While it didn’t draw much of a crowd, Tuesday’s public hearing on proposed University fee increases did draw some heated criticism.
Fourteen people attended the hearing, which was intended to allow students, faculty and staff to voice their opinions on a number of proposed fee and fine increases for 2002-03 — including a proposal from the Department of Public Safety that would allow a fee of up to $5 to register bicycles. But students who attended the hearing in the EMU Board Room said the University did not do a good enough job publicizing it.
“I couldn’t even find the room,” junior Kiva Rice said afterward.
Rice came to object to the proposed bicycle registration fee, and called the meeting “inaccessible.”
“I just saw the article (in the Emerald) this morning,” she said. “If this was a more accessible meeting, I think every single student who rides a bicycle would have been here.”
Rice apparently wasn’t the only person to find out about the hearing late. ASUO President Nilda Brooklyn said she didn’t even hear about the meeting until after it was over.
Donna Chittenden, who presided over the hearing, had no comment about the accessibility of the meeting at press time.
Others had no complaints about accessibility, but did take issue with some of the proposed fees.
Hilary Berkman, director of student advocacy, raised objections to the bicycle registration fee as well as a proposal to increase the fine for cyclists and skaters who failed to dismount and walk in designated areas. She also objected to the proposed creation of an education practicum fee. Berkman said complaints like Rice’s might be avoided if departments made more of an individual effort to inform students about their proposed fees.
“The problem is that people don’t know about the process, they don’t know about the proposals and they don’t know about us,” she said.
Like Rice, Berkman took particular issue with the bicycle registration fee. She called the proposed fee a tax and expressed concern that it might discourage people from riding their bikes to campus.
But Rand Stamm, parking and transportation manager for DPS, defended the fee, saying the estimated $10,000 to $12,000 per year the fee would bring in would help offset the cost of the bicycle registration program currently in place.
Under the current system, students are required to register their bikes when they first come to campus. The system helps DPS keep track of bicycles on campus, and in the event a bike is stolen, the registration might help DPS find the bike, Stamm said.