Lot 1
Graduate student Yehuda Katz received a parking ticket in October marked with a make and model that didn’t match his car. It was meant to be placed on the car next to his, and according to law, a valid ticket must have all the correct information. Honest mistake.
But his ticket appeal to the Department of Transportation Services was denied, and there was nothing else he could do but pay up.
Last summer, DOTS terminated the second appeals process for parking tickets, a system that allowed students to appeal a ticket twice if they found the first appeal to be unjust. This semester, members of the Graduate Student Government Assembly and the Appellate Board of the University Student Judiciary are working to bring it back.
If a student receives a DOTS parking violation ticket, he or she can appeal by filling out an online review request on the DOTS website and mail or bring in his or her ticket to the DOTS offices. Student appeals are reviewed by the Student Ticket Review Section, which is composed of students who work for DOTS. The ticket would then be voided, reduced or the appeal would be denied. The student would be notified a few weeks later.
After this appeal, according to the DOTS website, “All DOTS parking review decisions are final.” But that wasn’t always the case.
Before it was cut, DOTS’ second appeals process allowed students who were still unsatisfied to send their tickets and claims to the Office of Student Conduct, where the University Appellate Board, a part of the Student Judiciary would review them.
“The revocation of the second appeal process affected both undergraduate and graduate students,” said Josh Bittinger, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in criminology and criminal justice and member of the appellate board. “As long as the person who was submitting a second appeal was a student at the university, the appellate board reviewed the appeal.”
Alex Bistany, a senior government and politics major and chairwoman of the appellate board, wrote a proposal to be sent to the University Senate requesting the return of the second appeals process.
“Discussions need to occur with DOTS as the current system in place is unfair and biased,” she wrote in her proposal. “All of the funding DOTS receives is from parking tickets which is in itself biased.”
Katz, a member of the GSG Assembly, helped draft a separate piece of legislation asking for the second process’s return and agreed that the current system possibly provides a conflict of interest. He was also upset by the second appeals process’s sudden termination.
“DOTS, without notifying anyone, canceled it,” Katz said.
David Allen, DOTS director, said keeping the second appeals process running was costing DOTS $10,000 per fiscal year — money the office had to pay the Office of Student Conduct. It was too expensive to maintain, he said, and they had to cut it.
Allen said that students could present their opinions about the return of the second appeal in an upcoming fee review session.
“It’s very simple. It’s a question of money,” Allen said. “If students want to pay for a second appeal by levying $10,000 in additional, nonmandatory fees in the parking fee, we can do it.”
Bistany, in her proposal, addressed the cost issue.
“This price can easily be negotiated or potentially even waived as the Appellate Board would potentially be willing to do its job for free,” Bistany wrote. “The price of this service to DOTS needs to be renegotiated and a policy needs to be put in place that requires there to always be a second appeals process.”
Bistany sent her proposal to the Student Government Association, which she hopes will have the power to change the current system and reinforce the second appeal.
The GSG legislation, which was submitted Tuesday to the Graduate Student Life rules committee, is to be presented at the upcoming GSG Assembly meeting on Feb. 21. Members of the assembly will then vote on whether the legislation should be pursued and eventually brought to the University Senate.
Bistany wrote in her proposal that the issue with the second appeal came to the appellate board’s attention when DOTS officials informed the board that they no longer wanted to pay them for the second appeals process for this fiscal year.
“I would like to see the second appeals process reinstated,” Bistany wrote. “The Appellate Board of the Student Judiciary is ready to fulfill this need at any time.”
