During the June 8 city council meeting, a public hearing inserted into the agenda formally accepted the charter resolution on collective bargaining, which was passionately debated over several previous months. John Barry from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union spoke briefly in support of the amendment. With no comments from the public and to applause from the audience, council voted unanimously to approve. There is a 45-day period during which the charter amendment can be challenged by the public before it goes into effect, but such an action is unlikely.
Unfortunately, the associated labor code agenda item and several subsequent topics were omitted from the recording of this meeting and are not reported in this article. An update will be provided when the information becomes available.
SHL Rec Center
The Maryland legislature has not funded Project Open Space (POS) for next year and, as a result, funds are finite and dwindling. Last year two projects were potentially funded, but neither actually used the POS funds. Planning and Community Development Acting Director Jaime Fearer explained that, this year, the city is requesting one large project, asking $2.7M for the Springhill Lake Recreation Center (SLRC). The project integrates 20 years of previously unfunded plans and includes additional space and internal refurbishment.
Fearer declared POS funding by no means a given but noted the county’s unprecedented, rapid one-week positive reaction to the initial request. The project would require a $300K local match, of which the city already has $250K in federal grant funds (see the March 11 and May 7 issues). The next step is to submit an application to the county in mid-June with more information, followed by a later submittal that is more detailed. Mayor Emmett Jordan asked about the timeline, with Fearer responding that the first phase of the work could go to contractors by the end of this year.
The project involves multiple logically separate phases that can be broken up and tackled as money becomes available — there are two separate projects in addition to the interior refurbishment. Work like geotechnical analysis of the soil for loadbearing can be started already. In answer to a question by Councilmember Danielle McKinney, construction work would likely not start in this fiscal year.
Community Involvement
City Manager Josué Salmerón noted that the community has been waiting for these improvements for over 20 years and that, once committed, funds must be used within a relatively short time. Councilmember Kristen Weaver suggested that a community meeting in the recreation center itself would be preferable to a formal worksession. She strongly suggested a food truck to encourage attendance.
County Budget Wins
Timothy Adams, Prince George’s County councilmember for District 4, gave an update on the budget apportioned to the city from the county. Greenbelt was funded for several high-priority projects, to the tune of $1.65M. This included additional support for Buddy Attick Park and Greenbelt Lake, which he noted as resources enjoyed by people living well beyond the city limits. This boosted county contributions to the park from a typical $260K annually to $400K this year. There is also $400K for lighting enhancements to increase safety and enhance access to city resources during evening hours. Additional funding for Greenbelt Museum of $300K would help move the expansion project forward and leverage outside funding. In addition, $65K was allocated for pool recoating as part of the Aquatic & Fitness Center’s 10-year maintenance plan. Adams declared he was proud of these investments by the county and remains committed to advocate for future investment.
Cellphone Service
Salmerón presented his administrative report. Concerns about cellphone service are ongoing and in conversations with cell vendors, Salmerón reported that T-Mobile has been the most responsive and is engaged onsite checking service throughout the city. Verizon has been relatively unresponsive and the city is moving away from their services, including ending the current contracts for city cellphones and police vehicle communications. The city website now includes instructions on how to register concerns about cellphone connectivity.
Cell Alternatives
During the refurbishment of the water tower at Lastner Lane and Ridge Road (which continues), T-Mobile’s antennas have been removed from the structure and the load distributed to other antennas, but restoration on the tower is planned as work is completed. The second antenna originally on the water tower was dedicated to city communications, but had already fallen out of use and will not be replaced.
WSSC now has full authority from the city (which owns the site but not the tower) to ‘monetize’ the water tower location and that would include the option to add antennas from other vendors. Councilmembers McKinney and Frankie Fritz were interested in the city also pressing harder on Verizon.
Roosevelt Center Utilities
In a related topic, as the city examines the repaving of Roosevelt Center, it has the opportunity to run telecom infrastructure underground to serve the Center businesses, and this is being studied. There are legal limitations on the sharing of existing resources, meaning that the city cannot share its bandwidth with others. As a result, there may be a need to consider third-party cell towers or other antenna-mounting strategies to service the location. There is now $300K available to invest directly into Roosevelt Center with all projects slated to finish in April 2027.
GHI Lighting
Greenbelt Homes, Inc. (GHI) has expressed concern about taking on responsibility for the streetlights that are on their property (instead of Pepco). Salmerón is checking into whether there were any preexisting, historic agreements that might relieve GHI of this responsibility — so far without result. When Salmerón suggested downloading all the archived News Review PDFs and searching them, Weaver recommended Salmerón check the News Review website for this information, pointing out that the News Review search function “actually works pretty well.” (See article on page 12.)
Lighting in Courts 11 to 13 Ridge Road also came up, as the $10K of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding GHI obtained for this leaves them short by $6K. Salmerón recommended providing the additional funding because two of the three lights are on public rights of way – the lights in question are solar and mounted on bollards rather than poles.
EV Chargers
Salmerón noted that the EV chargers in the library parking lot are functioning but that delays associated with the Prince George’s County Department of Permitting, Inspection and Enforcement have been challenging and significant. He opined that such delays made it unlikely that commercial installation could be viable as the county process would be too burdensome and expensive.
The Fiscal Year 2026 audit started in early June and will continue over the summer.
In other considerations, resident Lore Rosenthal requested that the city clean up the composting facility at Buddy Attick Park, noting that it was cleaned up only quarterly but really needed to be done as often as monthly to remain sanitary.
