At its October 26 meeting the Greenbelt City Council fought the clock and, at times, picked at each other but managed to complete most of its agenda. Council approved legislation regarding the historic Greenbelt High School, considered a request for proposals to move its equity and inclusion work forward, briefly touched on Save as You Throw (SAYT) options and listened to City Manager Josué Salmerón discuss new artificial intelligence options for city employees.
Legislation
On a 5 to 2 vote with Mayor Emmett Jordan and Councilmember Silke Pope opposed, council approved legislation reaffirming the city’s desire to acquire ownership of the building originally known as Greenbelt High School if the Board of Education decides to decommission the school. This is the building at the corner of Greenbelt Road and Edmonston Road that was home to Dora Kennedy French Immersion School for the past decade, Greenbelt Middle before that, and is currently serving temporarily as Springhill Lake Elementary School. The issue is complicated by the fact that in 2024, at council’s request, the Prince George’s County Historical Preservation Commission deemed the original 1938 Greenbelt High School as a Prince George’s County Historic Site (see the May 30, 2024 issue).
The legislation directs the city manager to initiate and coordinate discussions with various entities including county officials, the school board and the preservation commission to communicate the city’s interest and identify the legal, administrative and financial steps necessary to pursue ownership. The legislation states that it constitutes an expression of the city’s intent to pursue acquisition and does not authorize the expenditure of funds, execution of a purchase agreement or acceptance of ownership. It qualifies that provision by saying that any proposed acquisition shall be subject to further review and approval by council, including consideration of financial obligations, facility conditions, historic preservation requirements and potential public benefits.
Jordan questioned the timeliness of the legislation since council had already asserted its right of first refusal, the school system has not yet decided to decommission the school and the city has not yet reviewed the recommendations of a prior citizen task force review.
Councilmember Silke Pope, a teacher at Springhill Lake Elementary School, said that while she was interested in the land, the building comes with extreme challenges. She sees it as “almost a second armory” with so many issues the city would have to demolish the building, which it might not be able to do given its historic status. She cautioned that obtaining this building would be very expensive and it is not clear what the city would be allowed to do with it.
Councilmember Kristen Weaver disagreed, saying that she could not imagine any scenario where the city didn’t want the building. She argued that the legislation is timely as there is just a year and a half until the school is scheduled to close.
Salmerón noted that the city is land-locked, with no room to grow. He called the school site strategic and said that the legislation does not commit the city to acquire the building.
SAYT
As there was only a minute or two left in the extended meeting, there was virtually no discussion of the Save As You Throw (SAYT) program. Weaver alerted council to expect a resolution at the next meeting, as council needs to make a decision.
There is a chart of budget options in the agenda packet that showed three options for next year’s rates. (See chart below.) The proposal discussed at the earlier October 19 worksession called for increasing the base rate to $260 to reflect the landfill fee increase. The options in the packet for this meeting all show a base rate of $240. Councilmember Amy Knesel said this proposal put the entire burden on Greenbelt families. One option increases the Max Trash fee by $30, another does not and the third option is to drop SAYT and go back to a fixed rate. The Waste Zero presentation said a flat fee would mean 72 percent of homes would pay more. Salmerón said that he had fleshed out four models. Knesel argued that this additional information was not in the packet and needs to be publicized before the next discussion.
Budget Gap is Closing: SAYT Options for 2027/ 28 Budget Year
This chart is based on one provided in the City Council agenda packet.
Administration Reports
The city is dipping its toe a little deeper into using artificial intelligence (AI). Salmerón said that the city is rolling out a new AI policy. While the city manager cannot establish policy for the council, Salmerón said he was hopeful that council would adopt the staff policy. City employees will now have access to Microsoft CoPilot in Outlook, SharePoint and other systems. Employees will be restricted from copying information into other AI systems because of concerns about how those systems are using the information submitted to them. During the recent International City/County Management Association conference, Salmerón spoke with a vendor who has now loaded the city’s entire agenda management system into its AI system to facilitate searches. He will be arranging a demonstration of the system at a later date.