Semester parking permit fees at Bakersfield College’s main campus, and the Delano center, will increase from $20 to $30 beginning in the fall 2004 semester, according to Dean of Students Beto Gonzalez.
“Raising the parking fees is just an effort to keep up with the cost for maintaining parking facilities and the cost for continuing to provide quality parking services,” said Gonzales. The parking fee had not been raised for a while and needed to be adjusted, he said.
News of the fee increase was met with mixed reviews by students on campus.
“It’s understandable,” said Matthew Poarch, a Bakersfield College sophomore. “It’s 30 bucks a semester, that’s twice a year, that’s not too bad.”
Even students who do not purchase parking permits weighed in.
Victoria Simon, a political science major who does not drive, sympathizes with the students who have to pay extra.
“I think it’s kind of like a joke. They get enough of our money already,” she said.
Rodrigo Roque, a freshman, said, “It’s all right, because I don’t have a car. But when I get a car I’m gonna feel like — why?”
Along with the permit increase, parking fines, which haven’t been raised in about 15 years, will also increase $10 from $25 to $35, according to campus security Chief Mark Graf. He said higher parking fines are necessary because they hadn’t been raised in so long, but expenses in the parking lot have gone up. He feels both increases are necessary.
“I wouldn’t have recommended it if I had not felt it was necessary,” said Graf.
He added that some of the money will be used to implement a new parking management system that should help alleviate long lines for permits. It also will help in researching trends in parking violations so they can “try to work with the students to limit those violations,” said Graf. “We don’t like giving tickets out.”
Both increases were approved by the Board of Trustees on March 4. The board reviews all student fees in March of every year, and students can voice their opinions at the meetings through a citizens’ hearing, according to Beto Gonzalez.
All parking fees collected are designated only for parking services or to reduce the costs to students and employees for public transportation to and from the college, according to California Education Code 76360.