Prince George's County Council Listening Tour - District 7 Meeting - September 9, 2026
Prince George's County Council Listening Tour - District 7 Meeting - September 9, 2026
Council Chair Crystal Orieta hosted the third fall listening tour in her home district, presenting accomplishments and soliciting public input on policy and community concerns. The meeting featured a recap of legislative packages passed in 2026 and a two-hour public comment period covering issues from maintenance to data centers.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Gail Powell and Leslie Dwight (Holloway Estates): Raised concerns about inconsistent grass cutting by the county, stating that a lack of staffing has led to overtime-only maintenance. Leslie Dwight argued that initiatives like Clean Corridors become unfunded mandates, and noted that some properties have not paid taxes since 1954, calling for accountability.
- Richard Hensley: Complained about unmaintained roads (Woodyard Road, Allentown Road) and long response times from 311, with one request scheduled for April 2027. He also reported a drainage issue caused by a neighbor's unpermitted construction.
- Joe Horkel (Upper Marlboro town council, Friends of the Library): Urged funding for the library system, noting that staff did not receive a 2% raise last year and face a second year without a raise, hurting retention. Also thanked for data center moratorium but urged noise ordinance attention. Raised concerns about county-owned vacant properties like the Elm Street school.
- Floyd Simpson Jr. (Crownsville): Criticized community policing members for following and targeting residents without cause.
- James McRae (Cavita Heights): Asked about the legality of a family operating a store in their front yard, causing traffic.
- Stacey Hartwell: Questioned the council's policy on electric bills subsidizing infrastructure for large loads like data centers and the sphere. Chair Orieta agreed and discussed regional efforts and rate moratorium.
- Dan Smith (Chevlin): Thanked for focus on ICE and democracy, urged public financing of elections. Questioned vacant property law applicability to Landover Mall. Criticized streamlining development at the expense of environmental standards. Suggested community housing retrofits.
- Charlie Porter (District 7): Disappointed in lack of council presence on his street. Criticized 311 system and snow removal on Tucker Road.
- Karina Addison (Largo): Asked about litigation over new fees on liquor stores and storage facilities, and whether the county consulted businesses. Chair Orieta defended the fees, arguing these businesses do not contribute positively and that she is pro-business for restaurants and small businesses.
- Keen Aspive (Suitland): Complained about overgrown grass at Allentown Road and commercial vehicles parked in residential streets. Called for better customer service from 311.
- Gerald Weston (North Hillmark Circle): Described an open-air drug market at Hillmar Drive and Walters Lane, with police present but not intervening.
- James Yasinowski (River Bend): Represented National Harbor Noise Disturbances Group, opposed the proposed entertainment sphere due to lack of public involvement, traffic, visual pollution, and energy demands. Asked for public hearings.
- Adam Wall (Library staff): Spoke about library funding cuts, loss of resources, and staff not receiving raises for two years.
- Sayla Bell (No Landover Data Center Coalition): Criticized the two-year moratorium on data centers as insufficient, noting a loophole that allows early termination. Questioned the council's commitment to a permanent ban. Chair Orieta said she supports a full ban but lacked six votes; she is working on a permanent solution for Landover.
- Kevin Huang: Asked about planning board members who advanced data center zoning (LDR 155) despite public opposition. Chair Orieta explained the planning board only makes recommendations, and she is a no vote on that bill.
- Paul Howe (Palmar Manor): Asked about tax subsidies for the sphere. Chair Orieta explained her criteria: labor, MBE, workforce development, community benefits.
- Wanda Carter (Suitland): Opposed the Silver Hill apartments project, citing traffic, lack of entry points, and impact on her street. Expressed frustration that Chair Orieta did not publicly oppose it. Chair Orieta explained she cannot speak on quasi-judicial matters until it comes before the council.
- Unnamed speaker: Asked about affordable housing package. Chair Orieta described upcoming bills on small landlord incentives, surplus land for affordable housing, fast-tracking, and homeownership.
- Resident from Kentland Columbia Park: Complained about vacant houses, trash, narrow streets, tree limbs, and streetlights out for months. Asked for help.
- Candace Jones Young (Town Square at Suitland): Raised an issue with early entry kindergarten: her son passed the test but cannot use sibling privilege for a specialty school because early entry students must attend boundary school. Chair Orieta promised to raise with the superintendent.
- Jade Campbell (Library employee): Spoke about lack of raises, building disrepair, and need for funding.
- Brittany Adams: Reported a failing asphalt section on Pennsylvania Avenue SE and asked for help contacting Maryland DOT.
- Reverend Richardson (District 25): Raised public safety enforcement on Hillmar Drive, Pepco right-of-way, and workforce development with Hope Project. Chair Orieta committed to follow up.
- Malika Matthews: Asked about debris cleanup after accidents, burning debris regulations, and a single-family home that became a three-story apartment without proper permit.
- Robert Pettis (Federation of Park Recreation Council): Opposed budget cuts and transfers from Park and Planning, arguing they harm parks and recreation. Chair Orieta defended the cuts as equitable, noting historic underinvestment in southern districts and that cuts were from building funds, not services.
Discussion Items
- Chair Orieta presented a detailed recap of legislative packages passed in 2026:
- Immigration package: Restrictions on ICE collaboration, safe spaces, resident kidnapping protection, facial mask ban, and nonprofit data collection.
- Community beautification: Clean corridors with rapid response, transparency dashboard, vacant property maintenance and tax increases (5x), illegal sign enforcement, "see it, snap it, get paid" program, and a moratorium on convenience stores in District 7.
- Universal child care: Workgroup, expansion act, building block grant ($500K), and quality of life fund funded by an annual $5,000 fee on liquor stores, tobacco stores, self-storage, and gun shops.
- Economic development: Fine dining fast track, EDI carve-out for sit-down restaurants, small business grants, and minority subcontractor to prime contractor program.
- Data center moratorium: Two-year moratorium on all data center development.
- Upcoming packages: Affordable housing, workforce development, and transparency/access to information.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken; the meeting was a listening tour.
- Chair Orieta and her staff (Amir, Trey) committed to follow up on numerous constituent service issues, including:
- Grass cutting in Holloway Estates and other areas.
- Long 311 response times and resetting service level agreements.
- Library funding and raises.
- Vacant property enforcement (Landover Mall, county-owned buildings).
- Sphere development: public hearings to be scheduled; TIFF legislation expected.
- Data center moratorium: Chair Orieta working on a permanent ban for Landover.
- Police presence at Hillmar Drive and Walters Lane.
- Early entry kindergarten policy: referral to school board.
- Park and Planning budget: Chair defended cuts, promised continued oversight.
- Residents were encouraged to take the quality of life survey.
- The meeting concluded at approximately [time not given].
Meeting Transcript
All right, all right. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the third of these council listening tours uh in the fall. You may have been to the ones earlier this year, so you might know the rules already. Uh, but some basic things to keep in mind. Uh we have a timer here. You will be allotted two minutes to speak, and uh Chair Orieta may respond to you. It or we are also taking notes if uh it's something for a council member that was not able to be present here today. Uh, we will be taking that back as well. Um other than that, um, I'll pass it up to the chair. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Um, really glad to see such a great turnout. Um, for the other listening tours, I've been visiting other districts, but I'm excited to be in my home district. Um, for those that maybe this is your first time coming to one of these events, I'm councilwoman Crystal Orieta. I have the pleasure of representing District 7 on the county council, and also the pleasure of serving the as the chair for this year. And as mentioned, uh, this is our third time doing a set of listening tours this year. Uh, when I became chair, it was really important to me to go into the community. I believe in this concept of participatory really leading budget policy. It should be a two-way conversation with the people in leadership. Um, so I do monthly town halls uh if you're a district seven resident for my constituents, but I wanted to do the same thing countywide as chair. And it was also important to me because a lot of my colleagues, we can know really well the issues of our district, uh, but it's also good for you to understand the issues across the county. Uh and for me, if I was sitting in the leadership position, it was important to me. So this is the first time the council had ever gone on community-wide listening tours. Uh, the community loved them, so we try to do as many as possible this year. So this is uh again your first time joining. What we'll do is I start off just with a high level of some of the things we've already done, um, some of the things that we hope to do uh before the end of this legislative year, and then the rest of the time will be yours for questions, comments, concerns. You could talk about policy, uh, which is 100% in our wheelhouse as the legislative body of the county. But I know sometimes people want to talk about those bread and butter issues like a pothole on their street or wanting a speed bump. And even though that might not be a direct responsibility of the council, I still feel that we it's our job to advocate for you so we can take the concerns, reach out directly to the agency that it might be under to help advocate and make sure that your issue or concern um doesn't get lost. Uh, and then we can just talk about also big ideas or things you'd like to see different in the county. Sound good? Come on, be a little energized. It sounds good. Okay, good, good, good. Okay, so I'm gonna start um with the packages that we did this year. Now, this is not gonna be an exhausted list of all the bills that we passed, and I don't want to just be talking at you. Um, but one of the things we did is a survey when I first became chair. Um, we did a survey around policy, we did a survey around budget, and then you all should see the quality of life survey that we have out right now. And so we use the survey and the listening tours. Um, what I did was package bills based on issues that came up. Um, so these packages that I'll run through, these just happen to be the packages that I championed as the chair, but again, it's not exhaustive of all the legislation that the county has council has already passed. The first package is on immigration. This issue came up a lot during our listening tours and on um as part of the survey. What could local jurisdictions do um to counter what was happening on the federal level? So we um championed a package of legislation. One was looking at individuals eligible to be county employees. This targeted if you did start working at ICE as a law enforcement agency at a certain point in time that you would not be eligible to do law enforcement in Prince George's County. We also did community Safe Spaces Act, asking for our spaces being like community centers, libraries, schools, um, social service offices, all of the offices that are run by uh the county are uh adjacent county agencies to be safe spaces, meaning that they aren't able, ICE is not able to set up in the parking lot of that facility and do raids or pick up individuals or question them. We did a resident kidnapping protection act. Um there was a lot of concern around residents because, as we saw a lot on social media or news, um, ICE agents did not wear uh any type of identifying markers.
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