Activists work to build city coalitions

Despite recent disagreements and points of contention between the university and the city of College Park, student activists still hope to benefit from a positive relationship with the city.

Mike Martin, an alumnus and former chairman of the Maryland state chapter of the Sierra Club — a grassroots environmentalist organization that advocates preservation and eco-friendly policies — spoke last night to more than 30 students in the Stamp Student Union. Throughout his talk, he told students how he succeeded in affecting sustainable change as a student activist by reaching out to key stakeholders, including the city.

Student activists said they hope their own coalition building with the city will help them achieve their environmental goals for both the university and the surrounding area.

"We're talking to the city to see where they stand on East Campus and their own relocation needs," said Matt Dernoga, campaign coordinator for UMD for Clean Energy, who is a columnist at The Diamondback. "They can have some leverage with the council representative [to the university] about what provisions he'll support. He also has some financial pull as well as political pull."

UMD for Clean Energy is advocating to make the upcoming East Campus the "most ambitious green development," and is still collaborating with the city on an energy loan fund — a pool of money to be loaned out to city residents to make environmentally friendly upgrades in their homes. Some student activists also went to Annapolis to meet with state legislators about legalizing the loan program.

This sort of grassroots advocacy and coalition building works, Martin said.

During his time as a student, Martin struggled with the university's attempt to build a road through a forested area that is now occupied by Comcast Center and to relocate greenhouses to wetlands in the same area.

Martin said it was through reaching out to the city and other stakeholders like the Sierra Club and the US Army Corps of Engineers that his Sierra Student Coalition was able to prevent the university from tampering with the wetlands.

Some UMD for Clean Energy members said this story mirrored their continuing outreach to the city in regards to the East Campus development and the Student Sustainability Committee's progress in saving the Wooded Hillock from development.

"It doesn't take an awful lot to create change or pressure the university," Martin said. "We were able to change the physical makeup of the campus and change the course of the university."

During his fight for the wetlands, Martin and other student activists worked with the city, who sued the university over the issue but lost.

Martin said city officials helped put them in contact with stakeholders and attracted the attention of former Gov. Parris Glendening, who helped them put pressure on the university by appealing to university President Dan Mote.

Martin was also a part of a Sustainability committee under Facilities Management, whose issues he and other committee members brought to the attention of the university community.

"We reworked the Sustainability committee to be responsible to the community, which made a difference in the long run for the campus," Martin said.

cetrone at umdbk dot com