County Council Chair Tom Dernoga's Remarks at the May 25, 2023 FY 2024 County Budget Adoption

(Click on the above image for the FY 2024 Budget in Brief)

Good morning. On behalf of my Council colleagues, thank you for joining us today for the adoption of a new $4.5 Billion-Dollar County Budget for Fiscal Year 2024. 

As Council Chairman, I am honored to again lead this body through our budget process, the first for this 11-member Council, and I want to thank my colleagues along the dais – My leadership partner, Vice Chair Wala Blegay; Council Members Mel Franklin, Calvin Hawkins, Wanika Fisher, Eric Olson, Ingrid Watson, Jolene Ivey, Krystal Oriadha, Ed Burroughs, and Sydney Harrison, and, for their hard work, diligence and determination. My colleagues engaged in detailed oversight, asking numerous probing questions of agency officials seeking to ascertain where we could improve or better focus services for County residents. 

As I have remarked previously, this Council has been “moving forward in bold new directions,” and our People’s Agenda has been working hard to achieve that, passing legislation that addresses our priorities for transparency in our government; increased services for residents; preserving green space, protecting our environment and planning for climate change; supporting smart and quality development; increasing opportunities for local, minority-owned businesses and nonprofits; and bringing quality healthcare to the community.  

We thank our residents for participating in our budget process and I want you to know that we listened as you consistently shared the issues and concerns you believe should be the focus of our County’s tax dollars.  To move forward and fully initiate the changes our residents need, this Council’s legislative initiatives addressing those issues must be funded.    

My colleague, Council Member Oriadha, has often said, “If you want to know what is important to your elected leaders, look at the budget.”

When the Council received the County Executive’s Proposed Budget in March, we were pleased with the focus on investing in education and public safety, and to see strong investments made in the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement and in storm water management. 

Over the last few months, guided by the core tenets of the People’s Agenda, Council Members, as a body and in our respective districts, have been digging in to ensure that Council priorities – your priorities – were reflected in the final spending plan.  

Earlier this month the Council received word that the income tax revenue for Fiscal Year 24 would be $60 million dollars lower than initially projected – disappointing news for everyone.  

With disappointment, and despite our best efforts, today we are approving a County Budget with serious concern that so many of these priorities are not addressed.  In particular, we are disappointed that the Administration is not yet prepared to support directly a Guaranteed Basic Income pilot program advocated by Council Member Oriadha, or Vice Chair Blegay’s Healthy Restaurant program that would highlight small businesses striving to address health disparities in our County. Also of concern is the failure to fund various public programs aimed at reducing violence in our County. 

Of course, we have to acknowledge the current fiscal climate, but at the same time, it is important to recognize over the 5 years that I have been here, our reserves have grown by about $125 million, to almost $600 million. Sometimes, it is better to appreciate expenditures as being investments that will pay future dividends. 

Given the economic climate that communities across our nation, including Prince George’s County, are grappling with, very tough decisions had to be made.  Despite an inability to fund parts of People’s Agenda legislation, I want our residents to know that we have delivered as much as we could under the circumstances.  

Among some of the Council initiated budget enhancements:

Libraries are an essential component of our comprehensive education, and we are very pleased that we could augment expanded hours and the Books from Birth, a program to get books into the homes and hands of every young child in the County. 

It is appropriate that the County’s second-largest revenue commitment targets public safety improvements. Recognizing the critical role of our fire department, over one million and three-hundred-thousand dollars have been allocated for additional firefighter positions. 

The Commission for Individuals with Disabilities has also expressed the need to increase awareness and provide learning resources for law enforcement concerning intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities. As a result, the Council has set aside funding for disability training for public safety officials. 

And in support of our County’s young people and public safety, funding has been made available to support Police Explorers, designed to introduce young adults to a career in law enforcement.  The Office of the Sheriff will also receive a two hundredand-fifty-thousand-dollar investment for recruitment and replacement of weapons. 

 Council Member Oriadha has secured two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to support the Camera Incentive Program, also known as the Jayz Agnew Law, named in honor of 13-year-old Jayz Agnew, who was fatally shot in front of his home while raking leaves.  This program allows businesses and homeowners to purchase and install cameras to support law enforcement in their efforts to address and solve crime in our communities.

Understanding the need to support our most vulnerable populations, Council Members saw the need to support the Shepard’s Cove Emergency Shelter. We have added two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars to the budget to increase the capabilities of United Communities Against Poverty to continue their support of women and children. 

ISLA, the Immigration Services and Language Access Initiative will also see a $125 thousand-dollar increase.

We are also responding to residents, who for years have advocated for safer streets, accessible pathways, and road improvements. The Council has allocated $2.1 million dollars for additional streetlights and traffic signals, along with $4.5 million for curb and road rehabilitation.

Other areas that received Council attention in the final spending plan include funding for noise enforcement and the Prince George’s Arts and Humanities Council. An additional $3 million dollars will be provided for grants to support various community organizations.

In closing, I want to again offer my personal and grateful acknowledgment to the members of this body for their spirited energy during this first budget season of the term.  I also want to thank the tremendous work of the Legislative Branch staff, led by Council Administrator Jennifer Jenkins, and including Josh Hamlin leading the Budget and Policy Analysis team and Turkeesa Green of Audits and Investigation, for their tireless work to guide us through this budget process. 

This budget year has been challenging, but we are already working to ensure that next year will more fully meet the needs of Prince Georgians.  This Council is committed to the collaborative work we are accomplishing on behalf of the “people” of Prince George’s County.  

We sincerely thank every partner for their leadership and committed service to our residents. 

Norm McDaniel, Former Tantallon Resident, Honored at National Memorial Day Concert 2023

 

Vietnam Revisited

    In March 2016, Norm McDaniel, one of our long time neighbors on Monterey Circle, went to Vietnam again.  This time he had a return ticket before he departed.  The first time, the trip was to be a one-year tour flying combat missions over North Vietnam from Takhli Air Base, Thailand starting in February, 1966.  However, that one-year tour became a seven-year tour because Norm’s plane was shot-down near Hanoi in Jul, 1966 where he and four of his five other crew members were captured and remained Prisoners of War (POWs) of the North Vietnamese until February, 1973.  One of the six crewmembers of the EB-66C Airplane in which he flew did not survive the shoot-down by a Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM).  

    Norm’s return to Vietnam was his first since being repatriated in February, 1973 as part of Operation Homecoming.  His return trip was part of a College of the Ozarks’ patriotic history class that provides selected students the opportunity (biennially) to visit a country and sites where U.S. Military Forces have fought.  The College of the Ozarks located in Point Lookout, MO has been conducting such trips for the past 20 years to include such places as England, France, Korea, and Vietnam.  

    The group consisted of 12 students, 12 Vietnam War veterans, and six College of the Ozarks staff members (including the class instructor).  Student selection was very competitive because only one out of 10 of those who applied was selected.  Departing from the San Francisco, CA Airport on March 13, 2016, the group arrived in Saigon.  During the following two weeks, moving from  South to North, the group toured locations and sites (battlefields, buildings, museums, cities, and former U.S. bases) in the former South Vietnam and North Vietnam including Saigon, Tay Ninh, Bien Hao, Cam Rahn, Nha Trang, Ban Me Thuot, Pleiku, Qui Nhon, Da Nang, Hue, Dong Ha, and Hanoi.  In Hanoi, the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” was toured.  The Hanoi Hilton is a name given to the prison complex by captured American flyers held there where they were tortured and exploited. Its formal name is Hao Lao Prison.   At each place visited, the Veteran on the tour who was stationed (or served) in that area briefed the rest of the tour group on what happened during the time he served there, and how the area is now in comparison to the 1960s or early 1970s.  In Hanoi, John Fer and Norm (the two ex-POWs) briefed the group on the Hanoi Hilton, how it was laid out, and what happened to us and the other American prisoners held there.  

    The group departed Hanoi, flew to Taiwan, and after changing flights, flew to San Francisco.  At that point, the tour group members dispersed and took flights to their individual destinations, with Norm returning to Washington-Reagan National Airport on March 26, 2016.  Norm’s account of the trip is that it was great, but “There’s no place like home!”  It’s truly great, and a real blessing to be a citizen of the United States of America.

Remarks Given at a Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It's a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It's a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they'll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that's good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI's general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper's son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, "I know we'll win because we're on God's side." Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, "Wait a minute and I'll let you speak to them." [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn't wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They're only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.
Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on "Holmes dissenting in a sordid age." Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: "At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight."

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn't do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It's hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it's the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you've seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There's something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there's an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don't really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they're supporting each other, helping each other on.
I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they're still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That's the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that's all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.
- President Ronald Reagan, May 26, 1986

2023 ELDERLY PROPERTY TAX CREDIT APPLICATION

(Click on the above image for the form. You can fill out the form online.)

Elderly Property Tax Credit, Frequently Asked Questions.

Video of the June 28, 2022 public hearing on this bill is here.

(Click to enlarge)

New Dog Park on Riverview Rd Open to the Public: June 6th, 2023

(Click the images to enlarge)

Click here for the park location

Don't Take this Personally: Do You Smell Like Limburger or Eucalyptus Oil to a Mosquito?

 From CNN:

Hundreds of mosquitoes in the main 20-by-20-meter facility were then treated to a buffet of the sleeping subjects’ scents. Infrared cameras tracked the mosquitoes’ movement to the different samples. (The mosquitoes used in the study were not infected with malaria, and they couldn’t reach the sleeping humans.)

The researchers found what many who have been on a picnic would attest to: Some people attract more mosquitoes than others. What’s more, chemical analyses of air from the tents revealed the odor-causing substances behind the mosquitoes’ attraction, or lack thereof.

The mosquitoes were most attracted to airborne carboxylic acids, including butyric acid, a compound present in “stinky” cheeses such as Limburger. These carboxylic acids are produced by bacteria on human skin and tend not to be noticeable to us.

While carboxylic acids attracted the mosquitoes, the insects seemed to be deterred by another chemical called eucalyptol, which is present in plants. The researchers suspected that one sample with a high eucalyptol concentration might have been related to the diet of one of the participants.

Simulundu said that finding a correlation between the chemicals present in different people’s body odor and the mosquitoes’ attraction to those scents was “very interesting and exciting.”

The CNN report is at https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/19/world/mosquito-human-body-odor-malaria-scn/index.html