IUSA president caught in web of parking tag theft

Not even high-ranking student officials are immune to the parking permit theft fever of 2005. \nOn Wednesday, IU Student Association President Alex Shortle joined the pool of victims who have felt the sting of "hang-tag" burglary. \nMore than 30 parking permits have been reported stolen to the IU Police Department this year.\nShortle said the theft could not have been too difficult to execute, since he drives a soft-top Jeep Wrangler. He said he knew it was just a matter of time. \n"I kind of expected it," he said. \nShortle had a DP tag and an E tag. DP tags are departmental tags, said Doug Porter, manager of IU Parking Operations. \nA DP tag, used in conjunction with any other valid IU parking tag, allows a driver to park on any non-restricted campus spaces. Departments and groups like IUSA have traditionally used DP tags as "errand permits," Porter said, meaning that they were shared by offices and used by anyone who needed to run on-the-clock errands. \nPorter said 160 DP tags, which cost the same as A permits, have been purchased this year. IUSA usually purchases two of these tags each year, Porter said. \nShortle said he acted quickly to report the stolen permits. Parking Operations invalidates stolen permits and issues a new permit to the victim the instant the thefts are reported, Porter said. \nAbout one-third of the invalidated permits are recovered, Porter said. He said this number is low probably because a lot of invalidated permits are lost and not stolen, and even if the owners find them, they see no reason to report them.\nParking enforcement officers sometimes perform random lot searches, typing permit numbers into their handheld computers to see if they come up invalid. But the most common way people get caught, Porter said, is through parking illegally. \nUnauthorized use of a permit yields a $200 ticket and sometimes involves the person's car being towed. "Sometimes we turn them into the dean of students," Porter said.