The Greenbelt City Council meeting of October 12 was jam-packed with items from the prosaic to the weighty, though with mostly good news and promising initiatives. Some surprisingly controversial items fluffed up a few fervent councilmanic feathers on their way to cautious acceptance.
Fire Fighters/EMS
City Manager Josué Salmerón reported that, after months of back and forth with the county, a new group of firefighters had finally joined the station and the new staffing plan has kicked in. There are six career staff, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The city negotiated to keep these staff two hours longer each weekday (3 to 5 p.m.) than originally proposed by the county. This allows more time for volunteers to get to their duties after their daytime activities end; many volunteers work full time. The city continues to advocate for the restoration of full-time fire and EMS coverage.
Mayor Emmett Jordan lauded the improvement and Salmerón praised the News Review for keeping up pressure on the county by publishing statistics on worsening response times.
CARES Working Group
Councilmember Kristen Weaver noted that the first council working group, set up to assist in creating a 501(c)(3) for Greenbelt CARES, has succeeded in establishing the entity and is creating its board and bylaws, thus achieving its purpose. Salmerón reported, in turn, that the application has been made but the IRS determination will not be received for a few months yet. The city, however, is identifying grant sources to fund the staff positions that the city cannot currently support and that will disappear without additional funding. Weaver and the two other working group members, Councilmembers Jenni Pompi and Danielle McKinney, agreed that the group had completed its work and should be dissolved.
Further discussion on proposed working groups, however, became heated and is described in a separate article (See page 11).
Ranked Choice Voting
Also somewhat heated was the debate on Ranked Choice Voting, which council eventually moved one step forward with the acceptance of Weaver’s proposed motion on drafting a charter amendment to include the wording proposed by the elections board, plus language about ranked choice voting.
Councilmember Silke Pope, the sole nay vote, felt it was premature to add ranked choice language before, at the very least, a test run. She was also concerned about the cost, stating she had not seen any cost data.
Jordan and Weaver both emphasized that this was an authorization to write a draft and did not yet change the charter. Weaver agreed that there would be some additional cost for voter education but that the current elections vendor could also manage this type of balloting and she didn’t expect a considerable increase in cost. No estimates were offered in confirmation. (For more on ranked choice voting see the article on page 1).
City Code Updates
The city code is in the process of being updated to match provisions of the county code that affect it (mostly minor) and any charter changes will also be reflected in it. Salmerón felt that no action was required at this time. Resident Michael Hartman requested the city to move swiftly to pin down any changes to election protocols.
City Manager’s Report
Salmerón fulfilled his initial statement that he had “a lot to report on,” opening with Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations and the Schrom Hills Park Fall Festival, both well attended. Other highlights were the replacement of the brick crosswalks around Roosevelt Center and the replacement of paving in the center of the plaza.
Though the central paving replacement was not explicitly funded, the city was able to include it. In addition, some crosswalks were painted and the state mowed state highway medians in Greenbelt, though they were unable to get to some hand-work edging of those medians.
Stop Sign Cameras
Stop sign violations have significantly declined (see the October 15 issue). Councilmember Frankie Fritz requested information on how the ticketing has affected Greenbelt residents as opposed to those merely passing through. Salmerón replied that the number of resident violations has declined and that Greenbelters now constitute about 25 percent of the violations. He added that 79 percent of people get ticketed only once (though Fritz admitted to two). The report, with information and examples, is available at tinyurl.com/5xuewy66. Resident Bill Orleans recommended a community meeting to discuss how the citations were determined. Fritz noted that the recipient of a ticket can already view the footage for the citation and protest it and that every ticket is reviewed by a human. The report has examples of ticket videos that show how violations are determined and Weaver was at pains to point out that once a ticket had been issued, no subsequent tickets were issued to the same vehicle at the same location until the recipient had had the opportunity to pay.
Pompi warned drivers to pay attention in other nearby jurisdictions because, comparatively, Greenbelt has only a few cameras: a total of six, compared to (for example) over 30 in Laurel. Jordan emphasized that the goal was to get people to stop, not to punish them or make money.
Right of First Refusal
The city must now register to assert its right of first refusal to purchase county surplus property within Greenbelt’s municipal boundaries. A motion was presented for first and second reading by Pompi to allow the city to make the application. This doesn’t commit the city to purchase anything and the motion passed both steps unanimously.
The county may decide to declare as surplus the old Greenbelt High School (subsequently Greenbelt Middle School, Dora Kennedy French Immersion School and currently the temporary home of Springhill Lake Elementary). Later in the meeting, Weaver offered the first reading of a motion that allows the city to enter into negotiations to acquire the building. No financing is authorized by the motion, which passed. These motions combined prepare the city to move quickly if the county precipitously divests itself of the building (as recently happened with a school in Bowie).
Community Pledge
Fritz moved successfully for a first reading of changes to the city’s community pledge, read at the start of each council meeting. The motion passed.
Mail-in Ballots
The cost of sending all eligible voters a mail-in ballot for city elections would likely more than double the amount spent on mail-in voting ($15K last time) and there are also considerations related to how well the post office is functioning in delivering material.
A motion to consider alternative mail-in strategies was suggested by Fritz. He also commented that voters were more likely to vote if the means came to them automatically. He felt the city should do everything possible to ensure the widest voter participation and universal provision of mail-in ballots would ultimately reduce the cost of elections by reducing the amount of onsite provision needed.
Pope was opposed, citing the increased cost and noting the number of alternatives that people already have and how out of date the names and addresses would be for mailing. Weaver and Pompi both spoke in favor noting that the cost was a very small fraction of the city’s budget but an important priority, and that Hyattsville had successfully increased its voter turnout with this strategy to the point where most ballots are now submitted by mail and few in person. They agreed with Fritz that the priority was getting out the vote.
Jordan had a different take. He felt it would make running for council more expensive but easier for someone with personal or external funding.
Councilmember Amy Knesel supported the motion, saying that the more people voted, the more she liked feeling that she was really at the dais by the will of the majority. The motion passed.
Leaves Left Behind
In the Petitions and Requests section of the meeting, resident Natalie Kramer detailed her concerns over non-collection of raked leaves in fall 2025, despite signs signaling the dates of collection. She said, as a 20-year resident, that she “remembered when this worked” and cited several negative consequences of uncollected leaves, including blocked drains and sidewalks. She also described incidents of hostility and negative reactions from city officials when she attempted to get action. She left documentation with City Clerk Bonita Anderson for review and promised to file formal complaints with the state if the problem continued.
LGBTQIA+ History Month
Council unanimously passed a motion to recognize LGBTQIA+ History Month and the role of local residents in supporting and welcoming this community. Resident Charlotte Hoffman spoke in support and thanked Greenbelt, noting that a leading influence in Greenbelt’s history, Eleanor Roosevelt, had she been alive today, would have been a member and reminding council of the persecution faced by so many.
Cooperative Month
Members of several co-ops attended the proclamation lauding the cooperative movement so central to Greenbelt. Greenbelt Co-op Supermarket Board President Kim Kash invited Co-op members to the upcoming annual meeting on October 17 (see the article on page 6) and she and Debbie McKinley of Greenbelt Homes, Inc. reaffirmed the two co-ops’ relationship. Anthony Case, secretary of the New Deal Café, noted the interdependence of the
organizations, while Amber Tollefson of the Greenbelt Nursery School noted how grateful parents are for the school. To well-deserved applause, News Review President Pat Scully pointed out that the News Review is entering its 90th year and was pondering how to best celebrate it.
A second proclamation announced Indigenous People’s Day and described the locations in and around the city where members of the Piscataway Nation have lived over the past 10,000 years.