Oklahoma Christian University campus police went on a “parking ticket spree” Monday, Sept. 17, ticketing anyone parked illegally on campus or without a parking sticker.
Chief of campus police Greg Giltner said the increased enforcement began after staff members complained of students parking in their designated faculty and staff parking spaces. Staff spots are designated with white lines, while student spots are marked as yellow.
“This actually started about three weeks ago—I’ve written about 220 tickets myself over the past three weeks,” Giltner said. “This past year during Take Flight, we gave [students] a form telling them where they could and could not park. I was averaging probably 50 tickets per day for about three or four days.”
According to Oklahoma Christian’s parking regulations, parking and driving privileges are authorized by academic classification and it is the student’s responsibility to upgrade their decal each year. Freshmen and sophomores have blue decals, juniors and seniors have maroon, graduate students have gray and faculty and staff have white.
According to senior Carson Brown, failing to upgrade her decal caused her to recently receive two different parking tickets.
“I am a senior and I never thought to change my parking sticker from freshman year,” Brown said. “I got two tickets in two days for parking in a spot that would usually be legal, but since I had the wrong sticker, I got ticketed.”
Brown said she felt there were better ways campus police could have responded to the situation, like sending out an email to all students reminding them of the parking regulations.
“When I went to the station, they just gave me a new sticker,” Brown said. “I didn’t have to pay or anything. I feel they are wasting time by ticketing everyone only to give them a sticker. Just send out an email or a reminder in chapel or something. It’s a waste of everyone’s time to just ticket people and have them freak out and stress about paying it, only to give them the sticker when they came in.”
Like Brown’s situation, the majority of tickets issued were later dismissed or reduced, Giltner said.
“It was mainly for awareness,” Giltner said. “Two things I want them to know, effective immediately, are if you’ve been given a warning and you still continue to park over there, it will be $50. Secondly, it’s an opportunity for those who don’t have a permit to come over here and get one.”
According to campus police officer Derrick Ross, ticketing students is not for monetary gain. He said they want students to register for a parking so they can park in the correct areas, avoiding faculty spots, and also for safety.
“You hate to think about this, but what if there is a school shooter?” Ross said. “We’re scrambling around trying to keep the students safe—it’s much easier for us to look at a car, see the parking pass, have them hold up their ID and then send them on their way. If you don’t have a pass, then we have to search your car, and that takes time.”
Giltner said the parking situation on campus this fall has also been complicated by sophomore students living in apartments due to construction on Wilson East. To help resolve the issue, sophomores who live in the apartments can stop by the campus police office to receive a temporary parking pass, Giltner said.
“Because of the living arrangements with Wilson, it’s unfair for me to expect them to walk all that way,” Giltner said. “So if I put a ticket on their windshield and they come in, I’ve given them a temporary parking pass so they don’t have to walk.”
When picking up a vehicle decal from the campus police office, students are asked to present their Oklahoma Christian ID, current driver’s license, vehicle license plate number, current liability insurance and name of insurance agent. Students can pick up a decal between 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
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