An Open Letter to Mississippi State University’s Parking Services

Dear Parking Services,

Let me first say that you are in the service industry. It's right there in your name, Parking SERVICES. In the service industry, it is the worker's job to make sure the customer is happy, and I can assure you we are not happy.

Recently there was a statement saying that y'all do not oversell lot passes. While that may have been true at the time, since then y'all have willingly given up 2/3 of south commuter parking so that a new engineering building could be built and you took 4 rows of north commuter parking at Barnes & Noble do turn it intonations “pay to park". Why? Was it because the $200-$800 dollars spent on parking passes wasn't enough to fund the fancy new technology that allows you to give us a ticket without even stepping out of the golf cart?

In a short encounter with the president of MSU Parking Services, I suggested that there be more parking. His response was, “if you want more parking then you'll have to pay more for parking passes." Well, I have 3 questions for you:

1. where is the money from the decals we are already buying going?

2. where is the money from the “pay for parking" going?

3. where is the money from the hundreds of tickets y'all are giving out a week going?

If you ask me, I think it's all excuses because Parking Services gains more money from the tickets they give out and the pay for parking then they ever will from raising the parking passes a couple of dollars.

Let me tell you a story of what happens every Tuesday and Thursday in the Barnes and Noble parking lot. Every morning, I leave for class an hour early just to drive around the lot for 30 minutes waiting and praying for someone to leave their spot so I don't have to “pay to park" in a lot I already have a decal for. The only issue is, I'm not the only one waiting to get a spot. People are racing, going the opposite way of traffic, And blocking others from spots just so they can get to class on time.

If I'm going to pay for a parking spot then I should be guaranteed a parking spot.

So, parking services, hear me when I say this: quit being selfish and start serving the students that give you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.