by Matthew Weinsheimer

As the College Park City Council prepares for election day on Sunday, Nov. 6, one first-time council candidate is insistent on prioritizing the environmental needs of the community. 

Stuart Adams, a 35 year-old from Louisiana, is running for one of the two College Park City Council seats representing the 3rd district. He’s running against two incumbents, John Riggs and Robert Day. 

Adams has lived in College Park for six years and served as the president of the Calvert Hills Citizens Association for three years. He works for Stantec, a civil engineering firm based in Alberta, Canada, as a community resilience engineer with expertise in flood plaining – an issue important to College Park as well. 

Aaron Faulx, a Riverdale Park council member representing the 2nd Ward, said he has seen the benefits of Adams’ specific background first hand.  

“I have constituents that are impacted from flooding significantly whenever we get heavy rains. [Adams] is the reason that we have pushed forward and are asking the county and state for funds to help protect our homeowners rights,” Faulx said.

Adams primarily helps communities throughout the country with disaster relief, coordinating a team of over 50 people. 

“I’m involved in helping communities across the nation become more resilient and adopt resilient building codes, do good planning, get federal funding for housing for transportation, and look at climate change and sustainability,” Adams said.

If elected, Adams will join Councilmember Fazlul Kabib as only the second engineer on the council. Adams said his expertise is important for College Park – especially now. 

Adams was a key part of the movement to save Guilford Woods from being deforested in favor of graduate student housing. Western Gateway, an off-campus student graduate housing complex planned by Gilbane Development Company and the University of Maryland. 16 acres of forest would have been cleared to make way for the development. UMD President Darryll Pines paused the project on Oct. 26 following protests on campus and backlash from the community, which Adams joined. 

“We’re talking about looking at a forested area with a stream in the middle of it that’s topographically challenged, and the state is proposing to sell it for very cheap for one developer,” Adams said in an interview. 

Lily Fountain, the chair of the Maryland Sierra Club Natural Places Committee, has lived in College Park for 45 years. 

“I think that maybe folks didn’t realize how important an issue it was, so there just wasn’t a lot of attention paid to it. Stuart, on the other hand, has been actually bringing both planning information, stormwater information, flood plain information to the group,” she said. “Even though he’s kind of a planner type of guy, Stu has been very, very attuned to the environmental issues, and also the people issues you know, because the impact of the storm water problems in College Park is very important for the citizens here.”

Fountain said that forestry is the most effective resource to prevent flooding — not human engineering.  

“There’s so many different ways [water runs] through the leaves, through the trunk, through the roots…that just having a 1 million gallon tank, as was proposed for Guildford woods, by the Western Gateway project is not enough for the kinds of events that we are seeing now.”

This is not the first time Adams has been a key contributor in the fight to save critical green space in College Park. When the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority planned to sell 6 acres of green space on Albion Road in College Park, Adams was one of the community leaders responsible for saving it.

“I’ve been able to achieve things including preservation of Albion woods that others, including elected officials, basically said it was going to be impossible when we started,” Adams said. “But we achieved it.”

Adams is not the only candidate that cites the preservation of Albion woods as evidence of success. Rigg, one of his opponents, was on the council and fought to save it as well.

“WMATA was looking to sell and we were able to convince/compel them to preserve it as an open space and work in partnership with Maryland National Capital Park and Planning to be able to make that happen,” Rigg said.

While he hopes to be elected, the mere fact that the election is contested is important, Adams said.

“My understanding when I decided to run was that there really weren’t any new candidates on the table, so I decided to run to put forth some new ideas and, you know, just give the community some choices in this upcoming election,” he said.

Rigg and Day, the two incumbents for the 3rd district, believe their experience on the council has shown why they should be elected. Rigg cited his work responding to the coronavirus pandemic on the council and Day cited his connections to other leaders across the country.

Despite being opponents, there is a mutual respect between the three candidates. 

“I actually am a big fan of both Robert Day and Stuart Adams. I think both are excellent leaders; Robert Day is an excellent leader on council, Stewart Adams is an excellent leader in our community. I can’t say anything negative about them,” Rigg said.

“I don’t believe in criticizing my opponents because I think we all bring good things to the table,” Day said. 

“I think it is healthy for a city to have choices and have turnover. To me, it’s more a focus on having local candidates than necessarily who wins,” Adams said.

But Faulx, the Riverdale Park councilmember, said that Adams is the only candidate who prioritizes the community over expanding College Park. 

“He is the only candidate that College Park students or the University of Maryland students should back, he is the only candidate that is supporting what the student experience should be like at the University of Maryland instead of just trying to build, build, build, build, build,” Faulx said.

Featured image: Stuart Adams stands in front of a wall on Nov. 6. Photo by Matthew Weinsheimer.