County Council Members pass Mental Health Bill /Big News/ Community Notes
At the beginning of April, the county council passed bill CR-015-2025. The bill provides “non-carcel mental health care for the purpose of expressing the Prince George's County Council’s support of non-carceral mental health care in the Spirit of the People’s Response Act.”
Council members (Vice Chair) Krystal Oriadha, Jolene Ivey, Calvin Hawkins, Wanika Fisher, and Ingrid Watson sponsored the bill.
Here is what the committee report says:
The Health, Human Services, and Public Safety Committee convened on March 18, 2025, to consider CR-015-2025, which was introduced and referred on February 18, 2025. Staff provided an overview of CR-015-2025, proposed by Council Member Oriadha.
This bill supports the People’s Response Act, which was introduced in Congress but has not yet become law. It advocates for the development and implementation of programs that offer mental health care for formerly incarcerated individuals, ensuring access to treatment outside of the prison system.
David Noto, Legislative Budget and Policy Analyst provided a Policy Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement indicating no direct impact on expenditures and revenues. Council Member Oriadha wanted to thank Life After Release for advocating for this legislation at the federal level. She emphasized that this is an opportunity to show support for ensuring that mental health resources are integrated into the criminal justice system. She expressed that as many individuals return home, we must ensure they have the necessary resources to reintegrate successfully
You can read the rest here.
Prince George’s County 2026 Budget
The fiscal year begins July 1. The county council is holding public meetings throughout the month of April. County government is encouraging community members to commit on the county government’s budget. Meetings will be held at the Wayne K. Curry Administration building. Below are the dates:
April 15th: at 1:00 p.m.: Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission
April 15th at 6:00 p.m.: Annual Action Plan (Community Development Block Grant)
April 22nd at 6:00 p.m.: Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission (M-NCPPC)
April 28th at 6:00 p.m.: County Budget and CIP, Board of Education Budget, and Constant Yield Tax Rate
May 6th at 6:00 p.m.: County Budget and CIP, Board of Education Budget, and Constant Yield Tax Rate
Community Notes
Hosted by Rose Johnson, a Prince George’s County resident, SpotlightDMV highlights great things happening in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Its latest show to the CEO of Going Global.
Notes: What happens when Black youth step on a plane for the first time—not just to travel, but to lead? In this inspiring interview, The Spotlight DMV sits down with Barbara, retired Navy officer and CEO/Founder of Going Global with Barbara, a groundbreaking leadership program using global travel to develop culturally aware, confident Black youth. From Paris to Barcelona, Jordan to Senegal, students in this program learn how to lead themselves—and others—through immersive international experiences. But they don’t just hop on a plane. They complete a 10-week curriculum, research Black history in the countries they visit, and learn how to navigate global cities as independent, prepared leaders. This interview highlights how Going Global with Barbara is shifting the narrative around who gets to study abroad—and what happens when they do.
Big News
Local
Political notes: A sobering maternal health report, a project to celebrate, a time to step down
Excerpt: U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) came back home to Prince George’s County on Wednesday morning to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Civic Plaza near the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building in Largo.
The project, scheduled for completion in December, calls for an enclosed dog park, a playground and an area for community events. It’s one of five planned near the county’s four Metrorail Blue Line stations, and the first ever with the Maryland Stadium Authority, which will invest $400 million. Alsobrooks was part of the negotiations to secure the funding committed in the 2022 General Assembly session.
“I think the lesson for all of us in this is that Prince George’s County is a sure economic driver, not only for Prince George’s County, but that we are so important to the state and to the region. And so goes Prince George’s County, the truth is, so goes the rest of the state,” Alsobrooks to dozens attending.
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Moore, legislative leaders sign 92 bills into law hours after end of 2025 session
Excerpt: Hours after the close of the 2025 session, Gov. Wes Moore (D) and legislative leaders signed dozens of bills — many focused on work force and employment issues — into law.
The tranche of 92 bills — including two of the governor’s priorities — came in the first of five such ceremonies scheduled between now and the end of May. Many of the bills signed Tuesday centered around a top area of focus for the governor this year.
“Maryland is mobilizing in support of our workers and in support of our middle-class families,” Moore said in brief opening remarks.
He highlighted Senate Bill 431, which he said incentivizes companies to create apprenticeships.
Federal Government Impact
Excerpt: The Social Security Administration will no longer be communicating with the media and the public through press releases and “dear colleague” letters, as it shifts its public communication exclusively to X, sources tell WIRED. The news comes amid major staffing cuts at the agency.
“We are no longer planning to issue press releases or those dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes,” said SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis in a meeting with managers earlier this week. “Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public … so this will become our communication mechanism.”
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Excerpt: In June 2005, a former employee from the Federal Emergency Management Agency toured the grounds of the Bonnaroo music festival in rural Tennessee. He wasn’t there to see the headliners, which included Dave Matthews Band and the lead singer of the popular jam band Phish. He was there to meet the guys setting up the toilets for the throng of psychedelics-infused campers in attendance: Richard Stapleton, a construction industry veteran, and his business partner Robert Napior, a onetime convicted pot grower, who specialized in setting up music festivals.
The meeting, described in court documents, offered the pair’s fledgling company, Deployed Resources, a key introduction to players doing government contract work for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees not only the nation’s disaster responses but also its immigration system. Over the next two decades, Stapleton and Napior hired more than a dozen former agency insiders as they turned their small-time logistics business, which had helped support outdoor festivals like Lollapalooza, into a contracting giant by building camps for a completely different use: detaining immigrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Religion
Under Biden, faith-based office bookended by COVID-19, war in Gaza
Excerpt: Among the achievements of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Biden presidency, the fourth administration to have featured such an office, is its work with faith-based groups on the rapid distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and helping develop both an antisemitism and anti-Islamophobia strategy, even as a war in Gaza threatened interfaith relationships in the U.S.
Melissa Rogers, outgoing executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which seeks to link governmental and religious partners to provide social services and address social ills, called the pandemic “a very big challenge that no one would have ever wanted to happen to our nation and world.” But she said her office’s work with American civic officials, both religious and secular, “writing the playbook as we worked with these organizations,” led to greater cooperation between the public and private sector on a number of issues.
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Excerpt: After October 7th, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) led many of the first protests against Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza. These visible, powerful actions in support of Palestinian liberation were easily identifiable by participants’ t-shirts: oversized and black, reading “Not In Our Name” and “Jews Say Ceasefire Now.” And yet, many non-Jews joined these actions, complicating their claim on Jewish representation. On February 26th, 2024, for example, Euphoria actress Hunter Schafer, daughter of a Presbyterian minister, was photographed at Rockefeller Center sitting in front of a banner that read “Jews to Biden: Stop Arming Genocide.” In recognition of the many non-Jews who have joined JVP actions since October 2023, or perhaps anticipating a contradiction, JVP quickly produced t-shirts that read solely “Ceasefire Now,” distributing them to participants before actions with the awkward question, “Jewish or ally?”