Although the Parking Committee approved the use of discretion by officers when ticketing, the vagueness of that proposal has spawned a new recommendation.

The original proposal was “too vague and needed to be more specific,” Parking Division Manager Lynn Fraser said. As a result, the recommendation now states warning tickets might be issued in two cases, including when a transferable sticker is visible and on a car’s dashboard, but not suctioned to the windshield. The other case is if, at the beginning of the workday, snow conditions are such that parking lines are not visible.

Originally, the committee recommended officers be given more discretion when administering parking tickets by allowing them to issue warning tickets when a “violation appears to be inadvertent.”

Parking Committee Chairman Robert Bornhuetter said, “Parking officers are trained only to see if a regulation is being violated, they are not trained to make decisions.” Fraser said, “If given discretion, the officers could make the judgement to not ticket a friend’s car.”

owever, “officers are already making that judgement,” said committee member Bill Parker. “The cost of the rigid enforcement is a very significant one that the campus has suffered in ill will.”

The idea of issuing warning tickets grew from concern about an increasing number of appeals involving transferable permits. Before warning tickets were recommended, tickets were issued for improper display of permit, including cases when the permit was lying on the dash or floor of the car. Fines for this violation are $2.

Bornhuetter said ticketing for such situations wasted about 500 man hours because of the time involved in issuing the tickets and reviewing the appeals.

The parking division is gathering data this semester in an attempt to estimate the seriousness of the problem. “Less than 300 appeals have been filed for improper display of permit this semester,” Fraser said.

She said the amount of appeals is not a lot when compared to the total number of transferable permits issued—about 5,000. In order to appeal a fine, people must make a written complaint.

“We need to accumulate data to determine whether to discontinue the use (of transferable permits) next year,” Fraser said.

The recommendation is scheduled to be approved at the December Committee meeting and then must be approved by Jim Harder, interim vice president for business and operations.