When most people mention College Park, they are usually talking about something related to the university. A few others might envision the often unsightly but heavily-traveled Route 1 corridor. Neither of those seem to matter to the College Park City Council, which voted Tuesday to pass a preliminary plan to move City Hall from its location on Knox Road a block off Route 1 to a site near the Branchville Volunteer Fire Department on Greenbelt Road. This is a horrible decision for students, whose local government continues to give them the cold shoulder, but it’s compounded by the fact that students rolled over and let it happen.
The city council passed the plan (with Mayor Stephen Brayman breaking a tie) supported by three main arguments: The Branchville site was the option closest to the geographic center of the city, permanent residents wanted to preserve the alternative Friends School site for educational purposes and business owners said downtown space behind Cornerstone Grill and Loft was needed for economic development and parking. It’s understandable the council voted the way it did with those arguments, but that doesn’t help students at all. We appreciate those council members who voted against the Greenbelt Road site, but most members apparently did not take students into consideration. City officials continue to decry the often poor state of the city-university relationship but do little to improve it — and instead hurt it — themselves.
Students need City Hall in downtown College Park so they can have easy access to council debates and day-to-day government functions, such as paying parking tickets. But student leaders dropped the ball in rallying student opposition to the Branchville relocation plan. Outgoing Student Liaison Drew Vetter, incoming Student Liaison Emily Guskin, Student Government Association President Aaron Kraus and SGA president-elect Andrew Rose should have brought hordes of students with them to protest the move, but they only brought themselves. And Rose, whose platform included making College Park more of a college town, showed up late for the meeting and missed his chance to speak about the measure. He was at the Residence Halls Association elections meeting, but both the RHA presidential and vice presidential candidates ran unopposed, so it is hard to understand why he wasted his time on a throwaway RHA meeting when he should have fought for students in City Hall.
Regardless, city officials need to be more sensitive to students’ needs. It is only by creating a student-friendly environment that the city will endear itself to students and lure them back to invest, work and settle in the city after graduation. Much of the business investment in the city comes from the student market. Brayman and the city council must respond appropriately and make sure students have easy access to government. The plan to move City Hall to Greenbelt Road does just the opposite.
