Spring Break
A day in the life of a parking enforcement officer
My Nguyen
Issue date: 11/4/09 Section: News
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1,200. About the number of citations given out in a month.
13. The number of parking enforcement officers working on campus.
Parking regulations at SJSU are enforced 24 hours a day, seven days a week, said a University Police Department representative.
"If enforcement does not occur consistently, people tend to get lax and commit violations, because they think that there is no enforcement during that specific time period, and they get mad when they get a ticket," UPD Sgt. John Laws said.
Junior business major Jennifer Sablan said she disputed a parking citation and ended up not paying for it, but said it was a long process for something trivial.
"I was in a rush getting to class," she said. "I found parking, and ran to buy a permit. I tossed it on the dashboard and when I came back to my car, I got a ticket because my permit fell and wasn't showing."
Laws said there are five full-time parking enforcement officers that work on campus, as well as eight student assistant parking officers.
"Parking enforcement officers are trained by a senior PEO, using a department manual as a guide," he said. "There is a formal UPD training program manual for parking enforcement."
Junior kinesiology major Brian Ukpabi said that when he had a problem with purchasing a daily parking permit, the parking enforcement officer who assisted him was helpful.
"This one time, the machine took my money, but didn't give me a permit," he said. "I found a parking officer and explained to him what had happened, and he wrote me out an all-day parking permit. My day could have started badly, but the parking officer made it better."
Laws said parking enforcement officers are assigned specific areas as their primary responsibility.
Most assignments are based on needs and time of day, he said.
A Day in the Life
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