MUNCIE, Ind.—For the past several years, streets outside of Ball State University’s campus were patrolled by the Muncie Police Department. David Sheveily, a Muncie reserve officer and deputy clerk, says that the department only has two patrol officers that patrol the street. Specifically, the officers patrol the streets from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Most of the time, the two officers couldn’t ticket every car that was parked illegally. Therefore,
students were getting away with parking on streets that didn’t allow street parking. On the weekends, the two officers didn’t patrol at all, so people got away with parking violations then. Due to complaints and increased parking violations, a change needed to be done.
The Muncie Police Department has recently asked for help from the Ball State Police Department to patrol zones just outside the university. Ball State police hold 24-hour responsibility of patrolling these streets.
The increased number of patrolling officers has led to increased amount of parking violation tickets. A parking violation fee starts out between $18-23, and if the ticket isn’t paid, the ticket increases ten dollars every 30 days. Common mistakes from students parking off campus include parking on a non-parking street, parking too far away from a curb and parking in their grass.
According to city ordinance 155-30, no one is permitted to parking in the grass in
the city of Muncie. Other parking violations are stated in the city ordinance as well. Although tickets are on the rise, Sheveily wants more education for students parked off campus.
“I want them to learn and apply what they’ve learned so we can fix the amount of parking violations,” Sheveily said.
