As the D.C. mayoral race heats up, Students for a Better D.C. is working to ensure that candidates keep universities’ interests in mind.
The newly founded student organization is reaching out to mayoral candidates with policy ideas that would benefit students and the wider D.C. population.
“D.C. is right in the middle of the election process. Everything is kind of fluid, everything is kind of in transition,” member Sarah Rabon (COL ’16) said. “Since it is going to be transitioning to a new direction, depending on who is elected, we wanted to branch out to all the people who could potentially be leaders of D.C. in the near future.”
The group is pushing for a more precise noise ordinance than the Disorderly Conduct Amendment Act of 2010. According to the law, unreasonably loud noise is prohibited between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. if it disturbs other residents, although a decibel restriction is not specified. The group also plans to advocate for a higher education mayoral advisory board that would provide students with a direct channel to the mayor.
“It would be basically a panel of students who the mayor could consult with if he wanted to know how a young person would view an issue or if there was an issue that a community member wanted and he wanted to know how a young person would feel about that issue, it would be a board that he could consult,” member and Georgetown University Student Association Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Peterson (COL ’14) said.
Member Olivia Hinerfield (SFS ’17), however, questioned whether candidates would implement student-created policies.
“So far, they have all been very receptive, but one of the hardest parts about it is that the majority of Georgetown students are not registered to vote in D.C., and so while they are representing us as mayor, we are not going to help them get elected,” Hinerfield said.
Nevertheless, Peterson stressed that students are a vital resource for the District that is severely underutilized.
“Students and young people are a really great resource in terms of our time,” Peterson said. “Even though we tend to not have as much money, but in terms of our time to volunteer and our voting, we can be really powerful in D.C.”
Students for a Better D.C. follows in the footsteps of force student advocacy group D.C. Students Speak, which was founded in 2009. According to Trevor Tezel (SFS ’15), former DCSS Georgetown chair and current Students for D.C. member, DCSS was primarily formed to represent student voices in the formation of campus plan agreements at local universities, primarily American University, The George Washington University and Georgetown. Tezel said that the organization has largely disassembled and many members have since graduated, although representatives from each school meet approximately once a month to discuss student issues.
“They are pretty similar, and they’re going to the same goals, but I think the battlefield has changed a bit,” Tezel said about DCSS and Students for a Better D.C. “The issues are a bit different.”
Peterson said that the two organizations’ aims were different.
“They have different priorities,” Peterson said. “Students for a D.C. has a larger mission that encompasses students as well as the District. D.C. Students speak was more of a reactionary group less about concrete policy and more about protesting what they saw as intrusions on student rights.”
Both Peterson and Hinerfield vote in D.C., and they countered conventional wisdom that discounts students as a significant voting bloc.
“Students can contribute because, first of all, there are those groups of students that do vote,” Peterson said. “There are a sizable amount of students that do vote in D.C., so I don’t want it to seem like none of us are voting.”
Rabon pointed to the success Students for a Better D.C. has had in arranging meetings with mayoral candidates as indication of a willingness to hear student ideas. For example, members of the group are meeting with mayoral candidate and Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) on Thursday. To Rabon, the more pertinent issue is the lack of student involvement.
“It also feels like something I wish more students would get involved in because I think that there is room for students to have more of a voice. Students are just not trying to have as much of a voice as they could,” Rabon said. “I think part of it is definitely students don’t realize how willing leaders are to listen to student voices.”
Member Bethan Saunders (SFS ’17) attributed this attitude to Georgetown students’ fixation on national and international issues.
“Here at Georgetown, we often get caught up in the international community, and there is a very international outlook here at Georgetown, and sometimes that international outlook inhibits us to realizing how much influence we have, especially as Georgetown students, in our local community,” Saunders said, “The changes we are making may not have a huge effect on us while we are in the city, [but they] can make D.C. a better place for the people who will follow after us living in D.C. and going to Georgetown.”
Overall, Hinerfield said that the organization aims to hold candidates and elected officials responsible for their campaign promises through a coalition of D.C. student groups and journalists.
“If we get with all the right organizations, then we can, all together, hold these candidates accountable for their promises, which is also why we are trying to bring them to campus and get them on the record about these campaign promises so that we really have something to hold them accountable to,” she said.