With the Knox Box Apartments, South Campus Commons, Fraternity Row and more voting residents than any other district in the city, District 3 presents its two unopposed city council candidates with a political quandary.
Whether it’s noise, litter or more serious issues such as policing, students and homeowners don’t always agree. And as incumbent Stephanie Stullich and newcomer Mark Cook enter office this year with 10 months experience between them, they’ll have to balance two often conflicting constituencies.
Residents have recently voiced concern about having to pay to increase policing in the city and the traffic the university’s East Campus development could bring.
On the other hand, students would like to see more safety measures put in place, but won’t see a direct impact on their bills for it.
Though students historically have voted in far fewer numbers than residents, student issues are never off the radar.
Stullich has learned this lesson several times over already.
Her council campaign started with questions on how she’d represent students when alumnus David Daddio, editor of the Rethink College Park blog, made a brief bid to run in the district 3 special election last winter.
Although he dropped out within weeks of announcing his candidacy, the questions haven’t subsided and Stullich’s answers on the council have hedged away from a purely resident perspective.
She voted with her seven council peers to reach a unanimous decision to impose parking permits in the Knox Box area despite students’ protests, but also joined with city staff to deny Mark Vogel a loan for a hotel project, leading him to build student housing instead.
Still, neither of these votes carries the same importance with the issues she and Cook will likely face on the council next term. Will they support roads connecting the district’s neighborhoods to the university’s East Campus development if home owners continue to say they’ll invite too much traffic? How will they vote on police expansion residents will shoulder most of the taxes for?
Stullich has been one of the council’s most outspoken public safety proponents, but said she’s wary of new roads.
Cook questioned the direction the council is taking toward expanding a program that contracts off-duty Prince George’s County officers to patrol the city. On the East Campus issue, Cook echoed concerns from the civic associations, and said that while connector roads would make travel to the new development convenient for the district’s residents, most could just walk.
Both Cook and Stullich pointed out that on the district’s most pressing issue – the student housing shortage – students and residents agree.
More student housing is “something that everybody wants,” Stullich said. “It puts students near campus and out of the neighborhoods.”
Cook was in step with other local politicians calling on the university to provide more housing, but added that the city should do more to enforce noise violations and a county law forbidding more than five unrelated people from living in the same house.
The former Yarrow Civic Association President has made the district’s neighborhoods one of his top priorities and said he planned to stay connected with them by attending various meetings outside the council.
“The only way to really connect with people by politics is to meet them and known them,” he said. “You actually have to touch the people you represent.”
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