Keene State College’s parking office is doing the best it can to create a positive image as well as make the parking policies more prominent.
“A lot of the policies that we’ve changed in the last year are customer service focused, which was a big goal of mine, to make the perception of the parking office more positive,” said Jazmin Kellis, the parking operations coordinator.
Kellis has had this title under her belt for a year now and she has made many changes to the parking program to better suit the needs of KSC’s students, faculty and the surrounding community.
“I’ve made tons of changes. This position was new when I came in. They kind of made this position more autonomous,” Kellis said.
Some of these changes include: extending the parking office’s hours, working with other organizations on campus, gaining a technologically upgraded system such as creating a Facebook page for the parking office and allowing students to purchase their permits online.
By creating a Facebook page and working with other on-campus organizations, Kellis felt it would make the parking policies better known.
Kellis has had the opportunity to work with Residential Life, RA’s, and other student organizations.
The Facebook page now allows students to access the parking office’s contact information, receive updates from the parking office and they can scan their “QR code.”
A “QR code” is a barcode you scan into a smartphone and it automatically brings you to the KSC parking office Facebook page. This page was created in June 2013 and has approximately 35 “likes.”
KSC junior Jane Plummer said she has heard of the parking office’s Facebook page and feels a “decent” number of students have seen it as well.
Although Plummer no longer has a parking pass due to living off campus, she has had them in previous years.
Plummer never had an issue with parking herself, but she said she knows of a couple of students who have gotten tickets.
“I think [the tickets] were like fourty dollars,” Plummer said. What Plummer thinks the parking office can do to create fewer “infractions” is to make the policies more clear.
Brendan Kuist, a sophomore at KSC, also feels that the parking policies should be clearer, especially when it comes to guest parking.
In order to relieve some confusion, Kuist said he thinks having guest parking passes similar to the guest passes on the meal plans would help solve that issue.
“I know they have all the information on their website but it’s a little difficult to sort through,” Kuist said.
Kuist has had a run-in with the parking office when his car was towed from the parking lot behind Fiske Hall.
According to Kuist, “It was all according to policy. They weren’t in the wrong to tow me.”
However, on top of having to pay for his towed car, they slapped a ticket on his car as well, costing him approximately $300.
That is twice as much as he paid for his Winchester Lot pass for the year.
“I don’t think they understand how much three hundred dollars actually costs to someone who is a freshman in college. I think it should be one or the other,” Kuist said.
Hillary Smith and Olivia Mendoza, both seniors at KSC, have also had some troubles with parking on campus. Mendoza received a $15 ticket for parking in the faculty lot behind the gym. “I knew I was doing something wrong. I knew I shouldn’t have parked there and I made the conscious decision to keep it there so I didn’t bother to fight it,” Mendoza said.
Smith, on the other hand, had her car towed from the lot she had a pass for.
According to Smith, the winter of her freshman year she had her car towed from Winchester Lot, even though she had her parking pass, because she technically did not park in a spot.
“It was in the winter and they hadn’t plowed the lot so you couldn’t see the lines for the spaces and I thought I was parking in the spot closest to the bridge, but apparently I parked on the grass,” Smith said.
Smith’s towing fine cost her $250. Although she tried to fight the fee, Smith ultimately lost.
“They sent me an e-mail saying your rebuttal has been denied and you just have to pay for it,” Smith said.
Both Smith and Mendoza have not heard of or seen the parking office’s Facebook page. Mendoza said she thinks the parking office should have sent out an e-mail to those who bought parking passes this year to inform them of the page. Smith said she called the parking office recently and felt she should have been informed of the Facebook page then.
However, the Facebook page and its information can be found on other campus organizations’ pages.
According to Kellis, the other organizations also post her parking information from the parking office’s page to their Facebook pages as well.
“The res. life has been very cooperative, and they post all my stuff on their Facebook pages and all the RAs as well have been trained,” Kellis said.
For those who do not know of the parking policies, there are a lot. There are 10 types of parking passes that can be purchased through the parking office.
The most common ones are those for the Winchester Street lot, the commuter lots, for those living off campus, and passes for the Pondside II and III lots as well as the Owls Nest lot.
The price for a pass in the Winchester Street lot cost $90 a semester or $150 for the year. Passes for this lot are available to all resident students. Unfortunately, all passes for this lot are sold out.
The price for Pondside II, III, and Owl’s Nest cost $250 for the year. These are made available only to students who reside in these housing options.
Lastly, a commuter pass cost $75 a semester or $125 for the year. All parking permits can be purchased online at https://keene.thepermitstore.com.
The commuter lots and KSC faculty/staff lots are available from 4 p.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday for any public vehicle, parking pass or not. However, guests who will be staying overnight during the week need to obtain a visitors pass from the parking office to prevent ticketing or towing of their vehicle.
According to Kellis, she has enforcement staff checking the lots 24 hours a day. Her staff includes student workers, campus safety officers as well as herself.
“We technically can ticket every four hours, but in the spirit of it being a college campus I have trained my staff to be very choosey about when they stack another ticket,” Kellis said.According to Kellis, cars are only towed once they have been ticketed three times or have shown this behavior before or are ignoring the policies.
The parking office has the most issues during “Pumpkinfest with guests and students parking on the lawn in the Winchester Lot along with vehicles being parked in the faculty and commuter lots without permits on regular days, “ Kellis said.
One last piece of advice, “Just make sure you know this stuff because it’s really expensive if you don’t,” Brendan Kuist said.
The full list of KSC’s parking policies can be found at https://www.facebook.com/KSCParking or www.keene.edu/campussafety/parkingrules.cfm.
Shannon Flynn can be contacted at sflynn@keene-equinox.com