Students argue against residential parking permits
Cars parallel parked near Tracy High on 12th Street.
February 28, 2014
Concerns have been raised over the state of parking for Tracy High students, both on and off campus.
Limited parking spaces on campus along with the loss of parking in front of City Hall has prompted several students to take the issue to city council.
Overflow students looking for spaces have been forced to park in the “neighborhoods” on 12th Street and Berverdor Avenue. Tension with residents has led to a push for residential parking permits, something the students are fighting.
“I think the parking situation should have been dealt with years ago when it first started to be a problem,” senior Sabrina Briggs said.
Senior Dalton Gualco shared the same opinion.
“Tracy Unified School District should have made enough parking spots for all of its students,” Gualco said. “Now with city council kicking us out of fully functional legal parking spots, many people are left without parking.”
Not only is it difficult to get a parking spot in the morning, but it’s worse for students in specialized classes such as a Regional Occupational Program (ROP), where they are able to go off-campus and work with kids for the first two periods of the day and don’t come to school until the beginning of third period.
“As an ROP student we are left with no on-campus options for parking, we don’t get to school until third period when all the spots are full,” senior Megan Alves said. “We have no opportunity to carpool because we have different work sites and we are not allowed to take public transportation, which leaves us no choice but to park in the neighborhoods.”
Residents of the neighborhood have been complaining about the trash on their lawns and disrespectful students who park in front of their houses.
Senior Aditya Gupta had an opinion about what students should be doing.
“If students are a bit more respectful towards the neighbors and don’t litter or vandalize, such problems would not be so overbearing,” Gupta said. “There is no use making our neighbors mad when we are consistently parking on the streets where they live.”
Students feel as if their point of view was not being considered, so many went to the City Council meeting on Feb. 4.
“I chose to talk at the city council meeting because I wanted the students’ side of the story to be heard as well,” Gupta said. “The media had been getting a lot of coverage of the neighbors’ side, when our voice is just as important.”
Briggs said it was unfair that students were being treated like babies instead of adults.
Gualco agreed with Gupta and thinks student opinions were disregarded.
“The city council has been fed biased information by the residents and have no idea what is really going on for the students,” Gualco said. “I felt that they needed to be told the situation from the students’ side.”
Juniors at Tracy are also concerned with what will happen with the parking issue that has become a big talk around school.
“The inconvenience caused by the inability to park in alternate lots or spaces such as the neighborhood or City Hall is understandable from the opposing side,” junior Brian Jordan said. “Yet the discontent of Tracy High students is belittled and disregarded. Change is necessary.”
Many seniors have been thinking of solutions to fix the parking problem and hope to get the permit parking postponed until the district comes up with a final solution.
“Tracy High should start implementing a reserved parking policy with a $10 semester fee,” Gupta said. “There should be certain criteria required to receive a permit such as fifteen or less Saturday school hours.”
Briggs came up with a similar idea.
“Creating a parking policy at the school would help fix the problem or have students pay for a parking spot,” Briggs said. “At least until enough money is reached to either build a parking garage or buy more land.”
Tracy’s principal Jason Noll sent a letter home on Feb. 20, to students regarding the current parking situation.
Assistant Principal Lynn Dell Hawkins says the school district has been coming up with solutions for a while.
“We have already hired extra security that has been walking around that neighborhood for the last year. I have somebody walk out there with a trash bag and pick up trash,” Hawkins said. “I go out there myself, and have gone door to door to ask if there have been any problems.”
Hawkins is also aware that parking has been a problem for several years.
“About a year and a half ago is when the neighborhood first started to say that they wanted to have permits,” Hawkins said. “Ever since then, even with the budget crunch, we have been hiring extra security and go out to talk to kids asking them to pick up their trash.”
The next City Council meeting, which will address the Pilot Permit Parking Program, is on March 4 at 7 p.m.
