Temporary Halloween parking permits for over 700 hundred UCSB students were rendered invalid yesterday in a last minute decision from campus authorities.
Transportation and Parking Services notified Associated Students around 3 p.m. that temporary parking permits — previously endorsed by TPS for use — would no longer be honored on campus this weekend. Instead, those who have ordered parking permits but have yet to receive their permanent version in the mail must go in person to the TPS office by 5 p.m. today to pick up an official pass. Tickets for using a temporary pass on campus will start at $300.
According to A.S. External Vice President of Statewide Affairs Cori Lantz, TPS has been changing its policies daily, making it nearly impossible to keep the student body abreast of crucial changes.
“The story and the processes keep changing,” Lantz said. “The problem is that anytime we inform students about what the process is, things have changed the next day.”
However, one last-minute decision made by TPS yesterday that will benefit students, Lantz said, institutes a grace period between the 3 p.m. deadline to remove cars from selected I.V. streets and the 5 p.m. start time to park permit-bearing cars on campus. Prior to yesterday, students would have been ticketed in the 2-hour transitional window.
According to A.S. President Paul Monge-Rodriguez, anyone who has ordered a permit online and is waiting for it in the mail has to cancel the shipment order and go to the permit ticket office before 5 p.m. to pick up the correct permit. Applicants for an official permit must bring valid identification and proof of having purchased a permit.
Monge and Lantz said last night that the A.S. Executive Board would work to reverse the TPS decision — ensuring that temporary permits would be honored — but that they won’t know if they were successful until later today.
Wow, could TPS be more incompetent? It’s the friday before halloween, most people don’t even have class today.
What if you’ve already parked on campus with your temporary permit and left town?
Do you have any friends in town with access to your keys? If not, call tps and ask them to please reverse the decision. And prepare for a runaround and a 300 dollar parking ticket
TPS Sales and information
(805) 893-2346
TPS is the most incompetent department on campus, and that’s saying a lot…While not everyone there is a full-fledged idiot, a lot of them are.
Oh yeah. The guy running TPS now has a swelled head but actually is an idiot.
The university is being run by idiots who are paid way too much.
TPS does it again! These people are nuts. Who is running this department?
Robert Defendini, Director of TPS
(805) 893-7032
Most of the people who work there are actually pretty nice. Robert Defendini seems to have been a problem ever since he was put in charge however.
And Mark Fisher hired and supports this guy.
Yeah, I’m not at all shocked by what I read here. I knew Bob when he was in the Marine Corps. He never struck me as an idiot–quite the opposite, in fact, but he was always an arrogant, condescending jerk.
I’m just saying.