California Lutheran University's Student Newspaper Since 1961

The Echo

California Lutheran University's Student Newspaper Since 1961

The Echo

California Lutheran University's Student Newspaper Since 1961

The Echo

Parking fraud at CLU

According to Campus Safety, students may be avoiding CLU’s parking regulations by parking illegally on campus.

“There seemed to be an increase of lost permits,” said Fred Miller, director of Campus Safety. “There was a number of students claiming their permits were falling off or being stolen.”

Before Thanksgiving break, Campus Safety was notified through a third party that resident students might be peeling off their permit stickers in order to park in other parking lots, including the administration lot.

Miller said that there would be no reason for stealing another student’s permit because there is no value to them.

However, they do not yet have proof that students are actually ripping off their stickers.

KC Costonis, a sophomore living in Mogen Hall, said that she has heard of people stealing parking permits from cars in the past and it worries her as a student.

She said that she recently heard about an issue where a permit was stolen from another resident’s car.

Costonis said one resident student’s boyfriend came to visit and wanted a closer parking spot.

“He doesn’t have a visitor’s pass, he doesn’t have anything,” said Costonis. “He took the resident pass off somebody’s car and stuck it on his car for a couple of hours, and then he stuck it back on the car when he left.”

Miller said that there are signs Campus Safety officers look for when patrolling the campus. These include vehicles parked on a regular basis without a permit, as well as the sticky residue left on a vehicle after a permit has been removed.

Lee Morris, a security officer for Campus Safety, said during his shift he looks for anything out of the ordinary, such as cars parked the wrong way, parked in handicap spots without placards, red curb violations, permit violations, etc.

He patrols the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, so he says he personally doesn’t find a lot of permit parking violations.

“It’s easily an eye-catcher when looking for proper permit parking. To see either an expired permit or permit that looks like it’s falling off,” said Morris.

Miller said they can easily check license plate numbers. The office keeps track of permits each student receives at the beginning of every semester.

He said that if anyone is caught purposely removing their permit sticker from their vehicle, they will be subject to a $100 fine and can lose their parking privileges on campus for the rest of the semester.

“This is not a serious issue, just an inconvenience,” said Miller. “It ties up my resources to do other things.”

Miller said that the university evaluates parking either to change policy or add more parking to accommodate students.

 

Heather Ford
Staff Writer
Published Dec. 5, 2012

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