College Park's Potential

Hi! My name is Matthew Popkin, and I am running for the College Park City Council to represent District 3. I have lived and studied in College Park for the past five years, and I am currently a graduate student in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and a graduate assistant with the University of Maryland Department of Public Safety. Whether you live in South Campus Commons, Graduate Gardens, Leonardtown, Fraternity Row, Old Town, Calvert Hills, Yarrow, College Park Estates, or on Knox Road , I want to represent you.

I am running for city council because College Park shouldn’t just be a livable community – it should be one of the most desirable college towns in the country. While I have many ideas for how to improve our community, here are a few highlights from my platform:

1. Utilize University Resources to Improve Our Community – when the city and the university don’t communicate well and work together, our community misses out on so much potential that a better relationship could bring. I want to use my connections that I have made over my years of involvement in student leadership to help leverage the resources that each part of our community can provide. For example, I want to work with the university to create courses that focus on examining and solving important issues in our community, such as traffic and renting practices.

2. Reduce Theft, Vandalism, and Sexual Assault – It is unacceptable that people feel unsafe walking around their community at night. While crime has decreased in College Park in recent years, safety and the perception of safety is a perpetual concern. There is still much that needs to be done to combat sexual assault, theft, and vandalism. As a student at the University of Maryland, I led two safety walks with university, city, police, and student officials. These safety walks identified problems on and near the campus, and provided an environment for developing collaborative solutions. As a councilmember, I will continue to take this collaborative approach and expand the safety walks to other parts of our community. Through community efforts aimed at safety improvement, we will be able to unite and make direct, specific improvements.

3. Implement Key Quality of Life Task Force Ideas – a city council workgroup, the Neighborhood Stabilization and Quality of Life Work Group, recently made 63 recommendations that would help improve the quality of life in the community with recommendations from a variety of community stakeholders. These recommendations, which cover topics including home ownership, housing diversity, and community building, have a lot of potential. However, the city council has been lagging on implementing these recommendations. Several key recommendations to improve relations between students and long-term residents were not implemented at the beginning of the school year, when they could have made the biggest impact, such as community block parties where students and long-term residents can meet each other and start the year off with positive relationships. As a member of the city council, I will push for prompt implementation of all recommendations made by the work group.

4. Redevelop Vacant and Poorly Developed Lots – College Park should be focused on redeveloping poorly developed, low-quality, and vacant lots that have the potential to create vibrant and higher quality living. Places like the Knox properties that are being redeveloped into Knox Village are a great example of what we should be doing in other parts of the city. Additionally, we should bring a grocery store, more quality restaurants and bars, and more entertainment options to downtown College Park so that people have an incentive to stay and spend their money in the city. Finally, we need to improve public transit, car and bike sharing, and traffic patterns to maximize efficiency and minimize traffic. Having served on the board of Purple Line Now, I know how much we can benefit from the Purple Line, and I am committed to working with our community to make sure we benefit from it.

These are only a fraction of my ideas for College Park. I will be posting more in-depth on these and other issues, but in the meantime read my platform to find out more of the ways I want to improve our community, and share your input so my ideas best reflect the needs of the community. Please join me in making  College Park one of the most desirable college towns in the country.