are fortunate enough to not have to work on campus ... they might just not know that Texas State pays so low," Maglich said. “I think that's part of you know ... just a lot of people just aren't aware that the university pays so low."

Maglich describes the effects that this campaign can have if achieved can help students and their quality of life.

"I think I think it would be immense. When the university is undervaluing and underpaying student workers, they're underinvesting in everyone because it's the student workers that make the university run." Maglich said. "If workers are not able to afford their rent or food, then they're not able to do the best job that they can at the university. A lot of employers want to talk about work performance or productivity, but if you're not being paid enough to survive, how are you going to perform your best?"

More information on Young Democratic Socialists of America at Texas State can be found at https://www. dsasanmarcos.org/ydsa. The Campus Worker Interest Form can be accessed at https://linktr.ee/txstydsa.

By Christian Martinez News Contributor

Students continue to raise concerns about parking on campus regarding space, tickets and ticket prices. Texas State Parking Services have cleared the air about different questions students have and what the plan is for future parking issues.

Steven Trentice, associate director for parking and transportation services, works with various departments like the Student Government and the Office of the President to figure out different parking rules and regulations.

A large concern among students regarding parking is the price of a semester pass. Trentice said current parking pass prices have been in place for years.

"Those prices were developed in 2014 and they haven't changed,” Trentice said. "We're not a rulemaking body. We don't write the rules. We don't write the policies. Of course, anytime something may change, or somebody makes a recommendation for change, we're involved but we don't have the authority."

tiny little thing in the world goes up to a vice president that we talked about rates, all the rules and regulations are essentially blessed at the president's cabinet. Not on a weekly basis, but if it's substantial or significant would have to go through that level," Trentice said.

Since Texas State welcomed its largest freshman class this past fall, some students raised concerns about how that would affect parking spaces, but Trentice said they have no correlation to parking space availability.

"The new freshman class hasn’t affected parking at all," Trentice said. "There's no correlation between the number of people on campus and the number of vehicles brought. There's no predictive element that you can run a power analysis to determine a correlation. Why does that mean more cars? Where are people drawing that correlation? Where's the data to support that that's the way it is?"

Currently, there are no plans to create any new parking accommodations for students according to Trentice.

"Even if we wanted to, there’s no more space to build ... The school cannot accommodate that. The infrastructure around the school, and the roads, there's only three major points of ingress to this university," Trentice said.

Sydney Morgan, a business management junior, has had negative experiences with parking and transportation services on campus, even having her car broken into.

"I genuinely detest the lack of parking that campus offers to students," Morgan said. "My freshman year I couldn’t afford to park my car at my dorm, as a result, my car was broken into and hit while being parked far away at the Mill Street perimeter lot. Parking Services seems dedicated to ensuring they get their funds from passes and continuous ticketing but can’t be bothered beyond that. The price of parking passes for the value received is a rip-off and I believe parking should be more affordable."

Catching Valentinis-Dee, an urban and regional planning senior, and Taylor Tade, a political science sophomore, are both advocates for their petition to reduce the parking ticket fine from $40 to $20.

"The university has the capability to lower these fines, and our students are being treated unfairly because they are not already doing it," Tade said. "This is an unfair charge to our students, most of who are already paying hundreds of dollars to park on campus. We are a university that swears we protect low-income students, and that's not being reflected in this policy."

Valentinis-Dee encourages students to speak out for what they believe in and said that other people might believe in the cause too.

"The university pays attention when you speak, and change is possible. When students come together to talk about something that they need, the university understands that students are facing challenges with parking every single day. If the students are ready to talk about it, then it can be changed."

To President Kelly Damphousse, the push to create more space for parking via parking garages is not feasible at the moment due to costs.

"You could build parking garages and so every parking garage cost about $40 million and so I could do that but I'm going have to raise parking fees to do that or raise tuition or something," Damphousse said.

Trentice said that parking and transportation services just enforce the rules, they do not make them.

"It is just a change within something that exists that every

For more information about parking and transportation services at Texas State, visit https://www.parking.txst.edu/. For more information about the parking fine petition, visit @ ParkTXST on Instagram.