Three of the College Park City Council’s eight members have said they will not seek re-election in November.
Both councilmembers who represent District 2, Llatetra Brown Esters and Susan Whitney, announced on July 30 that they will leave the council in December when their terms expire.
Four-term Councilmember John Rigg (District 3) notified voters on Aug. 4 that he will not run for office again this year.
Rigg, who has advocated for four-year terms for the mayor and councilmembers instead of two-year stints as city law requires, said in an email to “friends and neighbors” that he “want[s] to place a much higher priority on … family events, see my friends and neighbors more often and spend time on personal pursuits. I have determined that running for council every other autumn is a trade-off that I am no longer willing to accept.”
The position of mayor and the seats of all eight councilmembers are up for election in November. Candidates have until Sept. 12 to register with the city.
Whitney and Esters also pointed to increasing obligations to family and their full-time jobs as reasons for giving up their seats.
District 2 includes the communities of Berwyn, Branchville, Lakeland and Oak Springs.
Esters, who lives in Oak Springs, won her seat in a 2020 special election. She said her recent promotion to associate vice president for student success and dean of students at the University of Baltimore came with more responsibility, leaving her less time to focus on her part-time city council job.
Plus, she said, spending more time with older family members and her friends is “the way I want to carve out my life right now.”
“Life is so fleeting,” she said. “You get so busy that you look up and they’ve gotten worse or they’re not here anymore.”
Whitney, who lives in Berwyn and joined the council in 2021, works full time as a business and operations program manager at the University of Maryland. She said work and family responsibilities have left her unable to give the council the necessary level of commitment.
“I’m very careful when I decide what I’m going to commit myself to,” she said, “because if I’m going to do something, I am all in. I can’t do half of things.”
College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir said the trio will be missed.
“I’d say this will be a loss, on one hand, for the council as a body because we will be losing their experience and the values they have brought,” Kabir said. “On the other hand, this also gives an opportunity for residents who want to run. … If the same people keep running, those who are interested, they don’t get a chance. It’s very hard to run against incumbents.”
Kabir pointed to Rigg’s “passion for the community.”
“He is truly a community leader,” the mayor said of Rigg, who joined the council in 2017. “The people who elected him love him.”
Plus, Kabir said, Rigg’s candid contributions to council discussions add a unique perspective.
“He’s not afraid of saying opposing things that feel important,” Kabir said, “which is important because we shouldn’t be always saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes’. It’s important to sometimes say ‘no.’”
The mayor said the city will miss the dedication Whitney and Esters have shown for the cause of restorative justice for College Park’s Lakeland community, which is in their district.
And he called the pair, which has worked as a team, “very easy to work with. They always listen. They’re very nice. … Every time I needed something … they always tried to help, even if sometimes they didn’t agree.”
Whitney said she is most proud of the work she has done on behalf of Lakeland. She also pointed to her efforts to make child care more accessible and affordable in the city; to help pass an ordinance that makes it illegal for drivers to stop or park in bike lanes on city-owned streets; and to her partnership with Esters.
“That really worked for the residents, and it worked for us, too,” she said.
Esters also pointed to the relationships she forged with Lakeland residents.
“I think it’s safe to say there’s been a level of distrust for the city [in] this community,” she said of Lakeland, which lost 104 of its 150 homes to urban renewal in the 1960s and ’70s. “Being able to advocate and support [Lakeland] for a number of things, I’m proud of that.”
And she named as a major accomplishment the approval of a flashing pedestrian beacon at the intersection of Greenbelt Road and Rhode Island Avenue.
“To me, that is a big deal,” she said. “People crossing and navigating roadways in this community that we want to be walkable … making sure there’s a level of safety at this area is key.”
Rigg noted that one of his earliest accomplishments remains most important to him: the opening of the University of Maryland Child Development Center on Calvert Road.
The day care center operates in the building that housed the historic Calvert Road School for 50 years starting in the 1920s but stood vacant for at least a decade.
In his letter announcing his plans, Rigg urged the newly elected council to change the terms of the mayor and council to four years.
He pointed out that College Park voters in 2023 expressed interest in switching to four-year terms for elected officials, a move Rigg said would “continue a common-sense approach to alleviating the substantial personal burden imposed by our current system of elections every other year.”