Urban planner Holly Simmons and healthcare IT worker Kelly Jordan will soon represent District 2 on the College Park City Council.

Simmons received 235 votes, while Jordan received 173 in this week’s general election. They narrowly defeated Christopher Gill, an IT project manager at the National Institutes of Health, who received 170 votes.

Daniel Oates, former president of the Calvert Hills Citizens Association, ran uncontested and received 360 votes to fill the District 3 seat. He will serve District 3 alongside incumbent Ray Ranker, who was re-elected with 372 votes.

The District 2 seats opened after current council members Llatetra Brown Esters and Susan Whitney announced they would not seek reelection. District 3 council member John Rigg also chose not to run for another term, leaving his seat vacant.

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The mayor and all council members are up for election every two years. This year, with the exception of District 2, all races were uncontested.

Simmons moved to College Park in 2016 to attend the University of Maryland, where she received her master’s degree in community planning.

She has served on the city’s Committee for a Better Environment and Old Town Historic District Committee, and is currently the Berwyn District Civic Association’s acting treasurer.

Simmons said she sees affordable housing as a top priority for residents and wants to use her background in local government to address those issues.

“[There’s] just a real concern around ensuring that we do have affordable housing, and that the affordable housing that we have is high quality,” she said.

Jordan, a nine-year College Park resident, has served as co-president of the Berwyn District Civic Association and on the Paint Branch Elementary School parent-teacher association.

She hopes to contribute to improving the efficiency of city operations, Jordan told The Diamondback after learning the election results.

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“I want to make sure that everything is going well with Duvall Field, and in particular, the programs that are going to be set up in that, so that it’s used as much as the city has paid for it to be revitalized,” she said.

In uncontested District 1, incumbent council members Jacob Hernandez and Alan Hew secured their city council seats for another term, receiving 536 and 492 votes, respectively.

Incumbent council members Maria Mackie and Denise Mitchell each also secured another term in uncontested District 4, with Mackie receiving 147 votes and Mitchell receiving 159.

Mayor Fazlul Kabir, who also ran unopposed, was reelected with more than 1000 votes.

The newly elected council members will be sworn in during the Dec. 2 council meeting.

To read more about the newly elected council members, click here.