Potential Redistricting Could Mean Better Representation for Residents...Or Not

The College Park City Council is considering overhauling the system of districts by which the city is divided, as a means of encouraging council members to focus more on the city as a whole, rather than the specific district that each member represents.

Currently, the city of College Park is divided into four districts, with two council members representing each. However, Mayor Andrew Fellows proposed at Tuesday night's council meeting that five districts be established, with three at-large members.  Each district would be represented by one councilmember, one of whom would ostensibly be a student to represent College Park's sizeable university population.

Fellows said the reason for his proposal was to ease the sense of fragmentation in the city.

"You'd have more people on the city body who are thinking about the city as a whole, and not just about their district," he said.

However, some members of the council see some potential problems with the concept of at-large members. Councilman Robert Catlin (Dist. 2) pointed out that it might be difficult to convince residents to run for at-large seats, when district seats cover much smaller – and thus, more manageably-sized - jurisdictions.

"It's a lot more people to deal with, and it's going to cost you a lot more money to campaign," he said. "And it's not like they pay you more for being at-large."

Another possible issue is that some areas of the city are more densely populated than others, meaning potential candidates who live in less populous area will have a harder time garnering votes. Councilman Patrick Wojahn (Dist. 1) identified Greenbelt as an example, where at-large seats went to residents who were connected with the city's center, Old Town Greenbelt.  Wojahn is concerned that a similar problem may arise in College Park.

"People might feel more of a connection to the area centered around the university than the more outlying areas," he said.

The process of redistricting is predicated on changes in census figures, which will not be released until later this year.  Therefore, it's too soon to determine whether the overhaul will be practical, Catlin said.

"I think it's a bit tricky to know what to do until we actually see some census data," Catlin said. "That would help guide us in terms of what we'd be able to do if we just kept the boundaries the same, or do something more imaginative as the mayor suggested."