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Parking Tickets: Where Does the Money Go?

According to The State News , the MSU Parking Office has issued 48,486 tickets since Jan. 1, including warnings and withdrawn tickets, compared to 23,212 issued by East Lansing Police Department since Sept. 1, 2016. The two combined to issue over 100,000 tickets in 2015 alone. MSU Parking Operations Office supervisor Lynnette Forman said in a previous interview the office  specifically  purposes revenue generated by tickets for safety-related projects, such as the audible crosswalks for the visibly impaired.  "There’s no goal or budget for parking violation funds, (rather) it’s the other way around, the projects are done based on how much money there is to spend," Forman said. East Lansing's parking ticket revenue does go to the city's general fund,City Manager George Lahanas said in a previous interview, but any revenue generated is dwarfed by the cost of running the city's criminal justice system. Parking tickets only reimburse $1.2 million, or about 10
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Parking Tickets: What Would You Change?

For some students like Jaron Warner, parking tickets are a mild annoyance that happen once or twice a year. For others like Claire Fossum, they are a near-constant reality. Fossum has received parking tickets at such a high frequency she felt necessary to start a petition in opposition to East Lansing and MSU's parking policies. "The amount of tickets I've gotten in the past four years... is probably over like, 200... and they're always so expensive," Fossum said. Warner said he'd like to change the parking system to be more lenient. "(I'd) probably give people more places to park, honestly," Warner said. "I think that's kind of the biggest reason for tickets is that there's nowhere to park for people, they kinda just have to do it." Fossum said she wants to lower parking rates as well as the amount of tickets issued as a whole. "I don't really talk to any, like, city officials about it, but I'd like to
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Multimedia Recap

In a follow up to the most recent post, I recently spoke with journalism graduate students Victoria Bowles and Min Wang. Bowles spoke about a shift in the role of the media during the election, where some reporters spurned longer-form reporting for a fact-checking role, which some interpreted as taking sides. "I think that we need to get more used to journalists fact-checking things and backing up data," Bowles said. "News is facts, and it (isn't) always gonna support your opinion. That's just the way it is." She also said people might not be as distrustful of the media as a whole than they are of certain outlets, and someone who for example watched MSNBC religiously would not trust Fox News for their partisan differences. Wang spoke on the "fake news" epidemic, and said those with less education or less access to it might trust the media less because they're more susceptible to falling for false headlines. Citizen journalists are als
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Multimedia Preview

Last month, MSU journalism instructor Jeremy Steele spoke about the current state of journalism. Steele said most people are now getting their news from social media, a practice which he thought might contribute to a general overarching trend of decreased trust in news organizations. Steele cited the "fake news" epidemic and the tendency for people to create "information bubbles" of confirmation bias on social media. Two students spoke about the methods they use to obtain news and their thoughts on the circumstances. One used her iPhone "News" app as an aggregator for popular news sites, and another used Snapchat to view news stories tailored to the platform's unique multimedia capabilities. One said lack of objectivity is the reason for public distrust, the other claims rushing into stories before the facts are verified is the cardinal sin. Now, I'm going to interview journalism students about their perspectives on this trend. Their mix
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Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale Recap

The #BBS4Finale brought an explosive end to what was to date the show's main conflict: Walter and Jesse versus their boss, Gus. Upon finding out that Gus visits Hector "Tio" Salamanca in his rest home and that the two are enemies, Walter found the opportunity he was looking for. Walter had Tio meet with the DEA to put him back on Gus' radar, and Tyrus notices. Gus and Tyrus confronted Tio and prepared to lethally inject him, but it was revealed Walter rigged Tio's wheelchair with the pipe bomb he made last episode. Tio detonated the bomb by ringing his bell, killing Gus. Jesse and Walter then destroyed their old lab, finally free of the meth kingpin's clutches. The pair then checked on Brock, who Jesse revealed would be okay. The doctors told him that Brock had not ingested ricin, but "lily of the valley". Meanwhile, Walter's family was crouched around the TV, watching news of the explosion. Skyler called Walter, who told her they were
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Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale Preview

The final episode of Breaking Bad 's fourth season may become a climax point for the series. The season's 13th episode, "Face Off", seems primed to bring one of the series' signature conflicts to an end: will Walter and Jesse be able to escape Gus' grip? In the previous episode, " End Times ", viewers saw Jesse pitted against Walt once again as Gus pulled the strings behind them. A child Jesse is close to, Brock, was poisoned using Jesse's ricin-filled cigarette intended for Gus. Jesse initially believes this to be Walter and comes to kill him, but is then convinced by Walt that Gus had known about the cigarette and had someone lift it and give it to Brock. Furious, Jesse teamed up with Walt once again, the pair conspiring to plant a bomb on Gus' car. The plot fails, however, as Gus stops and walks away from his car before getting close enough for Walter to detonate it, seemingly aware while never actually noticing Walter. It is unknown
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