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Campus Accessibility Act a safety issue
By Robert Curtis
“I created this when I had the realization that my job had a lot more responsibility than I thought” – UWM Student Association President Tyler Draheim
The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Student Association (SA) Senate passed the Presidential Campus Accessibility Act in a 12-6 vote at its Sunday Sept. 7 meeting.
The new legislation grants the President of SA an “option to have money taken out of his/her line item on a monthly basis for a University Parking Permit in the Lubar School of Business Parking Structure”.
The University Parking Permit will cost $100 per month and is available only to the President of the Student Association.
The funds for this parking permit will be taken from the SA President’s yearly budget. That budget was approved by the SA senate for $10,000 and the cost of the permit directly comes from the presidential salary portion of the budget.
The permit is restricted to parking in the Lubar School of Business Parking Structure. According to Claude Schuttey, University Architects/Planning and Transportation Director, the permit has been approved, but as of September 12, no such permit has been purchased.
In an interview with The Post, Schuttey said Draheim approached him about the possibility of getting access to a university parking pass. Schuttey agreed, on the contingency that the parking pass be available to any Student Association president, because he said he was told by several people that the president of the Student Association has a busy schedule and is on campus late at night.
‘The reason why I agreed to it more than anything is because that person is on campus more than anybody else in the Student Association,” said Schuttey. “They’re coming and going for a number of meetings and I looked at it from a safety issue also.”
Schuttey said he did not have any facts available to support his claim that the SA president is on campus more than other students. When asked if parking passes would be offered to others who have busy schedules and are on campus late at night, Schuttey said no.
“They have parking available in the student union, on an hourly basis.”
Schuttey said that the parking pass is being made available to the Student Association as a student organization, not to an individual student.
“I would never sell anybody just a pass,” said Schuttey. “This is an organization it’s for.”
Schuttey said no other student organizations would be given an opportunity to purchase parking passes.
SA President Tyler Draheim said he thought of the parking pass idea because he didn’t know his job would entail so much responsibility.
“I created this when I had the realization that my job had a lot more responsibility than I thought,” said Draheim.
According to Draheim, his hours range from early morning to as late as midnight. He also said he sits on at least 11 campus committees and he must be accessible to all of the student body.
UWM has the U-Park program which allows students to park in a satellite lot and shuttle bus to campus.
“I have used U-Park but it doesn’t go late enough,” said Draheim. “I still plan to use many of the campus programs.”
Draheim says that SA is currently making strides to improve the current state of student parking including attempts to discuss extending residential area parking hourly restrictions with the City of Milwaukee.
“Neighbors need to realize that students are residents too. Even if they’re temporary, this is still their home too,” said Draheim.
The Presidential Campus Accessibility Act was authored by the current SA President Tyler Draheim, sponsored by SA Senators Amanda Voigtlander, Jamie Livermore, and Brandon Decker. It was officially supported by SA Vice President Thomas Hughes.
Jonathan Anderson contributed to this report.
> Comments
Pundit on Sep 18, 2008 at 07:34 AM:
It makes sense that Draheim, who is also a SAFE patrol worker, would have an extreme mindset of safety and hence would know how to use safety as a justification for just about any convenience expense. What is really fascinating about this, IMHO, is the timing of the bill; rather than marshal it through during the summer months when Senate resistance to president-authored bills tends to be lowest, he proposed it after hiring a bunch of COAST workers as paid directors. So not only do we have a lot of double-dipping from the overlap of student-funded jobs (both SA and COAST workers are paid by student seg fees), but we also have a case of legislation being passed to protect the SA President in the wake of a shirking of the traditional patronage pattern that had existed through SA’s once-mighty party system. (The real-life counterpart to this was when Congress passed the Pendleton Act of 1883 as a means of reducing the use of political patronage in civil service staffing decisions, in response to Charles Guiteau’s assassination of President Garfield.) Nonetheless, hardly anyone is going to think it worthwhile to physically ax an SA President because the legal cost does not outweigh the benefit; eliminating a single member of the elite cabal does not eliminate their power funnel, and a particular mindset more than anything is what makes it so easy for that power funnel to be replaced with any number of hence unknown individuals.
Tyler J. Draheim on Sep 18, 2008 at 12:17 PM:
Are you going to assassinate me?
Pundit on Sep 18, 2008 at 06:47 PM:
LOL, goodness no, I don't make threats in obvious places! From what I've heard, you are more forthright in your conduct than some other recent SA leaders, so given I don't waste my time trying to ax them, I certainly won't mess around with you or your administration.
wtf? on Sep 20, 2008 at 03:29 PM:
Why is someone talking about assasinating the SA president? Shouldn't there be police involved now? It's quite clear that "Pundit" is crazy given the fact that he thinks past SA leaders haven't been forthright with their conduct. The SA is VERY TRANSPARENT and will continue to be as long as those glorious conservatives still run the senate. I'm so glad ASAP lost in glorious fashion, with Julio being photographed eating taco bell and Scott Dettman bragging about being endorsed by the worst 3rd district alderman to my knowledge (Seeing he came into the SA office and cried about trying to be more hippie-esque)...but guess what that endorsement never came and once again the good guys prevailed