Poarch Defends ACT, Calls on Community to Let Committee Work

I am writing in response to your Aug. 29 board editorial titled "Call to 'ACT'" to clarify for the University community and students in particular the role of the University's Advisory Committee on Transportation. Your Aug. 29 editorial, as well as your Aug. 27 article concerning ACT, came about as a result of a meeting that I held with a reporter from The Daily Tar Heel in my office on Aug. 26 to talk about ACT and its work for the coming year.

Let me start by discussing the composition of ACT and the charge to the committee. ACT was developed by University administration after a collaborative process with various members of the campus community that included a discussion with members of last year's Transportation and Parking Advisory Committee where those committee members provided direct information and suggestions for the future of a committee to address access on campus.

ACT is charged with developing a five-year plan for access to campus that considers all the various needs of the University, including students. Your editorial indicates that students will not be adequately represented by having only two student members on an 11-member committee. I would suggest that there are several issues related to that assumption that are flawed.

On Aug. 26 I gave a copy of the charge to the new ACT committee to a DTH reporter. The charge clearly indicates that the committee, advisory in nature, will not be taking votes on various issues.

I explained in detail to the reporter that the committee will work to gain consensus on issues and, should there be issues where we are unable to gain consensus, that differing opinions would be so noted in a written report that will be submitted annually to the vice chancellor for finance and administration.

Thus, having two student representatives on the committee in no way mitigates their importance or voice on the committee.

Additionally, the editorial fails to mention that the interim vice chancellor for student affairs, Dr. Dean Bresciani, serves on ACT and serves as the vice chairman of ACT. Clearly in my mind one of the roles that Dr. Bresciani will undertake will be to work in partnership with the entire committee to ensure that students' voices are heard.

Lastly, the editorial mitigates the importance of having the elected student body president as a member of ACT, as well as an appointment by the president of the Graduate Professional Student Federation to this committee, both intelligent, well-spoken and neither shy about representing student needs.

The editorial also indicates that with varying groups of the University community vying for parking, student needs may be buried under a sea of competing interest. I made it very clear in my meeting of Aug. 26 that the intent of ACT was not to pit one University group against the other in deciding the best five-year plan for access to this campus.

The characterization that student concerns are already being pushed aside by the Department of Public Safety and ACT related to any future discussions of a night parking program are grossly inappropriate and fail to accurately depict my conversation Aug. 26.

In that conversation I indicated that ACT would talk philosophically about a night parking program this year. I said that I did not anticipate a night parking program being implemented at all on a short-term basis. I stated that the Department of Public Safety would seek direction from the committee concerning any night parking program that would include a well thought out approach.

Additionally, I indicated that I did not see ACT going down a path that would cause the anger that happened concerning night parking last year.

And lastly, I said that any discussions regarding a night parking program would be communicated widely to the University community.

I am very much aware that there are concerns with night parking. However, I would encourage the DTH to allow the Department of Public Safety and ACT to work through issues related to night parking in an appropriate manner, taking into consideration all the points that have been made previously and any new points made this year without wrongly assuming that any night parking program will be the same as last year.

No one that I am aware of in the University administration, the Department of Public Safety or any member of ACT intends to deny access to this campus.

Clearly this advisory committee will work diligently to represent the entire University community in the decisions that are made. I assure you students will not be short-changed in this process.

The committee is working at this time with a consultant to present a five-year plan for campus access to the Board of Trustees in January 2003.

Forums and workshops where all the members of the University community will be invited to participate and present their ideas and suggestions will be held in late September or early October. These workshops will be scheduled to meet the needs of faculty, staff and students, including University and hospital employees that work late shifts. A Web site is being developed that will allow input to be given on line.

I would ask the members of the University community and particularly the DTH to allow this diverse committee with representatives of the entire University community to do its work on this very important subject of campus access. Please judge ACT based on our results. Don't judge this committees' work when it has only been meeting for two months on the work of other committees or on the results of any decisions previously made.

Derek Poarch
Advisory Committee on Transportation Chairman

The length rule was waived.