Listening And Leadership

Councilmember Rodney Streeter’s Town Hall Addresses Essential Quality Of Life Issues

By Raoul Dennis

ATV noise, property maintenance and repairing county and state roads may be simpler issues by the standards that 2020 has set but not for the over 200 residents attending the July 16 town hall.

The event was held by County Councilmember Rodney Streeter (D-Dist. 7).

“People really responded to it. [In] the feedback afterwards people let us know that they got good information. We will think about doing it again,” says the councilmember.

The issues, of course, matter, perhaps even more in midst of a stay at home demanding pandemic. Quality of life counts.

Panel guests included Acting Prince George’s County Police Chief Hector Velez and representatives from the Prince George’s Department of Permitting Inspections and Enforcement (DPIE), The Prince George’s County Office of Community Relations, The Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation (DPWT) and the 2020 Census.

One of the top issues included discussion of police use of force.

Chief Velez talked about his concept of community policing and use of force. He noted that all officers will have body cameras by the end of the year.

“We talked [to] him about bringing a social services team people with officers on particular calls to help deescalate certain situations,” Streeter said. Velez was open to the idea. Streeter sits on County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ Police Reform Task Force. The Group is expected to deliver advisory support to the county executive in October.

But other quality of life issues weighed heavily as well.

“People have a lot of problems with the all-terrain and dirt bike vehicles and all the noise they create and they want that to stop along with the fireworks,” Streeter says. “They talked about code enforcement, looking at operations, condition and upkeep of public properties and standards. People are saying that enforcement is lacking. Challenge with grocery stores they are selling tobacco products too near to schools and libraries.”

On separate concern but related to increasing community value, Streeter explains that residents should consider the strategic importance in viewing lower end consumer shops as a stepping stone toward attracting larger regional and national shopping destinations in the neighborhood – as long as stringent management expectations are applied.

“There’s really nothing wrong with allowing a Dollar Store to come to a growing community if you make sure that they adhere to strict quality of service and operating guidelines,” he says. “High standards are what we expect regardless of the type of store.”