Enjoy!

Issues:

1) Keeping Landlords Accountable and Regulated – I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in some of the houses off of Route 1 and in the Knox Boxes and many of them are sub-par (probably giving them an undeserved compliment).  Students pay too much to live off campus for little to no services.  Landlords must follow the terms of student leases and must be regulated by the city in terms of cost and strengthening the city code as it relates to rental housing standards.  Many of us are denied basic services by landlords who do not care about our welfare, only about our rent checks.  While most of the landlords in College Park are decent people, who do maintain their property, the worst of the landlords need to be further regulated.  This involves bringing housing up to minimum standards, which the better landlords already follow.

2) Repairing Resident-Student Relationships in the Neighborhoods – Why can’t we all just get along?  If you live in the neighborhoods, you know that some of your neighbors may be intolerant and hard to deal with at times.  For years, many different tenants have come in and out of your house and some neighbors have probably had a bad experience at one point or another.  City residents must understand that they live in a College town, but learning to be a good neighbor is a life skill.  Furthermore, the closer your relationship is to your neighbors the less they will be jumping to call city code enforcement or the police when you are hosting a few friends for a party or pre-game.  A good way to facilitate these new relationships would be to engage in Good Neighbor Agreements (GNA’s), which have worked well in other municipalities and force residents to interact and establish basic rules of conduct that everyone can live with.

3) City Council Meetings Broadcasts on Campus Cable – Why are city council meetings not broadcast on University Cable, while it is throughout the city?  Doesn’t this just further isolate us from the actions of the city and our elected representatives here?  I am not saying that you should bang down the door to watch the council meetings (although they are rather interesting), but that option should be available to us.  It seems like it should be a no-brainer.

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