Changing Of The Guard
County Council Passes Baton to Young Pioneers
By Gil Griffin
Youth will not only be served by the Prince George’s County Council, but now it will lead the legislative body from the top.
The Council has elected 32-year-old District 8 Council Member Edward Burroughs III as its new Chair for the remaining period of the 2025 Legislative Year, making him the body’s youngest person ever to hold the position. The Council also voted in District 7 Council Member Krystal Oriadha, 38, to serve as Vice Chair for the same time period.
"We look forward to working together and with our Council colleagues,” Burroughs and Oriadha said, in a joint statement, “to advance policies that uplift our communities.”
Considering their track records, the pair’s ascendancy to their respective positions seems inevitable.
In 2010, a teenaged Burroughs became Maryland’s youngest person ever elected to public office after winning the vote for District 8 representative on Prince George’s County’s Board of Education. Burroughs, a lifelong Prince Georgian, has had a political career that began in earnest in 2008 when he was a high school sophomore. That year, his peers chose him to represent them as a student member of the County’s Board of Education.
Burroughs served for 13 years on the board before moving on to the Office of the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney. There, Burroughs led the youth court division, spearheading efforts to keep teens and young adults away from running afoul of the criminal justice system.
Both Burroughs and Oriadha were sworn into their Council seats in 2022. Oriadha, the co-founder of grassroots nonprofit organization PG ChangeMakers — a nonprofit organization that tackles a variety of social inequities — has a career that also has spanned the public and private arenas.
Oriadha, like Burroughs, is no stranger to success as the youngest in her workplace.
While working at Hewlett Packard, Oriadha earned a spot as the youngest Junior Project Manager for the company’s Global Enterprise Management Team.
Oriadha also organized campaigns against human trafficking and domestic violence, and adolescent pregnancy prevention while working in communications for the federal government.
Some of her other plaudits include winning the 2019 Innovation Fund 40 under 40 Award for Public Service and the 2018 Howard University Alumni MoveMakers Award. Oriadha also served on the 2019 Clinton Foundation’s 20|30 Leadership Council.
“Together,” Burroughs and Oriadha said, in their joint statement, “we will focus on expanding economic opportunities, improving public safety, and ensuring every resident can access quality services. We are committed to fostering collaboration, transparency, and equity in all we do.”
