Graduate student announces city council run

A graduate student is running for the District 4 seat on the College Park City Council.
Marcus Afzali, a 24-year-old government and politics doctoral student who grew up in College Park, will be the first student council candidate since January 2007. However, he said he "absolutely" would not run as a "student candidate."

So far, Afzali is the first student to register to run. While Student Government Association President Steve Glickman promised in his election platform to encourage students to run for the council and earlier said he had lined up candidates to run, he said yesterday all of them had backed out.

Meanwhile, Afzali said he sees himself as someone who will see both sides of the city's deeply entrenched student-homeowner divide and help the two groups reach compromises and collaborate.

"I've lived here both as a student and as a non-student," he said, adding that students and homeowners have many common interests, though they may not always realize it.

"I consider this my home, and there's a lot in this community that I'm not happy about," he said. "I think everyone wants a safer neighborhood. I think everyone wishes there was more student housing on campus."

But as the Afzali launches a campaign aimed at building understanding between students and permanent residents in West College Park, none of three candidates Glickman contacted still intended to run.

"I guess I got people who said they'd be interested in doing it, but they didn't really know what it required. People don't really have the time," Glickman said. "People I talked to weren't interested once they found out what was involved."

Glickman said the students he had spoken to who declined to run asked him not to name them publicly.

Two undergraduate seniors had campaigned for city council seats in a January 2007 special election. David Daddio dropped out of the city's District 3 race just before the election citing insufficient support, and Nick Aragón lost in District 4 despite an endorsement from Mayor Stephen Brayman. No students ran in the November 2007 regular election.

Afzali, who returned to College Park in 2007 after 10 years living in California, said he has more than the usual experience to help prepare him for the council. Not only was he raised here, he noted, but he also has political experience working for the Maryland Democratic Party during last year's election and professional experience working with a government body at the Maryland Department of Labor.

Joining Afzali in the ranks of student-concerned candidates, longtime resident Bob McCeney said he plans to run in District 3 and would try to boost student involvement in city affairs. McCeney said he lost past council races in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was labeled "pro-student." Other candidates have also pledged to reach a middle ground between the interests of students and permanent residents.

Having multiple pro-student council members on the nine-member body is key to ensuring that the interests of College Park's student residents are represented on the council, Glickman said.

"Having one student on there who is very, very pro-student will get outvoted 7-1 every single time," he said. "We need four or five people who are pro-student."

Afzali said that beyond brokering peace between students and permanent residents, he would like to focus on public safety and environmental initiatives if elected to the city council.

He may face a council election with far more candidates than usual, however. While it is not unusual for College Park's two council members per district to go unchallenged, each district plus the mayor's seat will be contested this November.

To date, 17 city residents have withdrawn information packets from the city to run for a two-year term on the city council. Of those 17, all but five confirmed in interviews that they intended to run. The others did not return phone calls.

Potential candidates have until Sept. 18 to turn in 25 signatures of registered voters in their district to be eligible to run.

holt@umdbk.com