It is strange that in Amherst, Mass., a college town with a large population of students in and around it, the local governing body is void of student representation. It’s understandable that residents who live here year-round wish to be represented by the council, and they should be, but they should not be the only ones. College students deserve a say in the oversight of the town where they spend a sizable part of their year living.
Amherst is a known college town, and two colleges that bear the name Amherst in their title have their campuses located here—The University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College. If the decisions of the town council only affected year-round residents, the lack of representation might not be a big deal. After all, we have our own bodies of government and administrators that govern our schools.
However, because college students are such a large proportion of the population in Amherst, the “problems” they cause are targeted within many town council meetings. The Town of Amherst is not independent from its student population, and with college students come college student-associated activities. The council’s decisions are made for the whole town, but in some cases, their rulings have a greater effect on students.
Amherst Town Council is made up of 13 members, not all of whom attend every meeting. The meetings are led by the town manager, who is appointed by the council, who then appoints other members that run Amherst. These members are all above college age. The town council holds regular meetings to discuss issues that come up in Amherst. These meetings are very formulaic—an issue is proposed and a vote is held, although occasional disagreements arise regarding bylaws. In some cases, these disagreements last so long that the council members will acknowledge how long the dispute lasted.
At a town council meeting I attended, the council engaged in a lengthy discussion about strengthening the punishment for noise violations to make it easier to classify the houses as nuisance properties. This designation would come if it received too many noise violations.
Anybody can get a noise violation, but in a college town, with college parties, there is a difference in the amount of noise that is made. By making it harsher, the punishment would target the owner of the property itself and place restrictions on the property. In this meeting, it was acknowledged that many of the properties getting noise violations were ones that had different tenants every year, making it harder to dole out the intended punishment with this updated law. So, although covert, these properties constantly switching hands are the ones college students live in, and the ones that the council wishes to have more control over.
Within this meeting, who is there to speak up for college students? Nobody. There is not a single representative on the board of college age or enrolled in a college in the surrounding area. I am not suggesting a whole board of college students, as residents still deserve a say in a town they are outnumbered in, but some representation would be nice. An individual from the institutions should attend the meetings to be able to represent the college perspective.
Students never receive acknowledgement for the changes that affect them. Students aren’t told when decisions are made that will end up affecting them. These meetings may be public, but they are inaccessible, tucked away in a room, with the meeting notes somewhere on the web riddled in legal language that obscures the point of the decision. Even just a flow of information would be beneficial.
A board of students could send an individual to represent the student body. Although college students cycle through residency quicker than town residents, as long as the student representatives take ideas and perspectives into town meetings, it matters less if the spokesperson changes every so often. We live in Amherst, so we deserve a say in Amherst.
Mirelle Liimatta can be reached at [email protected].
