University of Virginia Library

Petition Requests Omission
Of Projected Parking Fee

By CLAIRE BRITTAIN

The Fair Parking Committee of the
University has drawn up a petition
requesting the Board of Visitors to
reconsider its June decision to institute
pay parking on the Grounds at "a charge
of no more than $15 a month."

The petition is a product of the work
of Penelope P. Ideson, editor at the
University Printing Office and secretary of the
Fair Parking Committee, and her fellow
employees at the printing office. It is being
circulated among faculty, employees and
students of the University. It mentions four
major objections to the parking fee.

First, the petition states that the salaries of
many of the University employees are between
$4,000 and $7,000-"demonstrably
insufficient" to support their families at today's
living costs. The extra cost of parking will only
increase the unmet needs of these families,
according to the petition.

The second point labels the fee as
discriminatory in its action by being a case of
"double taxation." As taxpayers, the faculty
and staff are "already paying for the operating
costs of the University."

The Committee says there is need for
increased financial support of the University,
but it argues that "the problem should be
solved where it originates in the General
Assembly, Richmond, where state
appropriations are voted." In this sense, the
parking fee can be thought of as a case of
"taxation without representation."

The Committee denounces this
discrimination, stating that it "strongly opposes
this solution to the parking problem which
comes from the pockets of the employees
rather than the purses of all the taxpayers."

The third objection labels the fee as
"punitive." It explains this stand by pointing
out the lack of any "public mass transit
system" available to the employees of the
University who are then "inequitably penalized
for their inability to find other means of
reaching their place of employment, and thus
avoid the payment of this parking tax."

The fourth argument is a reminder to the
Board that employees of other state divisions
are not required to pay a parking fee.