Ninety-Eight percent of Ithaca’s 6,000 4th Ward residents are Cornellians, so it may come as no surprise that the Common Council seat representing the district has a budding tradition of student representatives.

After the resignation of Dave Gelinas ’07 two years ago, the 4th Ward — which represents West Campus, Cascadilla Park and most of Collegetown — has been represented by Mayoral appointee Nancy Schuler, a permanent resident who lives in the neighborhood.

Barring the unexpected, this will change tomorrow when Industrial and Labor Relations student and Interfraternity Council President Eddie Rooker ’09 is elected to serve on Ithaca’s Common Council. A senior set to graduate early in December, Rooker is running unopposed, like all other candidates for Common Council seats in the city.

Rooker will, in all likelihood, join Svante Myrick ’09 (D-4th Ward) as the second representative for the Collegetown area on the 12-person soon-to-be-elected council who was recently a Cornell student. Rooker will “bring a much needed perspective and voice” to the council, Myrick said.

Myrick added that Collegetown “has been neglected for many years,” given how much it contributes in sales and rent taxes to city coffers, and he sees tomorrow’s election as a chance to change that.

Council members of the 4th ward are tasked with responding to the demands of an ever-fluctuating electorate. They must straddle allegiances between their largest demographic body — students — while maintaining support from their only consistent constituents: permanent residents who comprise 2 percent of the ward’s district.

As former 4th-Ward Councilmember Gayraud Townsend ‘05 said, the position’s difficulty lies in creating a “bridge between a student community and the City of Ithaca residents.” Although the ward is overwhelmingly comprised of students, the area’s permanent citizens tend to be much more active in city development and planning.

The implementation of the Collegetown Master Plan — recently endorsed by the Common Council — will be one of Rooker’s main challenges. Two years ago, the city of Ithaca hired outside consultants for recommendations on how to reinvigorate the neighborhood, which resulted in the Collegetown Urban Plan and Conceptual Design Guidlines, endorsed by the Common Council in August. The process has been long and notably lacking in student participation — aside from Myrick, who helped pioneer the planning process.

Rooker strongly supports the plan. He sees cleaning up Collegetown as a main crux of his candidacy; as President of the IFC, Rooker helped this effort by creating a program in which fraternities and sororities spend some time every Sunday, in Rooker’s words, “cleaning up after the weekend’s mess.”

Rooker’s other plans include fixing the stoplight at the intersection of College Avenue and Dryden Road, which is the oldest stoplight in Ithaca by nearly 20 years.

Although Rooker has been endorsed and nominated for the post by the Democratic Party and is running unopposed, he remains cautious about declaring victory prematurely.

“There’s still the possibility of a [candidate winning via a] write-in,” Rooker said. “I certainly don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch.”

Strangely enough, Rooker’s election, along with several “non-races” in the area, marks the seventh consecutive year in which no Ithaca elections have been contested, according to the Ithaca Journal.

Most believe that Rooker will not abdicate his four-year post before his term is up, as Gelinas did. Cornell Democrats’ President Michael Schillawski ‘10 said: “I think Eddie will complete the four years … [primarily] because he said so.”

Schillawski also said that he expects Rooker to stay because he “seems more informed on the issues [and] does not live that far away.” Rooker is a native of Weedsport, N.Y.

Myrick, too, expects his presumptive future co-alderman to serve out his term. “It’s a big reason why I endorsed him,” Myrick said. “I believe Eddie is fully committed.”

Rooker himself finds the comparison between him and Gelinas to be misleading, primarily because Gelinas had only planned to stay two years, whereas Rooker plans to stay all four.

“I don’t have any long term plans outside being a councilor,” Rooker said, adding that some in the past “may have viewed this position as something to have. … I see it as a way to make an impact in the community.”

Rooker’s plan to serve out his term may change the way the position is defined. Upon his resignation in 2007, Gelinas said in a statement that serving out his term would be disingenuous because “the students who had originally elected [him] would no longer be living in the ward.”

Gelinas had also predicted that, as an alumnus, “I would be extremely disconnected from the campus issues most directly affecting my largest group of constituents.”

But many locals stressed that the ward is not just a matter of helping students, but representing the neighborhood’s permanent residents as well. Chair of the Tompkins Democratic Committee Irene Stein said, “I hope Eddie will listen to all 4th Ward constituents … including the minority of permanent residents.”

Outgoing 3rd Ward Council member and five-decade Ithaca resident Mary Tomlan ’71 echoed this sentiment, saying that she’s optimistic Rooker “will reach out to the members of the ward who are not students as well.”

Rooker predicted that he would be able to address the needs of the permanent residents by being in continual communication with them. “We can’t forget about the 2 percent of residents who are here [and make sure] they are accounted for with every decision,” Rooker said.