SGA discusses special fee and parking deck

By Kim Benfield
Staff Writer

The first Student Government Association meeting for the spring semester consisted mostly of discussion about a new parking deck and an additional parking fee that could come into effect.
Harry Keim, Vice-President of Business and Finance, attended the meeting to talk about the plans for a parking deck that could begin construction in April or May and is anticipated to take 10 months to a year to build.
The parking deck would be three levels with handicap parking on the first level. Each level would be 3,100 sq. feet, taking up almost one acre. The deck would consist of 252 parking spaces.
Since the State does not fund parking decks, a special fee will have to be added to each student’s bill to help pay for the deck. This fee would be $44 a semester and is anticipated to come into effect next fall.
Last year SGA passed a vote of confidence concerning getting more information about the deck and the special fee. No official resolution has gone through the senate concerning this, but SGA President Bill McGouirk hopes that one will be presented sometime in February.
“The one thing that everyone complains about is parking,” McGouirk said. “This is one of the few solutions that can be done with the limited amount of space that there is to work with.”
In April this plan will be presented to the Board of Regents to seek approval for the special fee. In order for the Board of Regents to give its okay, there must be student response agreeing to the fee.
“To get student input we are doing surveys on the Web page, at a table on front campus and in the cafeteria,” Mary-Elizabeth Watson, an SGA Senator said. “We want to present this resolution as quickly as possible, but we want student input before it goes through.”
The resolution will be worked on by the Student Services Committee and will be presented to the GC&SU senate. It must then be voted on and passed.
At this time, the planning and zoning has been approved, and City Council has given its okay. The property would be leased from Jeff Wilkinson and after twenty years would become property of Georgia College & State University. The $44 fee will be in effect until then. The total cost of the deck is approximately $2.6 million.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Dec 7 2001. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry