But while his older colleagues might go outside to vent, or just roll their eyes and slump in their seats, Molinatto takes his exasperation to Twitter.

“let’s bring back punching-in-the-face as an acceptable rebuttal to an ignorant statement,” he wrote at around 10 p.m., after multiple “amendments to the amendment” on council agenda items.

But that wasn’t his first grumpy tweet of the evening.

Molinatto had already criticized his fellow council members for casting oral votes in imperfect unison.

“let’s talk about voting in opposition when the mayor calls for opposers to say, ‘nay.’ do it when he asks, people! it’s not hard! idiots!!” he wrote of the people who were at that moment sitting just a few feet away at the same table.

“As elected officials, we should have a sense of humor about ourselves as we do stupid things,” Molinatto said in an interview during a break in the council meeting.

Luckily, other council members understand Molinatto’s wit.

“Jonathan has a very wry sense of humor, and if I didn’t know that I might be offended,” said District 4 Councilwoman Mary Cook.

“My wife told me I should stop doing that,” Molinatto said.

It’s cold.  It’s dark.  It’s freaking raining.  But hundreds of people are in line in front of the Comcast Center, drinking coffee and trying to figure out which security people are Secret Service.  Holy crap folks, Obama is really coming.

The line at the Comcast Center at about 5:20 a.m.

A little after 4 a.m., the line was modest.  About 35 people were chilling out inside the Lot 6 parking garage, putzing around and talking about how they weren’t expecting to be at the front of the line.  Freshman letters and sciences major Raquel Zuniga, who showed up at just before 4 after not going to sleep, was at the front of the pack.

“It’s a little epic,” she said. “He came last year and I missed it.  I’m not going to miss it this time.”

[a brief quiet period in which some more people stumble into the garage but nothing of significance occurs]

At 5 a.m., somebody at the front of the line thought he was being told it was time to go and triggered a stampede — the hundred or so people in line all snapped awake and jogged forward, which, it turns out, was not what the police wanted everybody to do.  A woman with a badge and a really loud voice informed everyone of such, and we were right back where we started, but now people were starting to come in pretty steadily.  I kept talking to people, and everybody said the same thing — Yeah, I’m here to see Obama.  Yeah, I voted for him.  No, I don’t really understand the health care debate.  He’ll explain it to me today.

Then some dude plowed into me.  I was having a perfectly enjoyable conversation with three women from Buffalo who travelled all over — Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina — with the Obama campaign for over a year when everybody started moving again, except with more gusto.  Officials were moving the line.

At first, everyone was pretty much maintaining order, moving down the hill to the bottom of the main Comcast Center steps, but when the crowd hit the main downhill section of the trip, things got a little hairy.

University of Maryland students calmly moving the line down the hill

Everybody was running, and these poor women I was talking to didn’t stand a chance.  One got lost and another lost the bag to her camping chair, and everybody else was either out of breath or way farther back in the line than when they started.  I went to the front to see how they fared.  Raquel lost her spot too.

[Time passes.  The sun comes out.  People continue pouring into the area.  I go to the roof of the parking garage.  The clock strikes 7:20.]

Also, if you have any pictures or interesting tales from the rally day experience, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail — abdilldbk at gmail dot com, dude.  That’s where the party’s at.

And like the average court appearance, they were not there because of quiet and respectful behavior.

These five students, who rent a house in the Old Town neighborhood, had ended up with a $500 fine for a noisy party on the first Friday of the semester, and went on to owe the city an additional $1,000 after they lustily celebrated that achievement the very next night.

“I am also a resident of 4812 Harvard Road, and I would also like to apologize,” said one student after another, approaching the council hangdog.

“I also apologize, even though I was not at the parties,” noted the last of them to speak.

Apology accepted?

“It took a lot of guts to come down here for that, and I think I’ll thank you for that,” said longtime District 2 Councilman Jack Perry, who is hard of hearing but said he’s always happy to call the police if he does pick up the sounds of a student party on his street. “Maybe you’ll recognize you wouldn’t want this next door to you. And those of us who call the city our home, and who stay here when you go home, we’ve had it.”

“The most controversial thing I’ve ever been involved in – more controversial than firing the city manager and more controversial than rent control – is the idea of ‘party permits,’” Mayor Steve Brayman said. “It just shows how sensitive our neighborhoods are with respect to noise, it’s because of years and years of abuse.”

As District 1 Councilman Jonathan Molinatto wrote during the meeting on his Twitter feed:

“paul carlson brought 5 tenants of his to apologize for their noise violations. a nice gesture. mayor and a councilmember grilled them good.”

At least the grilling will prepare them for a real court date if they plan to contest the $1,500 in fines. When officials asked them if they intended to, they were offered a bit of unintelligible muttering.

Carlson and his tenants declined to be interviewed after they finished speaking to the council.

Carlson wasn’t the only landlord at last night’s council meeting; John Hawvermale also spoke to the council to complain that the city wasn’t picking up recycling at his rental properties.

Longtime city officials appeared familiar with this complaint, pointing out he hadn’t paid his waste removal fee; he explained to them that his property taxes ought to cover it and asked for his taxes to be refunded, and argued with Mayor Brayman when he ignored this request.

Tweeted Molinatto: “landlord brings viable complaint, then loses temper and all credibility. too bad.”

Administrators say if the Purple Line, a light-rail train that would link College Park with Bethesda and New Carrollton, travels down Campus Drive, it’ll mess up sensitive research equipment with its vibrations and electromagnetic waves. They want the Purple Line to go around South Campus.

But the MTA, as well as the City of College Park, the Student Government Association and just about everybody else, say Campus Drive is the center of campus and therefore the best place to put the light-rail line.

The alignment has to be decided within two years, but until then, here’s a cool video of what it could look like going down Campus Drive:

And here’s some pictures of the Purple Line going down Campus Drive:

Purple Line by Hornbake Library

Purple Line by the Stamp Student Union

Purple Line by the College Park Metro Station

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Note: Thanks to Clay Gump at Rethink College Park for the heads up. Video and renderings from the MTA website.