Police asked to crack down on Mount students

BY RICHARD D. L. FULTON
Emmitsburg News Editor

EMMITSBURG, Md. – Mount St. Mary’s University’s apparent failure to plan for more on-campus housing as the campus grew has been blamed for some of the ill-effects felt by the town as community deputies are urged to crack-down on student misconduct.

Board of commissioners President Christopher V. Staiger said Sept. 18 that complaints he has recently received regarding disturbances at homes boarding Mount students warranted further action by the town, including evaluating how certain homes had become boarding houses.

The board requested that the community deputies monitor and issue citations to offending students boarding in town in the hopes that increased enforcement would discourage the conduct which has been generating numerous complaints.

“My preference would be to take a harder line rather than a softer line,” Staiger stated at the meeting.

“Over the last year and a half, the board has received numerous, direct complaints in writing and in person from residents living in the East and West Main Street areas as well as the subdivisions. These complaints have dealt with alleged drunken behavior by young adults apparently occupying or visiting rental properties,” Staiger later told The Dispatch.

Staiger said that effective law enforcement is “a key component as we try to get a handle on this situation. I would also like to find a way to tie the property owners into the responsibility end since they are the initiators, gatekeepers, and beneficiaries. Perhaps there needs to be a penalty when the people they choose to rent to exhibit continued, bad behavior?”

Complaints have primarily involved residences located in the town’s R-1 zoning district, which only permits single-family homes. Specific developments containing alleged boarding houses include Northgate, Brookfield, “and a few off Main Street, most of those on East Main,” according to town Senior Inspector Frank Henry.

Town planning consultant Christopher N. Jakubiak told the board of commissioners Sept. 18 that problems with over-spillage into adjacent communities from local universities is “not an unusual problem” when the institutions have limited on-site housing.

Jakubiak said he would investigate to see how the offending enterprises could be brought into compliance. “Maybe it (the use of homes in the R-1) has a commercial use involved,” he said.

Another problem with regulating boarders in the R-1 zone is related to the definition of what constitutes a “family.” The town code states a family unit may not even necessarily be related, apparently revised at some point to permit the adoption of foster children in the R-1 district.

“This is obviously a messy issue. I about crawled under the desk when I found out we had a definition for what constituted a family … Trying to legislate such definitions is always a recipe for disaster! I’ll be curious to see if the planning consultant can find an effective way to address this issue through zoning,” Staiger said.

The Mount is planning to build a new residency hall capable of housing more than 180 students, and is presently awaiting additional permits to proceed. Ground has not yet been broken for the project, which is expected to be to be completed for the 2007-2008 school year.

According to Mike Post, dean of students at the Mount, the current enrollment of full and part time students at the university is 1,524. Of those, 1,284 live on campus with 240 living off campus. There is no breakdown maintained indicating where the off-campus students reside.

Post said the university does have disciplinary options, ranging from verbal warnings to expulsion, in dealing with student conduct on and off campus, but generally cannot take action on off-campus activities unless they are aware of it, preferably from a police source.