Prince George's County Candidate Forums/ Community Meetings/ Big News
There have been a series of county executive candidate forums. Candidates have been making appearances on local news channels, Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy and Albert Slocum appeared on Bowie TV. Candidates Tonya Sweat, and Rushern Baker appeared on WUSA9. Marcellus Crews, Albert Slowcum, Aisha Braveboy, Ron Hunt, Calvin Hawkins, and Tonya Sweat appeared on Prince George’s County TV (PGCTV).
The Ebenezer Baptist Church held a candidate forum on Feb. 15. Alan Slocum, Rushern Baker, At-Large Council member Calvin Hawkins, Tonya Sweat, Aisha Braveboy, Marcellus Crews, and Maryland State Sen. Alonzo Washington all attended. You can watch the debate below.
Community News
Feb. 24, 2025, Housing Authority Board of Commissioners Meeting
Date: February 24, 2025 to February 24, 2025
Times: 5:30 - 8:00 pm
This meeting will be held at the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building at 1301 McCormick Drive, Training Room #1174 Largo, Maryland 20774.
The monthly board meeting will be held via Go-To-Meeting. If you would like to join, please email mkcrawford@co.pg.md.us for meeting information. If you are unable to join via Go-To-Meeting, you can dial into the teleconference: Dial In Phone#: 1-866-899-4679 Participant PIN#: 819-222-557
If you have questions, or if you have a disability and require an accommodation, please contact the Housing Authority of Prince George's County on (301) 883-5531 or TTY (301) 883-5428.
Link: February 24 2025 Housing Authority BOC Meeting Agenda.pdf
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Human Rights Commission Meeting
Date: February 24, 2025
Times: 5:30pm
This regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Human Rights Commission will take place over Zoom. The Zoom link can be found on the open agenda. Please contact the Clerk to the Commission with any accommodation requests no later than three days before the meeting at OHRStaff (at) co.pg.md.us
Agenda Monday February 24 2025 (open).pdf
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Lunch and Learn: "Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known" by George M. Johnson
Dates: Feb. 25, 2025
Times: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Lunch and Learn returns with special guest George M. Johnson in conversation with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights and the Prince George's County Memorial Library System. Johnson will be discussing their latest book Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known, and the queer stories you may have missed.
Watch live here -
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Living Well with High Blood Pressure Workshop
Date: Feb. 25, 2025
Times: 1:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Celebrate American Heart Month by raising your awareness with the Living Well with High Blood Pressure Workshop!
Join us for a free two-hour online class for individuals who want to learn how to better control their high blood pressure (hypertension).
To learn more about the workshop, visit the Living Well with High Blood Pressure Webpage .
Registration
This is a FREE workshop currently offered online. Registration is required. Contact WellnessInfo@co.pg.md.us for more information and to register.
Class Schedule
Download the Living Well with High Blood Pressure flyer.
Big News
DOGE’s Millions: As Musk and Trump Gut Government, Their Ax-Cutting Agency Gets Cash Infusion
Excerpt: While Elon Musk and his underlings demand budget cuts and layoffs across the federal government, funding for their agency — the Department of Government Efficiency — has soared to nearly $40 million, ProPublica found in a review of Office of Management and Budget records.
Billionaire investor Musk has called DOGE “maximally transparent.” President Donald Trump has said that some 100 people work for the group, but his administration has refused to make information about DOGE’s spending and operations public. In an effort to gain a clearer understanding of DOGE’s inner workings, ProPublica has gathered the names and backgrounds of the people employed there. We’ve identified some 46 people, including 12 new names we are adding to the list today.
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Excerpt: Shorlette Ammons comes from a family of tenant farmers in eastern North Carolina. Her grandfather raised hogs and grew row crops. In high school, she worked summers in tobacco and cucumber fields. Working with farmers, she said, was her calling.
She did exactly that at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, created by the state in 1890 to provide agricultural education to Black Americans while maintaining segregation. And she worked on equity in food systems at North Carolina State University, the state’s primary educational institution for farmers, which didn’t allow Black students to enroll until the 1950s.
In both positions, she connected Black farmers to technical and financial resources and helped to eliminate the barriers that they continued to face in getting access to programs and funding.
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The 50-Year-Old Law That Could Stop DOGE in Its Tracks—Maybe
Excerpt: As Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency rampages through the US government, its access to sensitive data is alarming federal agencies and Americans who interact with them. In the month since the Trump administration began its purge of federal workers, opponents fighting DOGE in court have been pinning their hopes of stopping the world’s richest man on a 50-year-old law.
In just a few weeks, DOGE staffers have accessed federal employee records at the Office of Personnel Management, government payment data at the Department of the Treasury, data on student loan recipients at the Department of Education, information on disaster victims at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and vast amounts of employment- and workplace-related data at the Department of Labor. White House staffers are even pressuring the Internal Revenue Service to grant DOGE access to US taxpayer records. The acting head of the Social Security Administration recently resigned rather than give DOGE access to her agency’s reams of sensitive personal data.
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Jolene Ivey drops out of Prince George’s County executive race
Excerpt: Less than three weeks before the primary in a special election for county executive, Prince George’s County Council Chair Jolene Ivey pulled out of the race Wednesday.
“I want to thank all of my volunteers and supporters for standing with me,” Ivey wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. “I look forward to continue fighting for the people of Prince George’s County as a member of the County Council.”
Ivey said she was unable to discuss her decision further Wednesday. But with countywide name recognition and nearly $430,000 in her campaign account, thanks to a $250,000 loan last month, she was genearlly seen as one of the top candidates to succeed U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D), who left the county executive seat in December to be sworn in to the Senate.
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Wes Moore endorses Braveboy for Prince George’s County executive
Excerpt: Gov. Wes Moore (D) took sides in the Prince George’s County executive’s race Monday, announcing his endorsement of State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy (D) in the crowded race for that position.
Also Monday, State Treasurer Dereck Davis (D) threw his support to former County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, who’s looking to regain the seat he held from 2010 to 2018.
They were the latest in an escalating round of endorsements in the special election to fill the seat vacated by former Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) when she was sworn into the U.S. Senate in November. Eight Democrats and three Republicans are running for the seat, with early voting starting next week for the March 4 primary.
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DC sues feds for ‘polluting the Anacostia River
Excerpt: The District of Columbia’s Attorney General sued the federal government in January for what it called “150 years of polluting the Anacostia River.”
A costly cleanup of the Anacostia River, which runs through the southeast side of the nation’s capital, has been underway for years. And this isn’t the first time the District of Columbia has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get a party responsible for polluting the river to help fund its cleanup.
In 2023, the Potomac Electric Power Co. (Pepco) settled a $57 million suit with the district to compensate for the company’s historic contributions to the Anacostia’s pollution woes.
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Excerpt: Efforts in recent years to accelerate the Chesapeake Bay restoration have run into a wall of Trump administration executive orders that halted payments for huge swaths of Bay-related work, raising doubt about the future of many projects.
Tens of millions of dollars for Bay-related work being carried out by nonprofits, farmers, churches, universities and states have been left in limbo. Some say the damage could take years to undo.