New Era to Dawn at El Camino College: You Park, You Pay

Finagling a parking space has never been easy for El Camino College students like Steve Nash. But come September, when the college imposes its first parking fee, Nash and others will face a new nemesis--the parking attendant.

Nash, a representative on the college’s Board of Trustees, says the fee will be a hardship on working students. “A lot of us came here because we weren’t in a position to go to a four-year institution,” he said.

Starting this fall, El Camino students will pay $20 a semester to park in one of the college’s 6,000 parking spaces. Motorcyclists and students who car pool will pay $10 a semester. Disabled students and those receiving financial aid will be exempt.

The parking fees will increase the next academic year to $25 a semester for regular parking, $12 a semester for motorcycles and $15 a semester for car pools. The fees will cap in 1993-94 at $30, $15 and $20, respectively. Summer-school students will have to pay $10 a session.

Although it may seem nominal to those paying higher fees at four-year institutions, the parking fee approved Monday by college trustees has rattled both the college and surrounding neighborhoods. Residents worry that students will avoid the fees by parking on nearby streets that are already clogged with student cars. Students complain that the parking fee is more bureaucratic red-tape designed to drain their pocketbooks, not improve on-campus parking.

College officials say the fees will be used to improve campus parking facilities and to free up funds for other needs. But a campus newspaper poll before Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting found that 60% of the students are opposed to the fees.

“I don’t feel like it’s going to do a damn thing,” student Shawn Tanaka said after the vote. “It’s not going to help the residents, and it’s not going to help us.”

John Johnson, who lives on nearby 157th Street, echoed Tanaka’s concern. “The traffic is bad enough now,” Johnson said as students cruised along his street looking for an empty parking spot. “The fee will only make things worse.”

On streets near the campus, the problem is obvious: On any weekday, cars spill out of the college’s jammed parking lots onto Crenshaw and Manhattan Beach boulevards and into adjacent neighborhoods. On 157th Street, residents say, two cars park in front of every house, both day and night, five days a week.

“It’s not just the parking,” Johnson said, shaking his head. “It’s the coming and going all the time. It’s just a nuisance.”

“You should see our neighborhood on the weekends,” added Beann Foltz, who lives down the street from Johnson with her husband and two children. “It’s quiet. The kids are out on their bikes. It’s a whole different community.”

College officials say the maligned parking fee will eventually make both sides happy. The fee, which is expected to generate $700,000 annually, will enable El Camino to beef up parking security and increase parking spaces on the Manhattan Beach Boulevard side of the campus--steps the college wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford, said spokeswoman Mary Ann Keating.

Although details--such as whether campus guests will be charged--have yet to be worked out, Keating said the fees will pay for emergency telephone alarm systems and additional parking security staff. Once enough money has been generated, a new parking structure will be built near Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

The college also plans to work with the El Camino Community Homeowners Assn. and the Los Angeles County Public Works Department to obtain parking permits for residents in the unincorporated neighborhood north of the college, Keating said. Students now park in the neighborhood because it’s more convenient than hiking from the college’s Redondo Beach Boulevard lot.

The college’s support for the permit is welcomed by neighbors. Judy Root, spokeswoman for the homeowners group, said, “If the permits aren’t approved, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

Ed Cano, senior deputy to Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, said permit approval is still in the “pre-preliminary stages. There’s a lot to work out.” But, Cano said, if the college backs a homeowners-only permit and it’s what residents want, he is confident that the county will support it.

Although the county appears to have at least temporarily appeased neighbors’ concern, students remain angry about the impending fee.

“The thing that makes me mad,” said student Roy Jurgens, “is they didn’t listen to our opinion.”

Like others interviewed, Jurgens said he doesn’t think the fee will improve on-campus parking. The campus has four times as many students as parking spaces.

“Where are the plans?” Jurgens asked. “I’m not against the parking fee. But give me something for my money.”

Mali Currington, vice president of student services for the Associated Student Center, said he knows of at least 40 students who won’t be able to attend college next term because they can’t afford the parking fee.

Nash, the student representative, said he works 40 hours a week and earns $23,000 a year. He and a roommate share a one-bedroom apartment, but his budget was still so tight that last semester he couldn’t afford textbooks. “I had to borrow them from friends,” he said, adding that a $20 parking fee might as well be $100 to students like him.

Keating said the board’s decision to impose a $20 parking fee this year and eventually $30 in 1993-94 wasn’t made arbitrarily. The state Education Code allows community colleges to charge up to $40 a semester, she said. At Santa Monica Community College, both students and faculty pay $40 a semester. At Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, students pay $18 a semester.

“We’ve been looking at a parking fee for more than a year,” Keating said, noting that El Camino is one of only three community colleges in the state to offer free parking. “We didn’t want to have to do it. It’s, in essence, a tax on the kids.”

Terry Spears, interim vice president for administrative services, said the fee was necessary to raise funds. Recently, El Camino cut $400,000 from its Center for the Arts and $250,000 from its summer school schedule. In addition, all full-time staff positions have been frozen.

“There’s a great deal of sadness that it’s come to this,” Spears said, explaining that the college wanted to hold on to the concept of “free” higher education as long as it could.

“It’s an era that’s passed,” he said, “and that’s sad.”