Campus parking fee for disabled spaces is unfair

BY Sara Meric

Since the first of the year, disabled people have to pay $3 to park in the blue spaces on campus or in the structures.

This mean-spirited expense for community members, many of whom can probably ill afford the money, stands in stark contrast to University of California President Mark Yudof’s compensation package, as set forth in official UCLA documents.

The president gets nearly $600,000 in salary, plus a retirement benefit in the area of $238,000, based on what he would have received at his former job. He also gets free housing, an automobile allowance, a travel allowance, an allowance for packing and shipping his household effects and health, pension and “senior management” coverage, an entertainment allowance, plus other benefits if he takes a UC faculty job after serving as president.

It’s hard to total up this package, because who knows what “university-provided” housing might cost, for example, but at a rough guess, the whole thing might cost yet another nearly $600,000.

Pretty juicy! President Yudof, are you sure you need the $3 that people who have a handicapped plaque now have to pay to attend events at UCLA? The blue parking spaces on campus were so helpful for those who aren’t running marathons these days.

Of course, there is always the bus, you say? True. Have you taken a bus to UCLA lately? It takes at least three times as long as driving.

Plus, the time and effort of getting to the bus from home, then climbing the hill from the bus stop (been there, President Yudof? It’s on the steep side), and making one’s way to the more distant buildings on campus.

Then reversing the process after the event, waiting for a bus, getting off at one’s stop and making it home ““ not an inviting prospect for a person with limited mobility, and completely out of the question for a wheelchair-bound person, or one using a walker.

But then you might assume that my time isn’t worth as much as yours. You’re probably right.

But I’m the one who’s precluded from attending campus events that were a big part of my life till the university instituted that mean-spirited handicapped parking fee.

Sara Meric, 84, is from Santa Monica.