College should rethink parking permits
I believe we have spent enough money on STC, and adding more money to their pockets isn’t fair.
They don’t take into consideration all the students who have to pay for a parking permit that does not guarantee a parking space. Their excuse is there are many parking spaces around the whole school, but in reality there aren’t many.
Counting the teachers, they also have a lot of space but also have to pay for their parking lot. I believe that we should have a free parking lot, because it is already expensive to pay for tuition, classes and even books for our classes. I think paying for a parking lot is just too much to ask because not many of us can afford the parking permit or even the ticket they are giving us for not having the permit.
So at least having a break on not paying a parking permit will help us a lot, not even other collages such as Houston or Austin charge the students for parking lot permits. Like I think it’s unfair for those that have to worry about not getting a ticket because they don’t have the permit, and they might not have it because they have to worry about getting their classroom books or even the materials that they need.
Like some classes require a lab, so they have to pay that and don’t have time to worry about getting a permit for the parking lot. There have been cases where students have argued a lot about the situation, but they only ignore it and have not taken care of what’s been happening in STC, and they have to solve it or do something about it and not ignore what’s happening.
Jenny Centeno, McAllen
Valley should be proactive about drainage maintenance
Exactly three years ago, in June 2015, the Rio Grande Valley experienced the same flash flood problem across the region that the Valley experienced again this year. This issue made all Valley residents wonder what changes were made to fix the problem. While the specific setup was a little different, the outcome was quite similar.
Situations like this could be very dangerous, just because of the moving nature of water to the unknowns underneath the water. A co-worker of mine lost everything she owned due to about 10 inches of rain in the area where she lived. No one should have to be living in fear of rain in the Valley.
The Valley needs a better drainage system that should be maintained on a weekly basis. Many subdivisions had a draining system that became flooded within one to two hours of rainfall.
The Valley is known to be a very dry area, but when it rains it makes people think otherwise. After a day of a lot rain, the Valley should be able to benefit from it not be flooded just because our draining system is not being maintained or cleaned.
Many residents in the area where my co-worker lived mentioned “as soon as the draining system started to overflow you could see all kinds of things coming out from the drains” — for example, clothes, branches, trash, etc.
Let’s not wait till the next scare from Mother Nature, but instead let’s get ready and be better prepared.
Patricia Cepeda, Alamo
Consider housing immigrants with ankle monitors inside families’ homes
After videos were shown to the public through many news outlets how children were separated from their immigrant parents. People were outraged how they had children locked in cages, sleeping in floors with no mattress, pillows or blankets.
It makes me angry because who knows how long this has been going on and no one has done anything to fix this. After this video and all the outrage of the people, Trump had no other choice than to sign a new policy to reunite families.
According to CNN, “In the executive order he signed on Wednesday, Trump declared it is his administration’s policy to ‘maintain family unity,’ including by detaining entire families together ‘where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.’”
Over 500 families have been reunited, but there are still more than 2,000 children who are still separated from their parents. I feel that aside from the new policy being signed to reunite families, they need to let them out of those cages. These people aren’t animals and there are many ways that immigrants can be detained without being in cells.
One example is for immigrants to wear an ankle monitor, but to be able to stay with family members in their homes while they continue to work out a solution for the immigrants. But that is also an issue due to families having to pay a large sum of money to have their relatives released. I hope President Trump fixes the problem he created, but the chances of the bill passing are unclear as of now.
Daissy Rodriguez, McAllen
