terrapinsanity.com

One of UM’s long term strategic needs is unquestionably the improvement of a surrounding community. The best departments know how difficult it is to recruit top talent to their faculties when there is no real campus town (not that anyone wants to much live near), high crime in surrounding areas of the county and, if prospectives can afford the safer areas of Montgomery County, a daily commute through nothing but increasing congestion.

That’s already the reality, and we know it is getting worse. Any future for a tiny island of civilization near campus – by which we mean the east campus development – seems perpetually on hold and open to predation by city leaders who are more interested in milking the campus than in combining efforts to make a better overall sense of community. The housing crisis on campus is quickly turning into a housing glut, as next year’s on-campus needs are now met fully, yet a couple high rises have yet to open on Route 1 – buildings that displace businesses which might have made others want to come spend money at someplace other than Ikea. But hey, city leaders’ deals will rake in that cash, either for their partnership with developers or the extortion fees charged for their approvals of campus needs.

Not everyone is into raping the community, and you know who those are by how loud the business interests complain about them. For example, local observers can’t help but notice the big-business interests using former Councilman Tom Dernoga as a piñata, an easy and convenient thing to do now that the operative word is “former.” Dernoga wasn’t the rubber stamp for big business interests who only sought a faster-running money spigot, and he obviously did think about shape of College Park (some of which was in his district) in the long run. Another report of Dernoga-bashing was in today’s Diamondback, which surprisingly shills for big business interests: they’re teaching a lesson in what’s in store for other officials who don’t play ball.

So here are the new storm clouds coming into UM’s future forecast: Businesses that couldn’t get officials like Dernoga to rubber stamp rampant development were able to get a state law to trump him. As stated in the DB article just linked:

Gov. Martin O’Malley signed an ethics bill into law earlier this month that prohibits Prince George’s County Council members from asking developers to give money to community improvement projects.

Pay attention kids: we’ve just given up any sense of pretending that officials ought to care about the community. Now we’re simply outlawing it! UM’s task of raising the quality of our surrounds just got harder.