by Samson Tamijani
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Senior Brandon Turner got back to his truck in the Union garage last Friday night after a long shift at work only to find another parking ticket on his windshield.
“Have I gotten a citation for maybe (forgetting) to pay from three to five or whatever? Yeah,” Turner said. “But in terms of being able to park there after five, with a student permit my logic followed from that. And this is the first instance where I’ve had anything like this happen from that time frame.”
Turner posted the grievance on Twitter, triggering more attention to the methods of parking enforcement.
“Those people on the ground, I think there could be improvements on the actual decision making and judgement calls,” Turner said.
But inside the transit & parking headquarters, its communications director David Wilson says there’s no ulterior motive behind the placing of citations.
We ask everybody to understand that we’re just trying to make sure everybody can get to class or to work safely, without any complications,” Wilson said.
Wilson also points to Flowbird, a payment app students can use for convenience instead of a meter, but concedes sometimes that makes mistakes too.
“We don’t always hear from people when it’s good, but we’ll hear from people if it doesn’t work well, so it’s hard to say unless we took a direct poll asking people what they think of Flowbird,” Wilson said. “It’s hard for us to know just how satisfied people are with it.”
Financial information, permit rates, parking lot maps and more can be found on the department’s website.
As for Turner, he says he plans to appeal his parking ticket.