The Milwaukee Common Council is set to have a hearing on the Residential Preferred Parking (RPP) bill on Wednesday, Nov. 22, after having a hearing cancelled and rescheduled earlier this semester.

Gov. Jim Doyle signed the parking legislation on the condition that only class-one cities would be covered by the law. Milwaukee is the only class-one city in the state that has a University of Wisconsin System school.

The RPP bill would remove 721 off-campus parking spaces normally used by students to give residents who live in the neighborhood surrounding UWM those spots. Proponents of the plan say that UWM has added the same amount of parking spaces on campus.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association (SA) members urge students to attend the hearing.

“We’ll be trying to get as many students as we can,” said Samantha Prahl, SA president.

The SA successfully lobbied council members during the summer to hold a meeting on the matter after classes began in September. The meeting was then scheduled for Sept. 14, but was cancelled.

SA Legislative Affairs Director Kyle Duerstein said vans will be available outside the Union to take students to the hearing at City Hall.

If the hearing passes the committee at the meeting, it is likely to come before the full Common Council on Dec. 12.

Third District Ald. Michael D’Amato said RPP was “part of a broader agreement” with UWM to find a solution to the parking problems around campus.

D’Amato said part of that agreement includes satellite parking lots.

One of the largest population slices that would be positively affected by this are students, D’Amato said.

“Students most affected are the students who live in the metro area who drive,” D’Amato said.

SA members offered students an opportunity to fill out an online petition that was sent to council members before the Sept. 14 hearing. Of the nearly 10,000 who were eligible to respond, about 2,600 filed petitions against enacting RPP around the UWM campus.

Duerstein said that SA members had not decided whether to go ahead with the petitions again for this hearing.

But while SA members are opposed to the RPP plan, university officials are for it.

“We do support RPP,” said Tom Luljak, UWM spokesman. “We appreciate that not everybody on campus does.”

Luljak said UWM has been committed to the RPP plan for eight years, dating back to when then Chancellor Nancy Zimpher agreed to help alleviate the parking problem in and around campus.

“We believe that the one-for-one match is a reasonable compromise,” Luljak said.

But SA members said that the one-for-one match is not beneficial.

“We’re never going to get ahead if it’s one to one,” Prahl said.

Hearing date questioned

SA members have said the timing of the meeting is an issue, particularly because it is scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving.

“I think it’s kind of suspect,” Duerstein said.

Duerstein said if the committee chairman is not asked to schedule a hearing, he won’t schedule it. Duerstein said the chairman was not asked to schedule it in October or early November, but he was asked to schedule it in late November.

“Every date SA has objected to,” D’Amato said.

University officials said both sides have arguments about the date.

“We understand the frustration that the students have (with the date),” Luljak said. “We also recognize that this has been brewing for a number of months on the city side.”

SA members urged students who were interested in attending the hearing to stop by the organization’s office, Union, Room EG79, or e-mail sapres@uwm.edu.

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