Parking Revisited.

I have been forwarded your message to review. I will not try and match the length or tone of your message but I can agree with the violation and our reluctance to cancel it. We operate in many locations and while you may see this as a monopoly, we see it differently.

I'm unsure if you're being willfully obtuse or not when you misinterpret my original text, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're not. You seem to believe I suggested you have a monopoly on all pay parking; I did not. What I suggested was that you hold a monopoly on parking at Malaspina University-College. This is, I think, an irrefutable fact. The alternatives for anyone driving to campus are the following: park across the parkway off campus in a dirt field (which is often full and, when it's not, involves driving over a high curb and parking in the mud, more times than not) or parking off campus at the bottom of the mountain and hiking up it every day. I don't really care to argue this point, mind you, nor did I mean to offer it up as a point of debate in my original e-mail to you. I was using it only to illustrate that there really aren't all that many--if any--alternatives for those parking at Malaspina, meaning that they would have to, theoretically, accept whatever terms you applied to parking, or trust Nanaimo's horrendous and inept public transit system to get them to the campus on time (one bonus to this method, admittedly, is the chance to catch up on several hours of sleep each day).

We work for each one of our clients and in this particular case, we partner with Malaspina on all matters including the increase of parking and violation rates. As there are multiple meters on campus, we do require you to use another meter if one is experiencing issues. It does not require a circle tour of the campus, there are over 15 meters on campus and at any time the large majority if not all of them would be working. It is unfortunate but the onus is on the customer to display a valid receipt and let us know if they are unable to obtain one. At Malaspina, the chances of you not being able to obtain one at the myriad of meters would be inconceivable. All that said, I feel your dispute was heard but ultimately not accepted as grounds for cancellation of the violation.

First, I never suggested it would involve a "circle tour" of the campus. I did, however, suggest it would require a fairly lengthy walk. For instance, after noting that the meter in Lot L wasn't working, I would have had to return to my car (to lock the doors), then trudge all the way to the meter by the shellfish research building. If this was a thirty-second hundred-meter jaunt, it wouldn't be a big deal, really, but I maintain that it's unreasonable to expect that busy people should walk around for five to ten minutes because the parking machine isn't working--which, as I mentioned initially, happens with great frequency, a fact that no doubt benefits your company.

So why, exactly, should I be late for the function that I'm attending simply because your machine is incapable of accepting the money I was perfectly willing to pay? Though I suppose we're talking at walls here. You've been quite clear that you're unwilling to reconsider, and I'm certainly not interested in paying this ticket.

There is one final note: the car I was driving is not my car, incidentally, so it would be unproductive for you to go after said car's owners in order to get the recompense you feel you are owed, as they haven't even seen the ticket. As such, I feel it is only ethical for me to supply you with my own automobile information should you feel the desire to place me on some sort of list of incorrigible parking violators.