Low voter turnout shows that there was little purpose - the effort was meaningless. When there is no choice, what's the point? I had hoped that some serious issues would be raised - like speed cameras and equity of treatment of landlords; public safety; and excess aggressive parking enforcement. But alas, no one chose to dig into these issues; the typical political way is to avoid or deny the existence of controversial issues, pretend they don't exist, and ride the self-delusional train to more waste and irresponsibility. It looks like people are more interested in the power and control of office, rather than service to the well-being of people. I'm not blaming the politicians, just observing on the general condition of human nature; because we the people are the ones who bring about government the way it is. The poll workers who managed the voting seemed very alert and helpful. They just didn't have a lot of "business" -- because in CP, it's just typical political "business as usual" -- everyone saying the same thing to avoid any serious engagement with the issues. People don't wake up until someone is found to stuff tons of bribe money down the toilet one step ahead of the feds.

Very true Mr. Havis.

Interesting comment, Mr. Havis. Inspired by your comment, and that from another reader, I've put together a quick poll to get a general idea of how many people out there agree with you: http://patch.com/A-n9Bv

Yes Joe, I did go to some events and also talked directly to some of the representatives. You are right that the public should stay involved and city does respond if it is something they want to talk about. Beautifying RT. 1 for example will get you some positive feed back, but the issues that Lee talks about will get you no response. It would be nice to see some opposition in the elections. Apparently there were plenty of potential candidates that picked up the forms to enter the election, but they never did.

I believe low voter turnout is mainly due to the general sentiment that the current College Park City Council has so wrecked conditions in the city that it will be a long time before College Park residents and homeowners actually see improvement. What did the current CP City Council accomplish? They promoted the construction of several high rise dorms which have worsened traffic on Rt. 1. That's about it.

There's a reason some of the seats were left unchallenged. Who would want to step in clean up the mess that folks like Catlin, Wohjan and Afzali have left? It's a real shame that hard working residents and homeowners are left with decreasing property values, no meaningful public amenities (oh wait, the proposed skate park is supposed to be their gift to us? Rrrright) and increasing congestion. Sounds like blight to me. I personally know of three households who have left College Park in recent years. These were families who had been residents and homeowners of CP since the 1960s. Two of them told me that they found the increasing crime rates, and general lack of positive local government action to help support small business to be the reason they simply moved to another part of PG County. I can't say I blame them. While other parts of the county are on the right track, College Park is in serious decline.

And now with the current election's results being *more of the same*, I'm looking at different options too. We have 2 kids and a third on the way. I can't say that I want them growing up in College Park anymore.

I wouldn't blame the high rises on the congestion. I would rather see the occupants walk to campus 2-3 times a day and drive to the grocery store once a week instead of the opposite. I haven't noticed a large volume of traffic going in and out of the complexes. What is wrong with the high rises is how the city got them. One of the incentives for the owners/investors was to have the city impose rent control on singe family units to keep the small time investor from competing against the high rises. This rent control does not apply to the high rises which could easily be challenged in court, but who has the money? The result of the rent control has been expensive high rises and cheep homes that were bought and paid for years ago that still remain as much coveted rentals by the students and can turn a profit for the landlords. New investors on the other hand find that the rent control doesn't even pay the mortgages. As a result there are few buyers for College Park homes and their values have sunk more than the surrounding D.C. metropolitan area.

Richard - interesting that you should mention challenging rent stabilization in Court. It has been challenged in Court, and the landlords lost. I'm not saying that rent stabilization is necessarily the best thing right now - the Council will be reviewing it again this next year and I think there's a good chance that it might be repealed. You're right to raise concerns about not wanting to prevent people from buying up vacant houses right now. However, as most landlords could probably attest, the high rent ceiling for properties in College Park (generally higher than the market allows) has actually made it so that most landlords have not had to worry about hitting the ceiling. I'm wondering where you got the information suggesting that home values have sunk lower than in other areas of the D.C. metro region (especially in Prince George's County), because I don't believe that to be the case. But the reason it was applied to single-family homes and not to the high-rises was simple - the Council was interested in preventing investors from buying up single-family homes and turning them into rentals. Now that we've learned that the current alternative - vacant homes - may be worse, I think we're less likely to continue the program.

Patrick - I'm glad to hear that the rent control may end as would many other people I have observed in Patch forums and in conversing with in person. I think this idea of favoring the high-rises with their big-time investors over the little guys is just unfair whether the court challenge worked or not. Was it appealed? The council seems to sell the rent control idea as a way of preventing slum lords from taking over the community and over running us with undesirables (a.k.a. students). The fact is that most of these vacant houses were once investments used as rentals, but when the housing market skyrocketed any owner would have been a fool not to sell. The homes here were going up as high as $100,000 per year. There was no way a land lord would get that much in rent in a short time. So these rentals were sold, unfortunately, to unqualified buyers. Now the owners are gone because the couldn't make the payments. If these homes cant find owner occupiers then let an investor turn them in to the rentals they once were.

There are about 33 significant zip codes in the county. Throughout the 1990s, up to about 2002, the median sales price for homes in the 20740 zip code were about the 16th highest in the county. By about 2007 we had moved up in rank to the 10th highest price. That was remarkable given that thousands of high priced new homes were being sold each year in the county in many of the other county zip codes. By 2010 we returned to 16th place in the county and once again have a median sales price that is very close to the county's median sales price.

Thanks, Robert. So, with the rent control being initiated in 2005/2006 at 1% assessed value and going down gradually to 0.6% assessed value in 2009, it could be debated that it has caused the homes to become an unattractive investment thus keeping investors out and decreasing the field of eligible buyers and driving the home prices back to the 16TH highest in the county from the 10TH.

I looked into buying some homes on my own street, but at 0.6%, it wouldn't even cover the mortgage payments.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-city council. At a recent presentation in West CP, some council members talked of some good things like a charter school involving the University. The demolition of some buildings along Rt 1 was discussed as well as the use of neighborhood security cameras. But, Mr. Havis' original comment about the speed cameras and rent control has angered many people, and the city seems to want to hunker down and hope the issues fade away.

The limit on new home rental rates are the GREATER of (1) the HUD Fair Market Rent for the DC area (about $2500/mo) or (2) 0.6% of assessed value. A city council vote to raise the percentage rate to 0.8% (to reflect the reduction in assesed values) failed about 18 months ago. Even so I don't often see a home north of Paint Branch Parkway where an 0.8% valuation would yield a rent above $2,500.