La Voz

Issue date: 1/29/07 Section: Opinion

As if the new quarter wasn't hectic enough, De Anza College students had to deal with yet another hassle. The parking permit system that was tried and true has now been radically changed, officially starting this quarter. With it came a whole new procedure and a new batch of headaches.

The days of walking into the cashier's office, waiting in line to buy your permit and leaving with it are over. Now students must order their permits online through the registration system, and then it's mailed to their home.

The cashier's office doesn't have permits at hand anymore, just the "temporary" parking permits. If students choose to pay online with a credit card, the process seems simple enough. However, it comes with a hefty fee: up to six dollars extra in fees.

For cash-strapped students, every dollar counts, so to avoid this they have to wait in the cashier's line and pay in cash. Anyone who has waited in that line in the beginning of the quarter knows how long it can get. Once you reach the cashier and pay, you get the temporary permit and have to wait for the real one to come in the mail.

And if the permit somehow never reaches your home, good luck trying to prove it. The current policy will not replace lost or stolen permits, and students are not even able to buy another should that happen. Permits lost in transit are a hard case to prove, and are likely to end in buying $2 daily permits or parking across the street.

This system has given the workers at the cashier's office a lot of heat from disgruntled students. Remember, students were not given any warning, just a few pieces of paper taped to the wall and computers in the student services building. It makes things more expensive and complicated than it has to be.

Ben Rodriguez, Assistant Director of Campus Safety and Security, helped implement the new procedure. According to the news article published last week in La Voz, Rodriguez will meet with "cashiers, accounting, registration and data processing personnel" to discuss the effectiveness of the new procedure.

Hopefully they will realize all the unnecessary trouble it caused with for students and cashiers.

Bottom line is, we just want our old system back. It was simple, it didn't have any extra fees, and students could order online if they wished. As the old saying goes, "don't fix what ain't broke."

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