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New System Limits Student Parking

By: Tim Chai <[email protected]>

Pulling into the upper parking lot at the beginning of the school year, senior Dan Frascella noticed another student’s car in his designated spot that he received for being student body president.

“I wasn’t really angry. I just figured that people didn’t catch on to the fact that spots had been assigned this year,” Frascella said.

Students can receive parking passes for a myriad of reasons, including having medical problems or even having serious injuries.

Along with different security measures, the school has also created a new parking system to help curb the amount of illegal parking in the upper lot this year.

According to Officer Gene Stilts, who administers student parking passes, parking rules are the same as last year with the exception of the numbering system.

Stilts said that he began implementing the new measure last year in response to numerous students without passes parking outside the stadium lot in the past.

The new system will encourage more students to help the police deal with potential parking offenders.

“In the previous years, if you had a pass, you could park somewhere in the lot, but now you have to park in a specific spot,” Frascella said.

“I think (the new system) is more effective, and it probably helps out the police officers because they now immediately know if someone’s parked in the wrong area.”

Stilts said that keeping students in the correct lot was a difficult task last year. “It was an everyday battle to keep students (without parking passes) at the stadium lot,” he said.

“Plus, parking passes are given to students with medical maladies like broken limbs, severe asthma and back problems whose applications are approved by me; it can be very harmful for them to walk to school from the stadium lot.”

Senior Liz Altman, who chipped a bone in her foot during the summer, received final approval in her application of a parking pass.
She said that her doctor filled out all the paperwork and all she had to do was take it to Stilts’s office. Altman will be able to park in Spot 0105 in the trail lot for a duration of three weeks.

“I really don’t anticipate any problems with the parking spot,” Altman said. “At least, I hope not.”

Stilts warned students not to violate any of the student driving regulations as stated by the student handbook, which lists punishments like fines and even recommendations for possible expulsion if necessary.

In addition to the upper parking lot, Carmel Christian Church and the Carmel Clay Public Library parking lots are among others also off limits to students.

“I’m going to be a lot harder on students who break the rules,” Stilts said. “Last year, I gave warnings and called down students to park their cars elsewhere.

“This year, students will go automatically be ticketed, and consequences will be dealt with accordingly; I’m not going to go through all the trouble of giving students a warning.”

The new parking system seems to be working. Although official data has not yet been collected, Stilts said that he has seen improvements in the problems he faced last year.
As for Frascella, he said he isn’t really worried about the incident that occurred earlier this year. “I expected it would take a couple of days for people to realize that you can’t park everywhere in the upper lot.”

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