Council Proclaims Earth Day; Code Changes Are Introduced
The Greenbelt City Council’s April 10 meeting featured proclamations for Earth Day and National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. First readings took place of two ordinances to revise Chapter 4 of the Greenbelt City Code, “Buildings and Building Regulations,” with requirements for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, as well as window guards to protect young children […]
Opening Day Sunday For Youth Baseball
This coming Sunday, April 23, will be opening day for Greenbelt Youth Baseball’s 2017 season. The annual parade from the Municipal Building to McDonald Field will be at noon. The first game of the day is scheduled for 1 p.m. and features a rematch of the last two years’ major league championship series: the Indians […]
Proposed Fire Department Budget Reviewed by Council
The Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad was represented by President John Wynkoop and Deputy Chief Greg Gigliotti when the Greenbelt City Council reviewed the city manager’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year at its April 5 worksession. The proposed budget is unchanged from the current year’s budget. Contributions of $5,000 are to […]
ERHS and Ghana Team Win STEM Competition in March
In its most basic form, a battery is a storage of chemical energy that can be converted to electrical energy. Turns out, some soil has this. So by putting electrodes and cathodes into soil (as well as a bit of citrus juice), energy from the wet earth can start to light the world. This is […]
Hanington Receives Recognition For Work on Turner Cemetery
What started as an article for the News Review ended with writer Kyla Hanington receiving an award from the Prince George’s County Historical Society on April 9. At the St. George’s Day celebration, which is held annually by the historical society, Society Librarian Susan Pearl officially thanked Hanington, giving her an award “in recognition for […]
City Council Begins Markup Of Proposed 2018 Budget
City Manager Nicole Ard’s first proposed budget is set in a somewhat improving fiscal environment but with more uncertainties than usual: will federal grants be cut given the Trump administration’s desire to severely trim domestic agencies’ budgets? Will the General Services Administration choose Greenbelt as the new site of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters? […]
Hold the Line Budget Projected For Police Department in 2018
Public Safety expenditures comprise 37 percent of the Greenbelt City Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2017-2018 and nearly all of that goes to funding the Police Department. The proposed police budget at $10,197,900 is essentially a “hold the line” budget, proposing an increase of only $8,900 over the current year’s budget. Rather than growing in […]
SafeTrack Surge #14 Closes Greenbelt Station for a Month
Metro announced that it has altered its plan for the next SafeTrack surge at the northern end of the Green Line, including the Greenbelt station. Originally planned as a longer period of continuous single tracking, Metro will instead conduct Surge #14 as a shutdown to reduce the duration of the project and mitigate the impact […]
State Compliance Board Finds Errors In City’s Handling of Open Meetings
Judging by crowd size, the two hot topics of the March 27 meeting of the Greenbelt City Council were the swearing in of four new police officers and the opinion from the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board regarding the complaint submitted by Brian Almquist charging council with violating the provisions of the Maryland Open Meetings […]
Council Receives Food Truck Hub Request; Plus Many Petitions
Could a food truck hub be coming to Greenbelt? At its March 27 regular meeting, the Greenbelt City Council agreed to support a proposed hub in Capital Office Park. Council also received another bushel basket full of petitions from citizens regarding topics such as the location of a possible second dog park, cell phone antennas […]