Issuing tickets is not a primary concern for campus police at Bakersfield College, according to campus police Sgt. Jess Soto.
“You can’t say, ‘Each year I want to write this many tickets,’ because there is no such thing as a quota as far as we’re concerned,” Soto said. “Our sole purpose on this campus is not to write tickets … but to provide service to the college community and to keep the normal business flow day after day.”
In 2001, more than 1,600 tickets were issued to BC students.
“Anywhere between 1,500 to 1,700 is an average amount of tickets to issue per year,” Soto said.
But when tickets are issued, Soto said that money from them goes toward paying off processing fees, surcharges to courts and parking penalties to the state.
“We don’t handle any money … it’s out of our hands,” he said. “Money from tickets is also given to Buisness Services at BC, and that money by law has to be divided for construction and refurbishing parking lots.”
Some tickets have been issued to BC students since the semester has started. Several BC students have been found to be parking in the staff and visitor parking lots.
“We have a problem in trying to make students know that they can’t park as a staff or visitor,” Soto said. “It seems our student population continues to grow every semester. But as the semester goes through, we write a couple of citations and students seems to understand they can’t park in staff lots or they have to pay citations.”
BC sophomore Christian Urbina also agrees that the increase of students on campus contributes to parking problems.
“There’s more students here and it’s more crowded,” he said. “For a class that starts at 10 a.m., I have to be here by 8 to get a parking space.”
Soto also said that most of the parking violations occur in the northwest parking lot.
“Students seem to want to park closer to their classrooms and most of the violations occur in the northwest lots,” he said.
BC students who receive parking tickets can process an appeal within 21 days of when their citations were issued.
Soto said the appeals process allows BC students to have their cases reviewed by a third party hearing examiner.
“The appeals process is successful,” he said. “It gives a chance for students to state their concerns of why they shouldn’t receive a ticket. At the same time, if the ticket is not (selected) for dismissal that means that they still have another chance to fill out another form and go to a hearing examiner, a retired judge, who is here once a month and they can go in person or write a letter of declaration on why they shouldn’t have … a ticket.”
BC students who cannot afford parking permits can park for free in the southwest parking lot, which is in front of the baseball diamond.