Labelling it “a menace to the student body,” Steve Rinehart has very strong opinions about parking services?so strong, he’s filing a lawsuit.

Rinehart, a second-year law student, accuses the University of Utah of breaking contract, unjustly profiting and possibly violating civil rights. He wants to legally force the U to, among other things, stop booting, towing and giving tickets.

Having been a U student on and off since 1993, Rinehart said parking has become increasingly worse for students.

“I think it’s like the old toad in boiling water analogy” where the water temperature increases so gradually, the toad doesn’t recognize what’s happening, Rinehart said.

Because the Utah law prohibits plaintiffs from filing lawsuits against governmental agencies (such as state schools) without prior 90-day notice, Rinehart has not officially filed the suit. He gave the U notice in early September and plans to file the suit in mid-December.

“In our view, the lawsuit has no legal merit,” John Morris, general counsel for the U, said in an earlier interview. “I don’t believe that any of the claims he makes, even if they’re true, state a violation of Utah law.”

Booting and Towing

Rinehart wants to force the U to stop booting and towing cars on campus. He found two incidents where universities in New York and Wisconsin were booting and towing vehicles although each state Board of Regents hadn’t authorized such enforcement. Court action forced both universities to stop.

Because these were state cases in different states, however, they have no legal merit in Utah.

The notice parking services leaves on booted cars cites the U’s authority to boot with Sections 53-45-3 and 53-45-7 of the Utah State Code.

These sections do not exist, Rinehart said, but were replaced with Section 53B-3 103, which reads, “Institutions may enforce [parking and traffic] rules and regulations in any reasonable manner,” which includes the assessment of fines, probation, suspension or expulsion and the refusal to issue degrees.

Booting and towing are not reasonable, Rinehart said.

“They’re arrogant. They think they can do whatever they want,” Rinehart said.

A local attorney has advised Rinehart to charge the U with violating the car owner’s civil rights when they boot or tow. If he were to do so, Rinehart could file the suit in federal court?which does not regard Utah law?whenever he wants.

Director of Auxiliary Services Norm Chambers said the U has the authority to boot cars through the Utah Administrative Code, which reads, “In the event the assessed violation fees are not paid, the university will take action necessary to collect such fees. Actions will include collections, referrals and redress through the court system.”

Parking services only boots after drivers fail to pay three tickets and receive a letter of notification. Parking services “avoids having to tow” cars, but towing “occasionally” happens, Chambers said.

He doesn’t want people to think parking services is made up of “a bunch of Gestapos.”

Unjust profits

Rinehart’s lawsuit states parking services is “unjustly enriching” itself?it’s charging for a service it isn’t providing?which is against the law. The state Board of Regents prohibits auxiliary enterprises, like parking services, from earning profit.

For fiscal year 2001, parking services’s revenue was $8,763,807.

Parking services acquires money through means such as selling permits, giving tickets, charging visitors and employee/student transportation fees. It spends money on expenses such as paying personnel, equipment, vehicles and the Utah Transit Authority bus contract.

Any excess of parking services’s revenue goes into a bond system, which covers expenses for student housing, University Bookstore, Rice Eccles Stadium, the Huntsman Center, the Union and parking services, Chambers said.

For the last three years, parking services has contributed about $2 million each year to this bond system. Money from this bond has gone into new construction, new shuttles, the recent renovation of the Union and upper campus parking structures.

“Parking services does not make a profit,” Chambers said.

With some of the money parking services collects, it has built a war chest to make a down payment on either 1) a lower campus parking structure or 2) the lease for U parking in the LDS Institute parking structure (which would garner the U 400 spaces).

“Everybody recognizes we need a parking structure on main campus,” Chambers said.

Parking services decided to increase permit costs gradually over the last few years to create this war chest, rather than ask one year’s student body to pay for the whole thing.

Breaking contract

Rinehart accuses the U of breaching an implied contract. In 1993, the U increased the price of a student parking pass from a uniform $38 per year to $80 for a U Pass and $40 for an E, Rinehart said.

Tom Stringham, who was student body president at the time, told The Daily Utah Chronicle, “Almost 100 percent of the parking fee increase will be used for replacing old parking lots at the university.”

Rinehart said the U has done “nothing to significantly improve parking for its students since that time.”

In Fall Semester, 1991, there were 25,581 students on campus and 8,910 student parking spaces. Beginning Fall Semester, 2001, there were 27,203 students and 9,023 spaces. About 85 percent of U students are commuters?they do not live in on-campus housing.

In 1991, there were 3,100 employee spots; this year, there are 3,458.

According to the lawsuit, the U has collected parking permit fees from “nearly 75 percent more students than the campus can possibly provide” parking for.

This year, construction on light rail, the Latter-day Saint Institute and the pedestrian bridge has gobbled up about 1,000 spaces already.

Counting the number of available spaces at “peak times” (between 10 and 11 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays), Chambers said parking services found between 1,500 and 2,000 available spots last Fall Semester, and between 700 and 1,000 this Fall Semester. These numbers encompass the entire campus, including student housing and the health sciences.

The vacancies are primarily in the south ends of the health sciences and Heritage Commons and in the Guardsman Way lot, he said.

On Nov. 25, the U will lose the 1,250 stadium spots. To help compensate for this, the following temporary parking options will be added: 500 along Guardsman Way, 370 on roadways around the golf course, 100 along what remains of South Campus Drive, 150 to the business loop and 50 in miscellaneous areas?1,170 total.

“I don’t expect anyone to thank me,” Chambers said about the Olympics-influenced parking situation, but “I think we’ll be OK through the end of Fall Semester.”

The Story Thus Far

In early October, Rinehart made a Governmental Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) request for information, asking for documentation about parking services’ booting, towing, ticketing, revenue, expenses and the total number of parking spaces on campus for the last several years.

The U denied him the request.

GRAMA is not a broad discovery request, it’s for specific documents, said Senior Associate General Counsel Kareny McCreary.

“It’s not just seeking information, it’s a way to find documents that already exist,” she said.

Rinehart has since made a second, more specific request for basically the same information. The U has complied with part of the request, but not all. Rinehart expects to have access to the information sometime in the next few weeks.