Parking services, or as some may call them the vultures of Auburn University, shed light on their mission and reasoning behind unpopular ticketing.
"If this university didn't have us out here on foot patrolling, these students would be parked everywhere," said Barbara Barnes, parking enforcement officer. "[Students] would be on top of the buildings."
The strangest place that Barnes has seen someone park in is right off of Biggio Drive by the intermural fields.
"He had jumped the curb and his front end was stuck down in the ditch," Barnes said. "His butt was sticking up in the air."
Safety is the number one factor that parking services revolves around, said Don Andrae, manager of parking services.
Parking services is also improving their system of educating students on rules and regulations.
"It's obviously working because the number of tickets is decreasing and same with the appeals," Andrae said. "The number of appeals decreasing to me means that the students understand the rules and why they are getting the ticket."
Between Fall 2011-2012 students have gotten total of 7,645 tickets and that number has since decreased from Fall 2012-2013, students have only gotten 4,301 tickets total.
Next Camp War Eagle sessions, parking services will have a break out session with the incoming freshman.
"We'll be able to get them right away and let them and their parents know the rules of parking," Andrae said.
Parking services stresses that although some students may feel targeted, they are just doing their job.
"This one student, who received a ticket, happened to be an athlete, so I went to the athletic department and told them 'I just want to let you know that this person did this. And all we're asking for is respect. We're only doing our job,'' Andrae said. "We're not trying to pinpoint anyone for race, color or athletics. All we're trying to do is our job and it's a job we have to do and we want people to respect us for it."
Parking services does not come up with its own rules and regulations.
"Whatever the traffic and parking committee says is a rules, we have to enforce, whether we think it is right, wrong, just, it doesn't make a difference to us," Andrae said. "If there's a rule we have to enforce it. Some of the rules are not very good and we'd have to write a ticket, but a rule is a rule."
Permits are extremely important to parking services.
"We have no idea who they are [with no permit], so what are they doing on campus," Barnes said. "We want to know who they are."
For those who have gotten tickets at 4:59p.m. here's why.
"The reason we do it up to exactly 5:00 p.m. is because the faculty staff are the ones that told us that they would like us to patrol at that time, simply because they would like to go home at 5:00p.m.," Andrae said. "We have been working towards two things; trying to get faculty to change they're going home time to 4:30p.m. or changing class times to start at 5:15p.m."
As for the answer to additional parking for campus, Andrae said it's unfortunately not going to happen any time soon.
"An example I always use is if I went to the Board of Trustees and said I need $7.5 million to buy a parking deck and Dr. Jones comes behind me and says he needs money for a academic building, he's going to get the money," Andrae said.
Parking services does a lot more than just give out tickets.
"We handle all the parking that has to do with graduations, even if it's on a Saturday we're here," Barnes said. "If there's a special event coming up we have to monitor parking in lots and we direct traffic."
Parking service is on duty at least two to three hours before all games and at least two hours after each game.
Parking enforcement officers also look out for unsafe conditions on campus.
"If we're scared that a student might get hurt from it we call [Andre] and he takes care of it," Barnes said. "If there's a big hole in the ground that we're scared someone might set off into it."
Even after 12 years of working for parking services and handling the students harsh opinions, Barnes believes parking services gets better every year.
"I know this sounds crazy, but during Camp War Eagle, you can tell what students are going to be your trouble students and what students are not by the way they act," Barnes said. "Not trying to single anyone out, I've just done it so many years I just know what I'm looking for."
Students are recommended to talk to the parking officers or parking services directly if they have any questions.
"I listen," Barnes said. "That's what we're supposed to do. If a student asks me something I'm going to stop long enough to give them my opinion on what I think it is; not only the students, but the parents too. We're not out to just write tickets."
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
