Residents concerned parking passes being abused
A school in Southwest El Paso is at the center of confusion.
The question … Who can park where on the streets surrounding Vilas Elementary?
ABC-7 listened to residents along Lawton and Missouri, who say they’re fed up not being able to park in front of their own homes!
The City already got involved, handing out blue parking passes to residents and the school issued yellow ones to the parents of Vilas students. But ABC-7 learned there’s a good reason why those passes aren’t helping the residents much.
Residents feel people are taking advantage of the passes the school requested to simply allow them to drop off and pick up their children from school. And that’s leaving the home owners with no where to park.
“It’s really bothersome to be honest, because we live here and we don’t get to park in front of our own house,” said Gabriel Delgado, who lives on Missouri near Vilas Elementary, home of EPISD’s new Early Childhood Development Center.
Last year City Council created an educational parking district to allow parents with yellow permits to park in the area. This came after the city sold $10 a year blue permits to residents to prevent UTEP students from parking there.
“Because they have the passes, they leave the cars parked here all day long and the same situation arises,” said 81-year-old Abel Alvarado, who lives on Lawton, across from the school, and bought two blue permits. “We don’t have a parking space. At one time the school had a parking permit that they could park in the rear, but I guess the street is more convenient.”
ABC-7 noticed at least 10 empty spaces in the lot behind the school. An ESISD spokesman told ABC-7 Principal Laila Ferris indicated yellow permits are not just for dropping off and picking up students, but also for school parking for student teachers and for parent/teacher conferences.
But ABC-7 found the City simply requested “to allow parents to park in order to pick up and drop off their children in an area where parking is restricted per current ordinance.”
EPISD says it is following the City parking ordinance, which does not specify the yellow passes are just for pick-up and drop-off. A spokesman said that parents need access to the school to meet with teachers and attend meetings, too.
UTEP students are completing teaching internships at the school and the ordinance specifically lets them park around the school. EPISD says the back parking lot we saw earlier is nearly 100 percent occupied, and requires a key code they cannot issue to non-employees.
The spokesman also told ABC-7 the district values its neighbors and urges residents to contact the school directly with concerns.
