He stood at the entrance of the Millennium Centre parking garage from 8 a.m. until lunchtime for ETSU’s first week of classes. Wearing an orange vest and equipped with paper and pen, he attempted to correct a problem that’s been increasing along with the parking situation on campus. Cliff Cox, who is in charge of the Millennium Centre’s maintenance, stopped every vehicle that attempted to enter the parking garage. He asked drivers a series of questions to determine why they were parking there. The first question was, ‘Do you go to school over there at ETSU?’

Cox said that the reason he was doing this is because ETSU students think they are allowed to park in the garage.

“They need to know that they need to park somewhere else,” he said. “I’ve had students tell me that their teachers said it was okay to park here but someone’s got their wires crossed. They can only park here if they have a permit through the Digital Media Center.”

The parking garage has three main customers that are allowed to park in the garage, said Todd Smith, business management analyst for Johnson City. Millennium Centre affiliates, visitors to the Carnegie Hotel and ETSU’s Digital Media Center have contracts that rent a certain number of parking spots.

“The parking garage is not an open garage,” said Smith. “We’ve looked into partnering with ETSU but we can’t lease any more spaces.”

Miranda Edwards, a senior studying business, uses the parking garage when she can’t find parking on the campus side of State of Franklin.

“For the most part, I only use the parking garage when no other parking is available,” she said. “These past couple semesters I’ve had classes in the Mini-Dome so I’ve found it more convenient to park in the garage.”

Edwards has noticed other ETSU students parking in the garage and also many students walking across the street to campus.

“By seeing the number of students crossing State of Franklin or walking through the underpass, I’m going to assume not many of them are Digital Media students,” she said. “As far as students that I’ve actually talked to that park there, not one of them has been a Digital Media student.”

Cox said that the Millennium Centre is losing business because of this situation.

“The problem is that we have all these ETSU students wanting to park here and then we don’t have enough room for our customers,” said Cox.

Edwards believes that there is always plenty of room in the garage for students.

“I completely disagree with the Millennium Centre in wanting to screen vehicles coming into the garage,” Edwards said. “There are several levels of the garage that go unused even when non-digital media students park there. So, why waste the parking that all ETSU students could use? I don’t understand why the garage was built if it’s not going to be utilized.”

The Digital Media Center is located beside and connected to the Millennium Centre. Students in the program have classes in that building which is located across from the Mini-Dome on State of Franklin. They also must walk to classes on campus.

“I park in the parking garage everyday, even when I have a class on campus,” said Alex Widener, a senior studying digital media.

Widener said he updates his permit to park there every semester and does not object to the Millennium Centre screening vehicles.

“I think the Millennium Centre should screen them, because it’s not on ETSU’s side of campus,” he said. “Our building isn’t even technically part of the campus, from what I know, it’s still part of the Millennium Centre. They control our heating and air, they should control who parks there. Not to mention, we pay a fee to take our classes over in the Millennium Centre, which the other students aren’t paying, and it’s not a light fee. I paid $1,600 extra this semester for my four [digital media] classes.”

Cox said the only way to determine who is violating the rules is to write down and keep a file of the license plate number and vehicle description of people admitting they are parking there for class. If violators frequently park there, the Millennium Centre will tow their car.

The Millennium Centre deals with clients that are affiliated with ETSU so towing every car with an ETSU sticker would create a bigger problem, said Cox. “Just because a car has an ETSU sticker doesn’t mean we can tow the car.”

The increase of ETSU students parking in the garage spiked last semester, Smith said. The garage usually has an influx of ETSU students parking there around the first of the semester but last semester, he said, it didn’t die down.

“Last semester we heard negative feedback from customers about how bad our parking was in the mornings,” he said.

Smith said that they looked at their options and decided to implement more screening.

“We haven’t screened this heavily in the past,” he said. “We’re not trying to go out there and tow everyone’s car, that’s not the answer.”

Smith wants all students to have fair warning before their cars are towed he said.

Edwards believes there is a better solution.

“All Carnegie employees should have the first couple levels reserved or however many is needed,” she said. “The rest of the garage could be available to students. If there are conferences or meetings held at the Carnegie or Millennium Centre and parking space is needed then a simple sign or person could assist in telling students they couldn’t park there during that time.”

Cox still believes that students will continue to try to park there.

“Some students have gotten wise,” he said. “I’ve overheard people saying that if there’s a man standing there, don’t park there, but they shouldn’t regardless. This will be enforced,” he said.

Widener said that if students do continue to violate the parking rules in the garage that it will have an impact on digital media students being able to park there.

“ETSU’s parking situation should not be the Millennium Centre’s problem,” said Widener. “If students keep parking over there, they’re going to get towed, or we [digital media students] are potentially going to lose our privilege of getting to park there.

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