Parking department experiences transmission failure
The fourth week of the fall semester is complete, and most faculty and students are still without parking permits.
During the summer, the distribution of parking permits was moved from the police department, which had formerly handled the permits, to a newly established parking department.
“The decision was made several months ago to establish a parking management department within the facilities management division, allowing the police department and its officers to focus on their primary mission of law enforcement and public safety,” said Harry Glass, the operations supervisor with the UHCL parking department.
Paul Willingham, UHCL police chief, said under the police department, parking has always been a tertiary activity at best.
“The Police Department’s primary mission is the safety of the campus community,” Willingham said. “By making parking its own department, the university can bring to bear personnel that have an expertise in parking management. For example, the new parking manager has twenty years experience in managing university parking infrastructure. While in the early going, the transition has experienced some technical difficulties, in time, the new organizational structure will better support the university’s growth.”
The technical difficulties Willingham refers to prevented the new system from being in place in time for the start of the fall semester.
“The initial ‘Go Live’ date was delayed due to software reconfiguration,” Glass said. “Prior to going live, we found that some of the software features needed to be changed in order to accommodate the university’s needs as it relates to parking management and permit sales.”
Faculty and students were notified that parking permits would be available for purchase Sept. 4, but the parking department announced the suspension of sales Sept. 5.
“We experienced credit card transaction errors causing the denial of some credit cards,” Glass said. “We immediately suspended the sales of all parking permits until the cause could be determined and resolved.”
There still is no official date when sales of parking permits will resume, but the parking department announced sales should resume soon.
“We are confident that a resolution has been found and are currently testing the software prior to resuming the sales,” Glass said.
Mary Miller, communication major, said she isn’t bothered by the delay; she’s more concerned about paying full price as a part-time student.
“I am a part-time student that is only on campus for one day per week,” Miller said. “I don’t think a student that is only on campus one day per week should have to pay full price. It would be nice if there were a prorated rate factored into our tuition when we register for classes.”
There will continue to be no parking tickets issued from the police department until the new system is fully integrated. Once the system is up and running, a confirmation email will be sent to all UHCL email accounts with full instructions on how to purchase a parking permit.
