This suburb spends more than $110,000 a year on cars for its lawmakers

The Prince George’s County Council votes during a meeting in council chambers of the County Administrative Building on Dec. 6, 2016, in Upper Marlboro, Md. At the meeting, the council authorized creation of a Vehicle Use Review Board. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

By Arelis R. Hernández

The Prince George’s County government spends more than $110,000 a year on automobile allowances and take-home cars for county council officials, a perk that goes far beyond what is offered in neighboring jurisdictions.

All nine council members and the council’s two top administrators are either assigned a government vehicle or paid a yearly car allowance.

Between 2011 and 2016, council members driving take-home cars were involved in at least 15 collisions, including a major crash Nov. 21 that resulted in the arrest of council member Mel Franklin (D-Upper Marlboro) on drunken-driving charges.

They also received at least 107 speeding, missed-toll and parking citations, according to public records provided to The Washington Post.

Forty-six of those tickets went to council member Karen R. Toles (D-Suitland), a popular lawmaker who drew attention in 2012 after she was ticketed for driving 105 mph on the Capital Beltway.

“No one is ever pleased to be on the receiving end of a ticket,” Toles said in an email. “I am making every effort to reduce further infractions.”

Most council members declined to discuss details of the car program or defended the perk as an important way for lawmakers to get around and stay visible in the 485-square-mile suburban jurisdiction. A few said more accountability is needed.

Community activists say the public is largely unaware of how the privileges work and would be concerned if they had more information.

“It is a benefit that most workers do not get,” said Joseph Kitchen Jr., who lives in the county and is president of Maryland Young Democrats. “For a government that continues to complain about being strapped for cash, they have clearly not done enough to eliminate a lot of fat in the budget.”

A lucrative benefit

Take-home cars and allowances have been a perk for top Prince George’s County Council members since at least 2001. County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) — who does not oversee the council — rescinded the benefit for all but one of his senior staff members in 2011 as part of a broader attempt to clean up the county government.

In 2016, take-home cars and allowances for council officials cost the government more than $111,000, according to records obtained by The Washington Post through a Maryland Public Information Act request. That amount does not include payments associated with Franklin’s collision, when he totaled a county-owned SUV for the second time in four years.

Last year, lawmakers with take-home cars pumped an average of $1,400 in discounted gas from county fueling stations. The lowest gas bill, for a fuel-efficient Ford Fusion used by council member Mary A. Lehman (D-Laurel), District 1, was $633.87. The highest was $2,709.73, for Toles’s SUV.

Council member Mary A. Lehman, left, speaks with council member Karen R. Toles during a Prince George’s County Board meeting on Jan. 27. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

The other three council members, along with administrator Robert Williams Jr. and auditor David Van Dyke, received car allowances of $9,688 each.

Elected officials in the District, Arlington, Montgomery and Fairfax use their personal vehicles for work and have limited access to the government fleet for specific out-of-area or business trips.

Last year, Montgomery’s nine council members were reimbursed an average of $2,469 for work-related travel — about a quarter of the cost of a take-home vehicle or car allowance in Prince George’s.

Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors spent $8,000 on reimbursements. Most went to compensate staff members working in district offices for their trips to the main government complex. Supervisors themselves cannot be reimbursed for travel within the county. They claimed $554 for trips elsewhere in the state.

Prince George’s Council Chairman Derrick Leon Davis (D-Mitchellville) said in a statement that the county’s vehicle program “provides a key tool extending an elected official’s ability to serve their community and represent residents as board members on state and regional bodies as well.”

Davis, who declined to answer questions, noted that the council voted to create a Vehicle Use Review Boardafter Franklin’s arrest that is supposed to examine the car program and recommend changes by June 30.

The vehicle allowance rose this year to $10,315, based on the estimated cost of gas, maintenance, insurance and yearly payments for a used vehicle of the type assigned in the take-home car program. Officials get just under $400 every two weeks, which is considered taxable income.

Council member Deni Taveras (D-Adelphi) called the allowance “a real help,” noting that she and her colleagues are paid about $11,000 less than their counterparts in more expensive Montgomery.

Van Dyke, who as county auditor analyzes financial and budgetary data and tracks council spending, said the car allowance “absolutely ends up being higher than my actual [commuting] expenses … It’s not a matter of need, it’s a perk.”

Williams, the council’s chief administrative officer, did not respond to a request for comment.

Board members Deni Taveras, left, and Mel Franklin during a Prince George’s County Council meeting. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Although council members with take-home cars are supposed to use them for only limited personal trips, they are not required to log mileage or account for where they traveled, said council spokeswoman Karen Campbell. Several lawmakers said they drive their take-home vehicles on their own time, as well.

“There are not clear-enough restrictions on personal use,” said Lehman, who said she consulted with former council members and staff and concluded it was fine to drive her county-owned car on days when she had no council business.

She said some council members have tried to maintain logs to document nonbusiness trips but that it quickly became an overwhelming task.

For Franklin, “personal use” meant commuting and “stopping to eat after or before work or after or before events,” he said in a written statement. “If traveling out of the county solely for personal reasons, I always used a personal vehicle.”

Council member Obie Patterson (D-Fort Washington) said he tries to be disciplined in using his county car strictly for official business. He said he also has two personal cars.

Council member Todd M. Turner (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Council member Todd M. Turner (D-Bowie) said he chose a take-home car when he joined the council in 2015 so his teenage daughter could drive his personal vehicle. Now that she is away at college, he said, he plans to get the car allowance instead.

Council members Andrea C. Harrison (D-Springdale) and Toles did not respond to questions about personal use of their take-home vehicles.

Baker declined to take a position on the council’s policy, saying it was not his role to police the legislative branch.

When he came into office, he eliminated the car allowance for members of his administration. He cut the number of executive branch officials with take-home car privileges to his chief administrative officer and 31 others who travel extensively for work — mostly prosecutors and investigators in the state’s attorney’s office and the heads of the homeland security, corrections and public works agencies.

Crashes and citations

Five current council members have been involved in collisions while driving county cars since 2011, the records provided to The Post show. Lehman and Toles each had two, Harrison had three, and Franklin and Patterson each had four. In at least eight of the 15, council members were at fault.

The most serious incidents involved Franklin, who rear-ended drivers in three separate crashes that resulted in injuries. He has declined repeated requests to discuss the incidents.

This SUV driven by Prince George’s Council member Mel Franklin in the Nov. 21 rear-end collision. (The Washington Post)

Franklin banged up the front of a county SUV in October 2012 andtotaled the same vehicle that December. The county paid more than $61,000 to purchase a new SUV and cover repairs on the other vehicles and liability claims. Neither crash was reported to the public when it occurred.

After the second collision, Franklin stopped using a government car. He received a vehicle allowance until May 2016, when he again was given a county vehicle.

Following the Nov. 21 crash, which sent two people from the other car to the hospital, Franklin was suspended from the take-home car program and denied a vehicle allowance Davis said in a statement at the time that Franklin may eventually be able to get reimbursed for business travel, depending on “his legal status and the status of his driving privileges.”

Franklin, whose blood alcohol level measured 0.10, is scheduled to appear Monday in Prince George’s County District Court, according to online records. He wrote in a report to the county that he was on his way home from a restaurant the night of the crash and was tired.

“But I thought I was fine to drive home,” he wrote. “I briefly dozed off and failed to stop at the intersection with Dower House Road and struck one vehicle from behind.”

During the years he drove a county car, Franklin racked up 20 citations — more than any colleague except Toles. Lehman had 17 citations, Harrison had 15, Patterson had seven and Turner had two, according to the records provided.

“Any speeding camera, parking or toll camera tickets were unintentional mistakes and were personally paid for,” Franklin said.

Patterson said he is often surprised by the location of speed cameras in his district, in the southern part of the county. “I probably just got caught,” he said.

Lehman said in an email that she had been ticketed fewer than three times a year over a six-year period, in some cases for toll violations because her E-ZPass wasn’t properly activated.

“I’m trying to be more careful, but I don’t believe it’s a significant problem for anyone except me!” she wrote.

Harrison did not respond to questions about the tickets she received.

Toles’s 46 citations were for parking illegally, speeding or ignoring tollbooths or red lights.

A speed camera in Berwyn Heights caught her driving 57 mph in a 40 mph zone on March 28, 2011, three months after she took office. That July, Toles was ticketed for leaving her car in a no-parking zone on Main Street in Upper Marlboro, near a popular lunch spot for county government employees and about 400 yards from a government garage where council members can park free.

Toles lost her take-home car privileges for several months after she was pulled over in July 2012 for driving 105 mph on the Beltway. She told police that she was applying makeup and answering emails on her phone but did not notice that she was making unsafe lane changes or speeding.

The council member was granted judgment before probation, apologized and completed a driver improvement course, which enabled her to avoid points on her license. By spring 2013, she was back in a government car. Again, the citations began to roll in.

Council member Karen Toles, second from right, poses with Rep. Donna F. Edwards (D-Md.) during Edwards’s recent Senate campaign. To the left are council members Mel Franklin and Obie Patterson (partially hidden). At the far right is council member Andrea Harrison. (Arelis Hernandez/The Washington Post)

In her statement, Toles said she accumulated the tickets while “executing my duties as a public servant.” She noted that she had paid all the fines, which totaled $4,400, including $1,200 in late fees.

Records also show that Toles pumped $2,709.73 in county-provided fuel in 2016, more than double the 1,170 average gas bill of her colleagues. The council member, who is taking night classes at the University of Baltimore Law School, did not respond to questions about why she used so much gas or whether she drove the county SUV to get to her classes.

Toles’s citations were not serious enough to affect her driver’s license or record. But the volume concerns longtime critics. Community activist Bruce Branch, who ran against Toles in 2014, called her driving record an “egregious violation of public trust.”

For Toles supporters like Elsie Jacobs, however, the citations are not a big deal. “I don’t have an issue with it, because if they have a ticket, they got to pay it,” said Jacobs, a local leader in Suitland. “We have other things to worry about.”

Possibility of change

The council voted Dec. 6 to establish a three-person panel to study the county’s car-use and allowance policy and records.

On Wednesday, Davis announced the board appointments: business executive Jacqueline L. Brown, community activist Samuel A. Epps IV and engineer Enor R. Williams Jr. In a news release, he said the board would begin its work in early March.

The board could recommend suspending or revoking the driving privileges of any council member or changing the council’s vehicle policies.

If the program stays the same, costs will probably jump in 2018, when the council is slated to add two at-large members.

But some council members have suggested it may be time for a change.

“There are some aspects of car use that really are not as clear as they could be,” Lehman said. “Along with the issue of should council members have county cars, the vehicle-use board should look at the finer points” of personal use and requirements for documenting travel.

Patterson said that although most council members have not committed major infractions with county cars, the risk of losing the public’s trust on this and other perks may outweigh the benefit to lawmakers.

“I think even before this started popping up, we should’ve been looking at this and all of our policies,” Patterson said. “We need to be more aggressive in our oversight responsibilities.”

Via Washington Post

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Prince George’s New Planning Director Is Not Actually a Planner

Ms. M. Andree Green – Prince George’s New Planning Director Is Not Actually a Planner. She began her tenure as Planning Director on January 18. She replaces Dr. Fern V. Piret, who retired after serving 26 years in that position.

Via @PGUrbanist

In a curious move, somewhat reminiscent of President Trump’s recent cabinet appointments, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) has selected someone with no formal training or professional experience in planning to serve as the director of the Prince George’s County Planning Department. No other jurisdiction in the Washington region has made such a choice, and for good reason: such a decision defies common sense, and it likely contravenes Maryland law.

Attorney M. Andree Green (Checkley), of Upper Marlboro, began her tenure as Planning Director on January 18. She replaces Dr. Fern V. Piret, who retired after serving 26 years in that position. For the past six years, Green worked as the County Attorney for Prince George’s. Before that, she worked for approximately eleven years in the legal department of M-NCPPC, the quasi-independent state agency responsible for planning, zoning, parks, and recreation in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.

Without question, Green is an experienced government lawyer, with nearly two decades of experience working in Prince George’s County. But Green is not a planner. She has never worked as a planner as has no educational background in planning. So how and why is she now being paid $192,000 a year to be the county’s Planning Director?

Green is Unqualified for the Planning Director Position

The Prince George’s County Planning Director is supposed to be an experienced planning professional. The position description for the job, which we obtained from M-NCPPC, states that the minimum qualifications are “at least 12 years of progressively responsible and broad-ranged planning experience that includes four years of planning experience at the managerial level, preferably five years at the department manager level.”

Green has zero years of professional planning experience, either at the managerial or non-managerial level. The American Planning Association’s American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) is the national body that verifies and certifies the professional qualifications of planners. According to AICP standards, Green lacks even the minimum level of professional planning experience to be eligible to take the certification exam.

Thus, Green did not meet the minimum qualifications for the job when she was hired. Indeed, Green does not even meet the minimum qualifications for the currently-posted position for Deputy Planning Director, which requires 10 years of professional planning experience and preferably two years at the managerial level.

By contrast, nearly all of the other planning directors in the Washington metropolitan area had more than 15 years of prior management-level experience in planning before assuming their respective positions, and most are AICP-certified. [UPDATE: For a comparison of the qualifications of the region’s planning directors, see this chart.]

M-NCPPC Likely Violated State Law By Hiring Green

The state law creating M-NCPPC specifically provides that the Planning Director and Deputy Planning Director in Prince George’s County “shall have education or professional experience in a field relevant to the responsibilities of that department.” As judged by the agency’s own criteria, as set out in the job descriptions, Green does not possess the requisite education or professional experience for either position. Therefore, M-NCPPC’s hiring of Green was arguably arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to Maryland law.

M-NCPPC spokeswoman Andrea Davey stated that the Planning Director position was posted on a variety of websites for approximately three months, from August 2–October 31, 2016, and that a total of four candidates were selected for interview. The agency would not disclose the identity of the other three candidates, citing confidentiality laws. However, Davey did indicate that the agency “did not deem it necessary to employ an executive search firm” in connection with this position.

Dorothy Bailey, Vice-Chair of M-NCPPC’s Prince George’s County Planning Board and a member of the selection committee, stated that Green was “second-to-none in her commitment to Prince George’s County, and in her know-how of the critical nuts and bolts involved in the planning process.” Board chairwoman Elizabeth M. Hewlett also cited favorably to Green’s “proven managerial experience and keen legal acumen.”

Green may well be a committed public servant, and she certainly has relevant legal knowledge and managerial experience. But she lacks any prior professional experience or training in planning—and that makes her selection as Planning Director untenable, and possibly unlawful.

How Can M-NCPPC Fix This?

Green’s employment contract is for two years, and it contains a “sweetheart” severance provision requiring the agency to pay her 12 full months of salary ($192,000) if it breaks the contract without cause. However, M-NCPPC could likely still void the contract without penalty, since Green did not have the requisite experience for the job to begin with. Additionally, the severance provision could itself be unlawful, since state law requires that the Planning Director and Deputy Planning Director shall “serve at the pleasure of the Prince George’s County Planning Board.”

Ideally, M-NCPPC should consider reopening the Planning Director position and conducting a national search for a truly qualified and experienced professional planner with a proven track record in leading a large urban planning department. If possible, Green could be offered another position within the agency that meets with her actual qualifications and experience (e.g., a position in the legal department or in intergovernmental affairs).

Perhaps more than any other jurisdiction in the Washington region, Prince George’s County needs an experienced and innovative professional planner to lead its planning department—someone who can advocate effectively against the county’s overdependence on outer-Beltway sprawl development, help develop a workable plan for transit-oriented development and revitalization around the neighborhood gateway Metro stations near DC’s border, and oversee the implementation of a new 21st century zoning ordinance, among other priorities. Let’s hope M-NCPPC will make that happen.

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Md. politician Mel Franklin has wrecked a government vehicle before

Prince George’s County Council member Mel Franklin (D-Upper Marlboro) was charged with driving under the influence in an injury crash on Nov. 21. (Mark Gail/For The Washington Post)

By Arelis R. Hernández December 1 at 7:22 PM

Prince George’s County Council member Mel Franklin, who was charged with driving under the influence last week in a crash that injured two people, also damaged another government vehicle on two separate occasions four years ago, according to county records.

Franklin (D-Upper Marlboro) totaled a county-owned Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicle in a distracted-driving crash in 2012, the records show, two months after banging up the same vehicle in an incident that he did not report to police.

The more serious collision involved Franklin rear-ending a car on the Beltway and resulted in more than $33,000 in repair costs and losses to the government, according to damage reports. Neither crash was reported to the public when it occurred.

Franklin was behind the wheel of another county-issued SUV last week, late on the night of Nov. 21, when he allegedly plowed into the back of a sedan on Pennsylvania Avenue near Forestville. The driver and passenger from the sedan went to the hospital. Police said no one else was in Franklin’s vehicle.

The second-term council member was charged with driving under the influence after state troopers tested him and found he had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10, greater than the legal limit of 0.08. Police said Franklin was about 70 yards away from the Ford Explorer, in the median of the roadway, when they arrived at the scene.

This car was allegedly struck by an SUV driven by Prince George’s Council member Mel Franklin on Nov. 21. (TWP)

Franklin, 41, has not responded to repeated requests for comment. His attorney also declined to answer questions.

In Prince George’s County, lawmakers can be assigned a full-time car from the county’s fleet of vehicles, or seek a travel stipend to cover the cost of driving their own cars on official business. The county vehicles are for work-related travel and incidental personal use.

County Council spokeswoman Karen Campbell said Thursday that because of his driving record, Franklin will no longer have access to the fleet.

The lawmaker was issued an SUV when he was elected to office in 2010, according to Roland Jones, director of the county’s Office of Central Services. On Oct. 5, 2012, he was involved in a crash that damaged the SUV’s front end and grill but was not reported to police. It cost the county about $1,500 to fix the vehicle.

On Dec. 5 of that year, about 7:30 p.m., Franklin slammed the SUV into the back of a GMC Yukon on the Beltway. He told state troopers “he took his eyes off the road for a moment” to change the radio station and did not receive a citation.

The county’s body shop declared the vehicle a “total loss,” which cost the government $33,171.92 to replace, according to documents provided to The Washington Post.

Neither Franklin nor his attorney have said where he was headed at the time of each of the collisions.

Franklin at that point began to use his personal vehicle, Jones said. In May of this year, he asked for a county vehicle and was issued the SUV that was involved in the crash that led to the drunken-driving charge.

Campbell, the council spokeswoman, would not say whether Franklin needed approval to be assigned the SUV.

Franklin isn’t the first Prince George’s elected official to get in trouble while driving a county-owned vehicle. In 2012, council member Karen R. Toles (D-Suitland) was clocked going more than 100 mph on the Beltway and charged with reckless driving. She avoided getting points on her driver’s license by agreeing to be sentenced to probation before judgment after a two-hour trial before Anne Arundel District Court Judge Megan Johnson.

Toles still uses a take-home vehicle, Campbell said, as do council members Andrea C. Harrison (D-Springdale), Obie Patterson (D-Fort Washington), Todd M. Turner (D-Bowie) and Mary A. Lehman (D-Laurel). Council Chair Derrick Leon Davis (D-Mitchellville), vice-chair Dannielle M. Glaros (D-Riverdale Park) and council member Deni Taveras (D-Adelphi) receive the automobile allowance, Campbell said.

Other Washington-area jurisdictions appear to have more stringent policies on when elected lawmakers can use government vehicles.

Members of the Montgomery County Council drive their own cars and are reimbursed for mileage, officials there said. In Arlington County, board members and the appointed county manager have access to the county’s fleet of vehicles on an as-needed basis, for county business only, spokeswoman Mary Curtius said.

Members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors do not have full-time access to vehicles but can reserve a car if needed for government business or work-related trips. The District of Columbia has a pool of two cars and a van that the 13-member council and its staffers share for official business only.

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, who has a government-issued car and driver, said he has limited the number of people in the executive branch who have access to the fleet. He added that his administration does not police the council.

“It’s clearly within their purview to make the rules,” Baker said. “I think they’ll look at the policies now and see if they need to be changed.”

via Washington post. 

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Mandela left us a gift in 2013, but ….

…Prince George’s County government is not ready to receive it.

Late Honorable Nelson Madiba Mandela

In Summary

• Mandela was humble enough to accept that the business of running a country was different, something he had never done before.
• We shudder at how little the Prince George’s County regime cares for our Constitution. For them, the freedoms there seem a nuisance to be ignored or, worse, negated

By Moses Mackenzie

Policy Director

Reform Sasscer Movement for Prince George’s County.

A lot has been written about the gigantic legacy of Nelson Mandela.

And as we end this difficult year — still waiting for the full accounting of money lost and unaccounted for during Dr. William Hite and Jack Johnson’s regime  — it is good that we look back at this significant human being.

While his death was a huge loss, his legacy remains a shining light that will hopefully guide us back on track.

Mandela was a one-in-a-lifetime figure. And since his death, we have been reading and re-reading about him and his life, and wondering why Prince George’s County was not so lucky as to have our own Mandela: a leader far-sighted, fair, reflective, courageous and brimming with integrity and the highest human values.

FAIR QUESTION

The film Invictus, about how Mandela used rugby as a tool for cohesion, reconciliation and nation building during the 1995 Rugby World Cup held in South Africa, should be necessary viewing for our political, administrative and judicial elite, and especially now when we are more divided than we have ever been despite the calm of the 2012 elections.

In a fascinating scene, Mandela has just been sworn in and as he takes an early morning walk at Qunu with his bodyguards, they come across the early morning papers.

The headline is ‘He may win an election, but can he run a country?’ The bodyguards are upset, but Mandela’s reacts differently saying, “It’s a fair question.”

Such was the man who, though adored and feted globally, and on the back of an overwhelming and clear election victory, was humble enough to accept that the business of running a country was different, something he had never done before.

We should be so lucky to have such leaders here in Prince George’s County who understand that running a country needs everyone, not just their “home boys,” and not just for the personal interests of a few.

To be fair, even those who followed Mandela in South Africa have fallen way short. The booing of President Zuma at the memorial service dominated South African media, with some shocked that it could happen in front of an audience of presidents and leaders, and screened live globally to billions.

But such are the frustrations in South Africa with the scandals surrounding President Zuma, the most outrageous being the ‘renovation’ of his rural home — at tax-payers’ expense — for US $20 million!

Mandela lived and breathed the hard fought and negotiated South African constitution, knowing that, that was what the people of South Africa wanted and needed.

The best guarantee of stability, development and peace was to craft the country to the dictates of the Constitution.

DEMOCRATIC SPACE

So we shudder at how little the Prince George’s County current regime cares for our Constitution. For them, the freedoms there — of expression, media, association, assembly, information etc — seem a nuisance to be ignored or, worse, negated. For nothing else can explain their dogged desire to reduce democratic space and ignore victims of discrimination and prejudice.

And nothing else can explain their turning to one of the most repressive tools favored by despots in police brutality and bribing of judges in the local courts . Yes, there is insecurity and interference of judicial proceedings, but spying on neighbors and interfering with court systems has never reduced insecurity.

That only increases fear and intimidation.

What reduces insecurity is a non-corrupt police force that focuses on the junior police officer on the street and not the living large of the top.

What reduces insecurity is when the law is applied equally to both rich and poor.

And what reduces insecurity is when we end the impunity for the rich and powerful, and when corruption is addressed from the top down. We reduce corruption when leaders mean what they say by creating proper checks and balances.

And now we learn that the Office of the County Executive, the most resourced yet opaque of all offices, may be extorting, illegally and covertly, funds from the Education system and elsewhere in ways that do not foster accountability or transparency.

These extra-budgetary allocations need Prince George’s County council and Maryland legislation approval as per the Constitution. The inspector General position promised years ago by the current County Executive Rushern Baker III is now water under the bridge.

If Prince George’s County Government could take a few lessons from Mandela in 2014, we will be a much better county!

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“I hate race discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations. I have fought it all during my life; I fight it now, and will do so until the end of my days.”- Nelson Mandela

Cartoon of Income Inequality

Mr. Nelson Mandela did not like corruption. Something which continues to happen here in prince George’s county involving management. There is currently no checks and balances. Hence effects on thousands of it’s citizens.  Mr. Mandela once said, “We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful: those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image.”

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