Parking committee numbers could change
November 3, 2009
Amy Poppinga
A revised proposal to change the size of the Parking and Traffic Committee will keep the number of student representatives at its current levels.
The most recent proposal allows five students to sit on the 11-person committee. The Residence Hall Association and Students’ Association would each appoint two representatives, while the dean of the Graduate School would select one graduate student to sit on the committee. Non-faculty/exempt, faculty and career service employees will have two representatives each.
“The student representative numbers will stay the same, but they will come from different areas,” said Matt Tollefson, SA president.
“Once we sat down and talked about it, it was a really good process,” Tollefson said. “It was a good show of administrators listening to students’ needs.”
SA members disapproved of a prior draft of the proposal, which reduced student members on the committee by two, down to three representatives. Based on that draft, the committee included three faculty, three career service and two non-faculty/exempt employees, two students appointed by the SA and one graduate student appointed by the Graduate School’s dean.
The SA passed a resolution against this proposal in September and then met with administrators to work on a compromise.
The voting members of the current Parking and Traffic Committee are five students appointed by the Students’ Association, three faculty and three career service members, the designee of the assistant vice president of finance and business and the facilities and planning designee. The university police chief and past committee chairperson are both non-voting members, according to the committee’s bylaws.
Bob Otterson, executive assistant to the president, said administrators are still discussing whether this proposed composition is the best, and if this it is, when the new structure will be implemented, he said.As for the Students’ Association, the members are pleased with the new proposal.”I think it’s a pretty good compromise,” Tollefson said.
