The State and Langdon Neighborhood Association plans to propose seceding from Capitol Neighborhoods Inc. at Tuesday’s Executive Council meeting in response to CNI’s recent recommendations to crack down on downtown alcohol consumption.
Students have been at odds with CNI’s attempts to restrict nightlife and downtown disturbances since CNI absorbed the then-independent State Street and Langdon Street Neighborhood Association in 2005. Most recently, CNI proposed a policy to double the fine for underage drinking and increase the beer tax, prompting angry responses and calls for defection from students.
It is clear the State Street and Langdon area students and CNI have diverging visions for the neighborhood, but what these visions are remain veiled.
Constricting students’ alcohol consumption and social lives will not foster student support, interest or activity in the neighborhood council, but secession based only on this platform seems highly reactive, juvenile and petty. It seems troublesome that the only plan of action thus far has been a reaction to proposed restrictions on alcohol-related nightlife.
At the same time, CNI does not appear to have the students’ interests in mind with these recent proposals, and it is not cultivating support by blaming students for downtown problems. Curbing downtown disturbances via taxes and increased prices for citations is a lofty and, frankly, unattainable plan. A considerable amount of disturbances are a result of legal-drinking-age partiers who are immune to the underage drinking fine, and an increased beer tax is unlikely to intimidate them into model citizenry. Thus, the problem persists—as does the strained relationship between CNI and students—without remedying any real community problems.
At Tuesday’s meeting, both partis need to lay their cards on the table for any progress to be made. If the students have a greater vision for the State and Langdon Street Neighborhood beyond fighting for their right to party, they must delineate it explicitly or risk their proposal looking like a surly, childish and foolish reaction to unwanted paternal infringement. CNI, too, must explicate their vision for the neighborhood and craft realistic proposals to attain this vision without holding their personal interests paramount and without alienating the student body and blaming them for the city’s problems.
This power struggle and the fate of the State Street and Langdon Street Neighborhood should be decided not by reactive rhetoric or selfish motives, but rather by plausible, well-reasoned visions that serve the best interests of the community, and it would be wise for each party to make this abundantly clear in their arguments.
