By Alexis McCarney ’25, staff writer
Student Government held a public forum where students could pose questions through a moderator to Metz Food Service and Public Safety on Tuesday, Oct. 18.
There were 33 total participants on the Zoom call. Some of the issues addressed were student concerns about lack of food variety and quality, hours of operation, meal swipes, parking tickets and parking capacity issues.
One of the main concerns was the Dutchmen Den or the C-Store’s altered hours and the effects on student-athletes. Many students place orders at 7 p.m. when it opens for dinner, causing wait times of upwards of an hour and a half. Student-athletes who have practice during dinner times in Mund use this option for dinner.
“[we] can’t fit any more staff members into [the] small space to alleviate that problem.” Timothy Hartlieb, Metz general manager, said.
J Clark’s Grille from last year was also brought up in the discussion.
“The plan is for the late-night grill to come back into Mund next academic year,” Dr. Bob Mikus, vice president of student affairs and dean of students, said.
However, meal swipes still will most likely not be available for use there. Food variety was also addressed.
“The variety that we have now was a direct correlation to what we were told by students last year,” Hartlieb said. “We were getting a lot of complaints that no one was able to get a burger because C-Store could not keep up with them.”
Metz Food Service addressed the majority of questions sent their way by students participating in the forum.
On the public safety side of the discussion, there were many questions about the parking tickets and limited parking spaces.
“Out of the 631 tickets issued, 93 were freshman parking in red lot,” Brian Boyer, public safety supervisor, said. “It has now been approximately 23 days without a freshman ticket in red lot.”
There have been a lot of issues with parking in red lot this year; however, public safety has been on top of it.
“Out of the 600 plus tickets wrote, 317 have been granted an appeal,” Jeremy Munson, associate dean of student affairs, said. “Pub Safety is not just hammering students right and left. When you appeal, they seriously read what you write and take into consideration what was going on with whatever your situation was at that point.”
While there had been some issues with the appeal system, public safety has been working with IT services to straighten it out. To relieve some of the parking issues, public safety has cleared out some spaces in gold lot.
“We have an average of 27 open spaces in gold lot still available,” Boyer said.
Boyer said public safety explained they have been working diligently to fix the issues students are facing with parking around campus.
“I appreciate you guys working with us and getting through it with us,” Boyer said.
The public forum held by student government was a way for students to ask questions about how certain issues are being dealt with on campus.