Council Reopens Applications After Prior Refusals to Do So
During a worksession on Wednesday, January 3, five out of the current six members of the Greenbelt City Council (with Councilmember Rodney Roberts in opposition) came to the consensus not to reopen applications for the vacant council seat (note: no votes can be taken at worksessions). Five days later, council returned to discussing its vacant […]
Low Attendance, Much Criticism At Council’s First Listening Session
On Thursday, December 21, Greenbelt City Council held a listening session at the Springhill Lake Recreation Center gym. Its purpose was to capture the views of Greenbelt residents living in the western segment of the city on the appointment of a councilmember to replace Councilmember Ric Gordon, who died suddenly shortly after the election this […]
Youthful Offenders Dominate Auto-related Crime Statistics
The big news of the Greenbelt City Council’s public safety briefing on Wednesday, October 11 was not unexpected. Crime is up overall by 34 percent, though violent crime has held steady compared to last year. The big driver for the increase is auto-related crime (465 percent higher than the same time last year, which was […]
Updated BEP/BARC Facility Plan Fails to Mollify Council
At its September 11 meeting, Greenbelt City Council discussed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) plan for the Department of the Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) facility and its upcoming final review by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). The planned facility is in the central section of the Beltsville Agricultural Research […]
City Council Heralds Changes Prior to Forthcoming Election
Though perhaps neither announcement at the September 11 Greenbelt City Council meeting was entirely unexpected, both were poignant. The meeting’s biggest news, though nearly last on the agenda, was that its longest-serving member, Councilmember Judith Davis, would not run for re-election this November. As the meeting drew to its close, Davis requested permission to read […]
Change Now Contemplated By New Deal Café and Co-op
The quarterly open board meeting of the New Deal Café on August 28 was attended by a crowd that filled much of the available seating in the Café’s back room. It was a lively group, not slow to voice its opinions or to ask questions. Much of the meeting revolved around the possibility that […]
Bands, Booths, Bikes, Bingo, Burgers: It Must be Labor Day
The Parade itself arrives on Labor Day Monday morning. It sashays down Crescent Road from Greenhill to Southway, spits and polishes off with the police color guard, scoops up a pipe and drum corps, flourishes a frenzy of fire trucks, screams some sirens and projects a perfect perambulation of politicians – it’s all a hometown […]
City Police Report Auto Theft Surge But Less Violence
At the quarterly update to the Greenbelt City Council on Monday, July 31 (main story published separately, see page 7), Police Chief Richard Bowers and Interim City Manager Tim George updated council on city policing. On a lighter note, George began by stating that e-bikes are now in service, though the photograph presented to council […]
WMATA, ARPA and Auditors Plus Council’s State Priorities
June 20’s Greenbelt City Council meeting focused on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) “visionary” Better Bus Network which had been the subject of an earlier council worksession. Assistant Director of Planning Jaime Fearer interacted with council to flesh out a letter to be sent to WMATA on the city’s position. The transit plan, […]
CDC Graphs Show Continued Drop in Covid-19 Admissions
It has been a while since the News Review published an article on Covid-19. For most people, it feels like the emergency is over – and that’s true to some extent. In fact, death data for the U.S. in recent weeks show the lowest number of Covid-related deaths, 203, since data began to be kept […]