As anyone who has even smelled a car on campus knows… There is no more parking left in this god-forsaken place. If one wants to park anywhere near their residential building, they must elect to fight in a dangerous blood sport that takes place every day. Taking place in parking lots from Harris Millis to Redstone. If they lose then they must face the shame of parking all the way over on Trinity.
All this pain and wreckage has been caused by one Ludacris decision made by the UVM administration; no more parking in the Gutterson Parking Garage. On any given night you can look onto a sea of parking spots, teasing and tantalizing, just waiting to be parked in. Only, if you decide to indulge, you will be slapped in the face with a crisp $15 fine. Who decided this? There are absolutely not enough commuters at this school to justify a multi-story parking garage all to themselves. This is the public reason they give as to why students cannot park, but it is not the true reason.
Suresh V. Garimella, president of this school, is running an administration fight club in the Gutterson Garage. Every weekday between the hours of 2-4 am Suresh and his provost pals meet in the lower level of the garage to duke it out. Recently, Suresh announced that tuition will again be frozen this year, this decision was made from the results of one of these fights. It was decided once Suresh lost a fight against Patricia Prelock. With Prelock delivering a swift left hook to Garimella’s head, putting him out for the count.
The reason that Suresh decided to start this little fighting gathering is to let the various deans and provosts blow off some steam on any given day. The UVM student body had had their noses too far up the administration’s asses for their liking; all this accountability has made their jobs quite stressful. Therefore, as a solution, Suresh decided to remove all viable parking spots (while still selling the same amount of parking passes) and create this little fight club. Afterward, all the administration takes the extra parking pass money and they all go out for celebratory glizzies, tending to their fresh wounds.
These fights have been going on since the day after move-in day, the day the garage officially became off-limits. There have been various combinations of fights, David Jenemann vs. Gary Derr, William Falls vs. Erica Caloiero, you name it and they’ve fought. It is unclear how much longer it will continue, but as of now, there is no end in sight.
All any student who has a car wants to do is park it, and unfortunately, reasonable parking for the student body has been ripped away. If the goal of this fight club is to reduce stress, then the people who make $200,000 a year should not get first dibs. These fights should open up to the student body, which would reduce the stress caused by the need to park, or they give us our garage back. Until then students will keep fighting the good fight by parking on grass, or vehemently complaining on Instagram.
Categories: around town, owen carpenter, samantha stillman, sept. 28, vol 25