Patrick Ronk, SGA president, said that the Student Government Association won’t be endorsing any City Council election candidates this year.
The SGA isn’t endorsing any candidates for the upcoming College Park City Council elections this year in an effort to promote unity.
Here’s Student Government Association President Patrick Ronk’s explanation of the decision:
“We’re not going to be endorsing any candidates just because I think, frankly, endorsing candidates created a bit of a toxic environment last time around in that it created a students versus long-term residents mentality that really turned the campaign negative. It wasn’t our intention to create that environment at all, but I think it was created and I don’t think it benefited anyone in the city. It made it very divisive, and all the work the students and the university are doing with the city council is about ending divisiveness.”
During the 2013 City Council elections, the Student Government Association voted to endorse District 3 incumbent Robert Day and University of Maryland graduate student Matthew Popkin for the District 3 seats. The two were running against incumbent Stephanie Stullich; she and Day ended up keeping their seats.
This year, the District 3 race is more contested — Day and Stullich are running again, as are elementary school teacher Robert McCeney and John Rigg, president of the Calvert Hills Citizens Association. Ryan Belcher, a 2015 university alumnus and former Student Government Association shared governance director, is also competing for a seat.
CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this article stated Ryan Belcher is a 2014 alumnus. He is a 2015 alumnus. The article has been updated.
