Campus Police ticketed students' vehicles parked on campus on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 9, during fall break. Although students are not allowed to park overnight on campus during weekdays, many assumed it was permissible due to the break. Monday was Columbus Day, a national holiday, and cars parked overnight from Sunday to Monday were not ticketed.

"The fact that students were not ticketed on Monday was an enforcement lapse on our part," said Chief of Campus Police John Carter. "The policy does not change over long weekends or when faculty have to report to work."

The Student Government Organization (SGO) responded to the incident at their meeting last Wednesday. Members voted to send a letter to Chief of Campus Police John Carter, requesting that Campus Police take steps to prevent a similar misunderstanding from occurring in the future.

The SGO letter explained that students were upset about the widespread ticketing because they felt they had not been properly notified of the parking policy during fall break. In the letter, the SGO requested that all tickets be voided and eliminated from term-billing. The letter also asked that Campus Police distribute a statement regarding holiday parking policies to the entire campus and that the policy be added to the "Amherst College Vehicle Regulations" manual, which is distributed by Campus Police when students purchase parking permits.

"Due neither to negligence of nor disregard for the policy," the letter written by the SGO read, "students mistakenly believed that because the College is officially on fall break, we were allowed to park on campus overnight, as on weekends. This belief was affirmed by the fact that no cars were ticketed Monday morning."

In response to the SGO requests, Carter decided that the tickets issued on Oct. 9 would be recorded as warnings, so students will not have to pay them.

Carter also stated that changes would be made to the parking manual. "We will add very clear language to try to prevent confusion in the future," he said. He added that the parking manager had already been working with students on issues related to parking before the SGO requests.

"The regulations are in the parking handbook, and there is no stipulation in the handbook that changes the policy for long weekends," said Swing Shift Supervisor Tom Harding. He explained that Campus Police are asked to be more lenient about parking during the first and last week of the semester and when students are moving in and out. At all other times, however, the regulations in the handbook apply as printed.

According to SGO President Michelle Oliveros-Larsen '02, there was widespread support for the letter in the SGO. "We all agreed that the situation was unclear to students, so it would have been more appropriate to issue warnings than tickets," she said.

The letter was drafted by Ben Baum '03 and Michael Flood '03.