Franklin Calls For Greater Working Relationship With Business

At-Large County Councilman Stresses Bold Unity, Fewer Restraints For Business

Story And Photos By Raoul Dennis

At a recent meeting of the Greater Prince George’s Business Roundtable, At-Large County Councilmember Mel Franklin delivered strongly worded remarks in a10 minute presentation to the board and its VIP audience of leading business and civic executives.

“We are in an uncertain time,” he began. “We were at one time leading the state in job creation. Then, the pandemic hit, and so now we're in a period of recovery, but we haven't recovered in the county. I'm going to tell you right now. In part, because of some of the unfortunate messages coming out of the County Council, we have a lot of messages that sound like they're anti-growth, anti-business, and that's really unfortunate, and then, that's really going to harm growth for the county for a while.”

He continued: “I do think that we have some opportunities though. I and a couple colleagues have introduced a new incentive to try to encourage the semiconductor industry to come to Prince George's County and take advantage of the fact that the federal government is going to spend about $280 billion in creating technology hubs to try to compete with China. Why shouldn't one of those major hubs be in Prince George's County? There's no reason. We are more than a warehouse county. We can be a county of research, development, and manufacturing of cutting-edge technology, those of 21st century economy. We introduced that incentive.”

The July 11 meeting was held at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden. 80 business, community and civic executives were in attendance along with the leadership among county first response agencies, Joint Base Andrews and faith and education leaders.

A wide range of topics were discussed during the session. Maryland Delegate Jazz Lewis gave a report on the accomplishments met during the last session of the Maryland State Assembly. Two new members were admitted to the Roundtable: Valencia McClure, PEPCO Region President and Jeffrey Gray of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center are now among the leaders of the 20-year-old organization. Millard House II, the new superintendent of the Prince George’s County Public Schools, was in attendance and welcomed during his first week on the job. Additionally, the Roundtable recognized Col. Matthew Jones, commander, 89th Airlift Wing, the Presidential Wing.

But it was Franklin’s provocative remarks about the relationship between the county’s business and elected communities that drew considerable focus.

“This is a moment that we need a clear [message and dialogue]. This is not a time to be nice. We need to hear from you all on the unvarnished truth of what you're hearing, in terms of the business sector in the region. We need to hear from you. What do people think about Prince George's County right now? From what I hear from you individually, it's not that great,” the veteran council member said asking business leaders to be more assertive and direct with councilmembers. “What are some of the changes we need to make?”

Franklin challenged business owners and executives to let the council know what kind of legislation and actions would be helpful to business and community growth in the county. He cited a recent national report that places Maryland in poor standing regarding its cost of doing business.

“We just had a report that Virginia was ranked number two by CNBC in doing business nationwide, Maryland is 22nd. One of the big negatives on Maryland is the cost of doing business: we're 47 out of 50 states and territories. What do we think it is, in terms of Prince George's County, in terms of the cost of doing business here? How do we change that? We know the answers, but how do we change the cost of doing business here being so difficult?” 

Franklin forwarded an emphatic plea.

“I do want to say that we need your help. You know more about business than the Prince George's County Council 100 times over, okay, and that's just the truth. We're charged with making policy that affects business. If the policymakers that make policy [that] affect business [but] don't talk to you or get your perspective, we aren't being very smart. I'll say it nicely, then we're not doing our jobs. I want to encourage you to help us do a better job of coming up, [particularly] colleagues, coming up with policies that are going to promote Prince George's County's competitiveness with the other jurisdictions in our region.”