February 21, 2001
Members Present: Don Batson, Paul Bixby, Brad Bruns, Ralph Davis, Donna Daniels, Ralph Davis, Craig Edmonston, Gloria Fry, Reggie Houser, Jay Huneycutt, Lora Lennertz, Lorraine Lorne, David Martinson, Javene Mounce, Phyl Nichols, Chris Smith, Gary Smith, Miles Sonstegaard, Wes Stites and Jeff Wood. Also present were Johnathan Williams from the "Morning News", Andrew Thomas from the Traffic Appeals Committee, Henrik Tofft from the Traveler and Elaine Quinn, acting secretary.
Craig Edmonston opened the meeting at 1:30. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.
Old Business
1. Appeals Committee Recommendations: Donna Daniels, chair of the Appeals Committee commented that the committee felt like the $10 appeal fee saved the committee a lot of time and they would not like anything changed. Gary Smith said the number of written appeals is down 66.1% from a year ago and the number of successful appeals has remained the same.
2. Request for more Faculty/Staff space in Lot 14: At the last meeting, Beth Schweiger came to the meeting to request more F/S spaces in lot 14 saying that the Sigma Chi’s were the ones using the lot. Reggie Houser did some counts on the Sigma Chi lot. There are a total of 46 spaces with 82 residents in the house and earlier in the day there were 65 cars in the lot. The committee discussed the Faculty/Staff use of lots 14 and 34. There was no motion.
3. Athletic Parking Task Force: The committee met last week to start reviewing how athletic parking is handled by both men’s and women’s athletics. It was decided to come up with a plan and a procedure that puts the students first, if that is at all possible. Both men and women’s athletics were asked to submit a written athletic parking plan to Gary before the next meeting. Gary will review these to see if there is something that can be used and come up with a single plan.
4. Permit Fees. Phyl Nichols presented her reasons not to raise permit fees. Gary Smith’s plan is to raise fees 5% across the board. The plan will generate about $32,500. Parking is self-supporting. The consultant on the Campus Master Plan is expanding on the transportation area of the plan to assist with deciding where the parking decks should be located and in what order they should be built. Once this is completed, the new plan will be available for review. Gary said by January 2002, a residence hall might be under construction in lot 29. Paul Bixby said he had received several e-mails and that the consensus is that “nothing is better” for the increase. In other words, parking is not improved and there will not be more parking spaces but fees are increasing. Other ideas presented were: Wesley Stites said to sell permits according to supply and demand, Chris Smith said to increase the transit fee instead of the parking fees and Jay Huneycutt presented his plan of increasing fees higher than 5% based on a) to help finance parking decks and preserve green space b) create revenue to maintain existing decks c) cover expenses of Razorback Transit and d) meet the goals of the Campus Master Plan. Jay’s plan also reduced the Faculty/Staff split amount from $30K to $21K. Paul Bixby made a motion to do away with the payment split between Faculty/Staff and make the amount set be revenue neutral. There was no second so the motion died. Wesley Stites made a motion to refer Jay’s plan to Gary to look at the numbers and to incorporate the differentials in some of the lots and zones based on waiting lists and to incorporate this dollar amount to construction and size of future parking decks. The motion was seconded and passed. Reggie made a “friendly” amendment to the motion to add Gary’s experience and the staff’s experience on what it does as a reflection of where people go. The amendment was seconded and passed with two no’s and one abstention.
New Business
1. Meter Rates: In future projections, the meters in the deck were supposed to go up 5¢ an hour each year. They didn’t this year. The meters on Maple Street are currently 50¢ an hour. The meters between Garland and Arkansas will be gone this summer. The committee needs to consider raising the rates.
2. Sigma Nu Parking Lot: The Sigma Nu’s have vacated their house but they still have control of their parking under their lease. The item will be tabled until more information can be obtained.
The next meeting is March 7th. The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 p.m.