On November 6, the Appellate Court of Maryland ruled in favor of the City of Greenbelt, the Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad (GVFD), the Town of Berwyn Heights, the City of College Park and a Berwyn Heights resident in their challenge to Prince George’s County’s removal of career firefighters from Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights. The court heard the appeal on September 10 (see the September 17 issue) and on Friday ruled the Circuit Court had erred in dismissing the case, finding Greenbelt and the other plaintiffs have legal grounds to proceed.
Back to Circuit Court
The case will now return to the Circuit Court for further proceedings, though Greenbelt hopes they might reach an agreement with the Prince George’s County Fire Department’s legal team. “This favorable appellate decision is welcome news,” said City Manager Josué Salmerón on Monday. “It validates the position we have maintained from the beginning: we had legal standing to challenge this decision, and the county’s actions caused specific and substantial harm to our communities. The court has now recognized that our claims deserve to be heard.”
The three municipalities have argued that they have been harmed by the county’s removal of 24 career firefighters from GVFD and six from Berwyn Heights Volunteer Fire Department (BHVFD) on June 30, 2024. Though College Park did not lose firefighters in the 2024 staffing plan, it joined the suit because it was impacted by the Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights losses, including facing additional strain on its services. The municipalities were not consulted in the decision and were given less than a month’s notice (see the June 13, 2024 issue). Prior to this, GVFD had been staffed around the clock by career personnel since 2013.
When the Circuit Court dismissed the case in October 2024, it agreed with the county that Greenbelt, College Park and Berwyn Heights had no claim to harm from the plan and thus no grounds for relief. The county had argued, instead, that the municipalities had previously enjoyed special benefits from the prior staffing and, rather than harm, would be treated as the rest of the county from that point forward. In the appeal hearing, the plaintiffs argued they had invested in equipment, firehouse, recruiting and more, while the county sought to offload responsibilities to volunteers (see the October 16, 2026 issue).
Court Opinion
The summary in Friday’s court opinion notes that, “Not only did the County not consult with GVFD or BHVFD before the reallocation decision, it did not verify its assumptions of volunteer availability. The reallocation plan assumed 109 fit-tested volunteers at BHVFD when there were only 45 active members, of which only 25 to 30 were available during daytime hours. GVFD had only 15 fit-tested volunteers, which are too few to maintain full-time operations.”
The plaintiffs also alleged the county has not freely shared data about response times in the area since the staffing changes, something they had initially agreed to do under former Fire Chief Tiffany Green. Data obtained by the Greenbelt News Review, including via public information act requests, supports Greenbelt’s claims of increased response times to calls for service, which raises public safety concerns (for reporting of response times, see the October 10, 2024; October 24, 2024; January 9, 2025; May 15, 2025; September 10, 2026 and September 17, 2026 issues). The most recent data obtained by the News Review in September was shared during the court case.
The appellate judges found the allegations of “doubled response times, periods without coverage due to inadequate volunteer availability, other county stations with 24/7 career firefighter coverage, and the loss of all career firefighter coverage for the surrounding stations that as a result ‘routinely do not answer calls for service’” are specific allegations that must be “accepted as true” and “for which relief could be granted,” so that it was an error for the Circuit Court to dismiss the complaint.
Current Staffing
Currently, Greenbelt has had six career staff assigned to the station for daytime weekday shifts, a development that came in September, but at the same time lost a round-the-clock Advanced Life Support (ALS) unit (see the September 10, 2026 issue). College Park also had its ALS ambulance relocated. Given most area calls are for emergency medical service rather than fire suppression, Salmerón and leaders from surrounding communities have expressed concern about a lack of ALS and paramedic services in Greenbelt and surrounding communities in the evenings, overnight and on weekends.
Greenbelt is set to meet for discussions with the Prince George’s County Fire Department’s legal team this week.
