In open letter to Doug Porter, IU Parking Operations Manager:
We in Bloomington are a simple people. We till our lands. We fish our waters. We like our burritos to be as big as our heads. While I expect to pay outlandish prices in big cities and airports, never did I expect to pay $40 for a parking ticket here on campus. When more than half of the Parking Operations annual $5 million revenue is generated from parking tickets (Sept. 16, IDS), it says to me this campus has a parking problem. And it's not us. It's you.\nPart of me understands the rationale behind penalizing people $40 for parking somewhere they \nshouldn't. It stands to reason the cost of the ticket should deter students from violating the parking procedures. But the other part of me wants to tell you to stop being such squares about it, and just let us be. \nThis past Tuesday, our basketball team played Purdue at home. Being the loyal fan that I am, I went to the game and parked in the same place I've been parking for the four years I've been coming to home games. If I want to drive to the game, I have a couple options. I could park at Assembly Hall and pay whatever the price is and then spend 90 minutes after the game dodging pedestrians with seemingly no regard for their own safety and other cars with even less concern for their own safety just so I can get out of the parking lot. Another choice is for me to get to the game early enough to park in the lot behind the McNutt dorm. Of course, to get there early enough I would have to claim my space three days before the game. Then there's option No. 3 -- the little hill behind McNutt's parking lot. The savvy few who know about it, park on that hill in places obviously not parking spots, but hey, everyone is there to watch a basketball game. Surely you (Parking Operations) can forgive some creative maneuvering so we can do the "A. J. Moye" cheer at the game.\nI thought you did forgive that little indiscretion because in four years of parking there, I never once received a ticket … until this week's Purdue game. There must have been 40 cars that got tickets reading the same as mine: "Not a space." I can only imagine the maniacal glee of the enforcement agent as he or she wrote all those tickets with grim, automated efficiency.\nI wouldn't be writing you if I was dealt just a single injustice.\nI got a ticket at the library because I let my meter expire for 15 minutes. Of course, that was during the good old days when the violation set me back only $30 for denying the University a dime and a nickel. At the time, I wanted to set something on fire, but fortunately for everyone, cooler heads prevailed. \n I'm a reasonable person. I'm not advocating the violent overthrow of your department. I'm only asking that you look to the spirit of the parking guidelines instead of the letter of them. I used that same line in my appeal for the ticket I got at the library. \nIt was denied.\nThey weren't kidding when they said you can't fight city hall -- but that won't stop me from trying. I'm still going to park on that hill for the next basketball game. See you there.
Hugs and kisses,\nScott Gorsky
