We admit it; we’re jealous.
We speak for the dozens of student employees who work to make City College a great learning environment. All student employees sacrifice their personal time to do their job for our campus—this fact isn’t limited to the student senate.
Therefore, The Channels Ed Board believes that if the officers of the student government who volunteer their time to campus get to receive special parking passes, then all student employees should as well. Everyone should be rewarded for their time and effort with easy access to their jobs.
We can’t help but wonder why student government officers are the only students who are gifted personal faculty parking passes.
Parking has been an ongoing issue for years at City College due to the fact that the California Coastal Commission denies permission to the school to build more structures.
Priscilla Butler, English as a second language professor, attempted to defend the student government’s conditions in a faculty-wide e-mail: “The executive board meets on Mondays as well as the regular senate meetings on Fridays. They need to be available on an as-needed basis.”
This is true. By no means do we neglect the fact that the officers put in extra time at City College. However, they aren’t the only ones.
There are a number of other students who need to be available on campus on an ‘as-needed basis.’ The security department, food services, student tutors, and other employees clock in an equal amount, if not more, hours than the student government’s Monday and Friday meetings.
A member of our very own editorial board was issued four parking tickets in two weeks because they needed to log hours for their campus job with The Channels. They ended up parking illegally in order to make it to their assignment on time.
Not only are the student officer’s parking passes unfair to other student employees, their passes take away parking spaces from full-time faculty members. The temporary campus store already takes up a handful of these spaces. Faculty should be the only people to park their cars in the faculty lots, period.
As an alternative to granting student officers faculty spots, there should be an assigned third category of parking. Parking spaces should be designated for the student government and all student employees in student parking lots on both East and West Campus. It’s only fair that as students we take our own student spaces.
Clarification: Feb. 20, 2017
A previous version of this article stated that student government officers are student employees. They are publicly elected officials and don’t receive any form of financial compensation.
