University President Donald Gerth has designated the newly constructed Parking Structure II for student use only after months of debate over the equitability of parking allocation on campus.

Gerth made his decision after an ad hoc task force recommended awarding students exclusive garage parking in exchange for shouldering higher fees than faculty and staff. Student semester parking passes are now $85.50, which is more than a $20 increase from spring semester?s $63 fee. Faculty continues to pay the lower rate.

According to Gerth, the California Faculty Association and the California Staff and Employees Association did not reach a compromise with the CSU Chancellor?s office on parking fees.University Transportation and Parking Services manager Nancy Fox characterized Gerth?s plan as the best option available, given the unequal fee structure and the fact that no negotiations are scheduled again until next year.

According to Jim Chopyak, President of the local branch of the CFA,because parking fees are part of the collective bargaining process for faculty CSU system wide, negotiation is only reopened if an unanticipated development occurs.

“We haven?t even received one bit of data for parking,” Chopyak said. “What has been happening is just a distraction from the real issue.”

According to Chopyak, the real issue has nothing to do with the union contracts? parking fee agreements, but instead the shortfall of parking spaces on campus.

“The parking situation is a disaster caused by terrible planning,” Chopyak said. ” They [the administration] took away spaces when enrollment skyrocketed.”

He said that the administration was slow to recognize the problem that the campus has been having with parking, and has made faculty and staff feel guilty for paying less for parking than students.”If the administration were sincere, they would have approached the faculty prior to, not after, raising student parking fees, and prior to the end of contract bargaining,” Chopyak said.

He said that he is very concerned about the shortfall in parking this semester, especially for instructors who arrive later in the day to teach classes.

“Everybody loses if an instructor can?t get to class to teach,” Chopyak said.

Fox said that the only other changes to parking allocation this semester will occur in lot four adjacent to the engineering department.

She said that in this lot, which formerly was a first-come-first-serve gravel parking lot, 80 percent of the spaces will be designated as student and 20 percent for faculty and staff. Parking Structure II will be open solely to students. Faculty/Staff permits will not be valid in student spaces in the new garage.

Ed Del Biaggio, vice president for Administration said that he is hopeful that the unions will see it fit to raise parking fees for faculty and staff when the collective bargaining process will be reopened in the spring.

“I believe in the fact that it should be appropriate for everyone to pay the new fee,” Del Biaggio said.