Starkville parking

[paindonthurt]

It’s a lot safer for the community to go after thugs. You know, stop real crime.

But you are right, it’s more profitable to give tickets to students who have parents who can pay the fines.

 

[Cooterpoot]

USM is only part of Hattiesburg's economy. A better comparison would be Oxford. What's the relation between the Ole Miss students and the locals?

So you think the town should make money off the backs of broke college kids and their families other than the money they bring in? Come on.
Hattiesburg has 2 colleges and they pretty much leave kids alone. Hell, they removed parking meters.
Starkville has sucked at all this a long time. I thought progressives were against **** like this, since they want student loans paid off. Here's an idea: Make Starkville better and stop giving people a hard time.

 

[johnson86-1]

USM is only part of Hattiesburg's economy. A better comparison would be Oxford. What's the relation between the Ole Miss students and the locals?

Not sure about now, but probably 5 or 6 years ago they were pretty ****** to students. Dealt with somebody whose child got what was essentially minor in possession charges that ran up over $500. Would have really questioned the kids story about how they were targeted except the police didn't even take them into possession. Just stacked up some tickets on top of each other and let them go. Purely policing for profit. Talked to some people fairly connected and they said that's just the way they operate now and it's something the university and students have to deal with.

But Oxford embraced the university and the money it brought for a long time. Now that they have a ton of people with 2nd homes and people that come in for weekends, the students aren't as important and thye can afford to 17 them over some.

 

[Smoked Toag]

All 3 vehicles were legally parked inside of the green marked spots, every one was in compliance. We were getting out to register using the signs but needed to get the code off of the sign. Before we could all get out he was there with lights on, I swear he watched us pull in.

I did not get name and badge number, hoping his name is on the ticket (left them with my daughter), I did get a photo of his car number. Also took a screen shot of our life 360 app showing the date and time that we quit moving, 10:30, ticket was written for 10:29.

I also saw some of these parking signs on campus by soccer field parking lot, so I guess campus is in cahoots with the parking app as well.

I'm having trouble understanding this. So, is the proper protocol to park and then go up and and scan the code? So you were doing what you were supposed to do and they STILL gave you a ticket? Seems like you could fight that.

Unless I'm missing something. Are you supposed to pay before you pull in the lot?

 

[Smoked Toag]

Starkville needs to be more focused on controlling local thugs from Columbus, West Point and Starkville than students/University that support about 90% of the town’s existence.

Yes they do. I don't see how anyone would argue this. There's still a segment of Starkville that is simply clueless and has no idea who is truly the reason for the town's good fortune.

 

[Smoked Toag]

So you think the town should make money off the backs of broke college kids and their families other than the money they bring in? Come on.
Hattiesburg has 2 colleges and they pretty much leave kids alone. Hell, they removed parking meters.
Starkville has sucked at all this a long time. I thought progressives were against **** like this, since they want student loans paid off. Here's an idea: Make Starkville better and stop giving people a hard time.

Hattiesburg is definitely friendlier to students than Starkville and Oxford. So you're both right.

 

[johnson86-1]

Hattiesburg is definitely friendlier to students than Starkville and Oxford. So you're both right.

Hattiesburg is not really a college town though. Surprisingly, even though Hatteisburg is pretty small, it's still a town with a college in it rather than a college town.

Not sure if that's good or bad. Seems to make the college experience worse but also means they probably have a more economically healthy town.

 

[mcdawg22]

I would tweet at Spruill about this. She might do something about it.

 

[FrontRangeDawg]

I think that Oxford figured it out in the late 90's. Other than the continued lack of taxi/Uber/Lyft options for drunk driving, the city knows where it's bread is buttered. The OPD does a video series that includes how they police during game weekends and reminding students not to be total idiots. I don't know how effective that is. But, having gone to both schools, I still get a warmer reception in Oxford businesses when I return than when I am in Starkville.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Not sure about now, but probably 5 or 6 years ago they were pretty ****** to students. Dealt with somebody whose child got what was essentially minor in possession charges that ran up over $500. Would have really questioned the kids story about how they were targeted except the police didn't even take them into possession. Just stacked up some tickets on top of each other and let them go. Purely policing for profit. Talked to some people fairly connected and they said that's just the way they operate now and it's something the university and students have to deal with.

But Oxford embraced the university and the money it brought for a long time. Now that they have a ton of people with 2nd homes and people that come in for weekends, the students aren't as important and thye can afford to 17 them over some.

Big difference in underaged drinking and a parking ticket. Hattiesburg has busted a ton of store owners the last year or so for selling to minors. Generally, if the minor rats out the store, they can get off pretty lightly.

 

[archdog]

Thread hijack - With the new sign ordinance now in effect I am guessing that does not apply to billboards as those are still up and down Highway 12. I'm having trouble figuring out how those are ok but store signs were just too much of an eyesore. If they really wanted to make an aesthetic improvement they'd put all the utility lines underground.

Rant over.

Yep, utility lines need to go underground on HWY 12, Old 82, throughout downtown, etc.
Also, the city needs to be paying for the sidewalks to be installed in all areas that are required to have sidewalks installed, not the property owners.
Billboards need to be made illegal in town. Period. That is if you have a sign ordinance that you force everyone to meet.
The city building ordinances are off the charts stupid when it comes to improvements required if you renovate your building. Keeps a lot of people from doing much needed improvements to the interiors of their buildings.

 

[johnson86-1]

Big difference in underaged drinking and a parking ticket. Hattiesburg has busted a ton of store owners the last year or so for selling to minors. Generally, if the minor rats out the store, they can get off pretty lightly.

Policing underaged drinking is fine. But if you drop almost 2 grand in fines on a college student, it better be serious enough for you to at least take them into custody. I assume if they hit one of the students that it would actually prevent them from making rent that a city judge would tradeoff the fine for community service or something (or just acknowledge they were looking to tax rich students and reduce theirs down to something reasonable), but it's still pretty ******.

This is not really related, but when I was in Oxford visiting friends back in the day, they were going through a phase where they were arresting students walking home from the square. Everybody claimed that they had cracked down on drunk driving so much that their DUI revenue was down and they needed to replace it. I think they actually did have a student get hit walking home earlier that year and they actually thought they were doing it for safety reasons without thinking about the incentives when they were arresting people for walking but there were like two taxis in the entire town and uber/lyft wasn't even a thought in anybody's mind yet.