Theft of wheels no laughing matter

I am a resident student at USF and I purchased a yearlong residential parking pass to park in the residential parking lot behind the dorms on the north side of campus.

Wednesday I left my class and headed to my car in parking lot 16 to go to work and found my car balanced on two cinder blocks.

There just aren’t words to explain how I felt staring at my car without wheels. Not only was I forced to call in to work, but I also had to spend the next seven hours (yes, it took seven hours) taking care of the mess.

First, I filed a police report, and the officer did not seem to care at all. No action was taken and there were no apologies. In fact, he found the entire situation humorous.

“It’s really not that bad,” he said to me with a smirk while composing the report. It could be worse? I wanted to look at the jerk and say, “OK, let me move you 450 miles from your relatives and friends, empty your bank accounts and put your car on blocks. Then come back and tell me it’s really not that bad,” but I resisted and smiled to the best of my ability.

I have a major problem with so many things that happened that day. You would think that after paying over $100 for a parking pass that your car might be protected on campus by some sort of security.

When something horrible happens, like the wheels being stolen off your car, maybe the authorities should grant a little help or even some sympathy. I was alone, had no idea what to do and all I got from the police was a smirk and a joke. Is it too much to ask that the university install some cameras in our parking lots using the thousands of dollars received from parking permits? What is even more disturbing is that I had stock factory wheels, not after-market rims or racing tires.

I was informed that factory wheels are a hot commodity lately and this has happened four times in the past few months. Four times and nothing has been done to help the situation.

For all that the University of South Florida has that is good, it’s lacking a lot in the area of protection of your vehicle and help when something like this happens.

My car now has a new set of tires which put me out close to $450, but I will forever be paranoid and bitter when it comes to the parking situation and our security here.

Chelsea Roberson is a freshman majoring in advertising.

Garage construction on schedule
Re: Letter “Construction of garage must be expedited” Feb 26.

I would like to offer the following facts:

The parking structure you referred to is scheduled to open for fall 2004, just as the original plan.

There were some significant issues with subterranean sinkholes and the foundation that had to be addressed, yet as stated above, it is scheduled to open next fall.

The structure will be 1,539 spaces or more than twice the size of the Moffitt Garage (600 spaces).

In the end, the construction process will take approximately 16 months. This is very good for a 1,500+ space structure that required significant site work that included ground excavation, utilities relocation and road improvements.

The Moffitt Garage and towers actually took over two years to complete.

Greg W. Sylvester is the Director of USF’s Parking & Transportation Services.

Nazis, not Germans, responsible for Holocaust
Re: “Gibson nails Christ” Feb. 25

For Olga Robak to say that Holocaust movies “portray Germans in a bad light” plays into the gross generalization that all Germans were Nazis. Schindler’s List and Life is Beautiful portray Nazis in a bad light — not Germans.

Oscar Schindler, the man responsible for saving thousands of Jewish lives, was a German, not a Nazi. My family’s ancestry is German, but I’m not a Nazi — I’m Jewish.

I hope that readers can separate Germans from Nazis in Holocaust films as much as I hope that viewers of The Passion of The Christ can distinguish an artistic interpretation of biblical Jews from the Jewish people of today.

Rebeca Glucklich is a junior majoring in social work.