The city of East Lansing is a divided city - half is students and the other half residents. Cliché as this might be, many problems result from this simple fact. Rioting, conflicts between neighbors, traffic, noise and garbage are a few of the major points of contention between students and residents, and the list goes on.
These conflicts beg compromise, but all too often residents have the last word as student concerns go unheard. This is why students need to have one of their peers on City Council - something that hasn't happened in a long time.
On Nov. 8, political theory and constitutional democracy senior John Fournier will be the only student on the ballot for City Council. He is running to gain one of two open spots against incumbents Vic Loomis and Bill Sharp, as well as former Planning Commission Chairman Kevin E. Beard.
There are a plethora of reasons to vote for Fournier over the incumbents.
A city council must be representative of its city. Traditionally, however, the East Lansing City Council has been a model for imbalance and poor constituent representation. A win by Fournier would bring students' opinions back to the table.
It's been said in the past that only a small portion of the council's business concerns students, but this is not so. Students live and work in East Lansing the same as other residents do. They live more or less separate lives in the same city, but this is no reason for such a large portion of the population to go without representation.
In spite of the size of the student population and its potential for political clout, Fournier faces a tough race.
The biggest obstacle will be getting people, especially students, to come to the polls and vote. In the 2003 City Council elections, only 9.7 percent of registered voters in East Lansing cast ballots. Councilmember Bev Baten received 1,606 votes that year. The two students who ran that year each drew less than 400 votes.
To avoid a repeat of 2003, Fournier should start a grassroots campaign and get to know voters better than his opponents. The incumbents already have the advantage of name recognition; Fournier needs to go door-to-door to compete.
In addition, he must prepare a broad platform of ideas, extending beyond common student complaints such as the April 2-3 disturbances and the noise-violation ordinance. Fournier, who is the president of the MSU College Democrats and works at the Impact WDBM (88.9-FM), appears to have broad interests and said he will try to bridge student and resident interests. He looks like the man for the job.
In any case, he will be better than Loomis and Sharp, who, along with other older City Council members, have been usurping the seats rightfully belonging to a younger generation for a long time.
