At a September 12 town hall officials and residents hoped for an update and more information from Prince George’s County Fire Department (PGFD) about the June 30 “temporary” removal of career firefighter and EMS staff from Greenbelt, Berwyn Heights, Bunker Hill and Bowie-Belair fire stations. County Fire Chief Tiffany Green did not attend, instead sending Fire Department Public Information Director and Chief Communication Officer Alan Doubleday. Attendees were disappointed to hear no commitment to returning the staff and no apparent willingness to partner with the municipalities to address staffing challenges and public safety concerns. Greenbelt, Berwyn Heights and College Park leaders said they will continue asking for the county’s partnership and asked residents to contact PGFD and county leaders as well.
Summer 2024
On June 7, Green notified the cities that the stations’ 55 career staff would be temporarily removed on June 30 to address insufficient staffing causing extreme mandatory overtime and affecting personnel health, safety and costs. A concession followed: a career-staffed Advanced Life Support (ALS) unit would be stationed at Greenbelt Monday to Friday. Since then, PGFD reports career staff overtime has decreased and Greenbelt ALS, Fire and Rescue response times increased compared to summer 2023. Berwyn Heights Mayor Tiffany Papanikolas said their weekday coverage has fallen from nearly 100 percent to an estimated 10 percent. The move was to be reassessed in September-October.
In June, PGFD said it was short 251 career staff. The county council approved increased hiring and this year PGFD plans to hire 150 staff through June 2025. Since it typically loses 40 staff annually, by July 2025 it could still be 140 under full strength.
Greenbelt VFD President Greg Gigliotti and Pete Mellits, a Bowie resident and 37-year volunteer, noted the importance of the career/volunteer partnership. Gigliotti and Greenbelt Councilmember Amy Knesel asked attendees to imagine working a physically and mentally demanding job for up to 24 hours and then having to stay on the job. Mellits asked the county to improve support to volunteers.
Crickets, Frustration
Approximately 80 residents of the cities attended the meeting, including Greenbelt, Berwyn Heights and College Park Mayors Emmett Jordan, Tiffany Papanikolas and Fazlul Kabir, city managers and councilmembers, County Councilmember Eric Olson and representatives of County Councilmember Ingrid Watson and State Senator Alonzo Washington.
In June city officials began asking the county for data to help understand the decision and for a joint task force. Papanikolas said she expected to share data and ideas, provide feedback and agree on an answer but “instead we’ve been met with crickets.” Greenbelt City Manager Josué Salmerón added, “We wanted stakeholders at the table to find a solution to provide real relief to our firefighters and provide the public safety services our residents deserve and expect.” This was reinforced by Jordan who said, “The difference in response time of a minute is the difference between life and death.”
The cities filed a temporary restraining order against County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Green to pause the plan for discussion and resolution, but a judge allowed the plan to proceed pending the suit.
Kabir said Green agreed to some requests that didn’t happen. She was invited to but did not attend community meetings including September 12, sending others instead. Greenbelt Community Development Corporation President Susan Walker told the crowd she was “really offended she refused our request.”
Officials said they received insufficient information to justify the plan, including a 2022 report based on 2016-2020 data. They argue data provided this summer about the plan’s effect on overtime and response time is insufficient to avoid worry over the reported ALS response time, which increased in July and began decreasing in August.
Greenbelter Melissa Ehrenreich said to Doubleday, “It’s really difficult to understand the quality of care now. What is your plan to help us understand the data? We shouldn’t have to pull it out of you. … Other counties are able to see incidents. … You need to do a better job of sharing information with us. To create trust, you need to help us understand your information.” For example, Anne Arundel County posts aggregated data monthly, viewable by council district, time of day and response type, though without response time.
Doubleday said he can report data but not pull it, referring to data analysts and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) processes. When Ehrenreich again asked for data provided as in other counties, he said, “It’s a lot of data,” at which Greenbelter Laura Moore exclaimed: “It’s your job!” He suggested
Ehrenreich talk with him afterward on what she’d like to see made accessible, though immediately followed that offer by citing other offices and the FOIA process for obtaining data. Papanikolas said “We’ve been waiting since June.” Elsewhere in the meeting Doubleday described around-the-clock data collection and weekly data reviews. When the News Review later asked him about aggregating and anonymizing the data for public access he cited FOIA as the process and healthcare privacy as reason to not release it.
Moore told the News Review the decision seems arbitrary. She believes Greenbelters have a right to know the information behind the decisions. “I feel our public safety is being compromised and we aren’t being given enough information,” she says.
Resident Velma Kahn wrote “the thing to fault Chief Green and the Fire Department for would be authoritarianism, disrespect and lack of collaboration with the local governments and fire programs affected, and it would seem cowardice – no excuse for not showing up at the meeting.”
Worries, Warnings, Pleas
Gigliotti and Greenbelters Kathy Bartolomeo and Bill Cornett painted a picture of emergency service demands from a local dense population, Metro and MARC stations, NASA Goddard, the University of Maryland, Route 1 development, the Beltway and Parkway, and pending FBI and Bureau of Engraving and Printing facilities. Greenbelt resident Mara Hemminger questioned the wisdom of removing career staff from both the Berwyn Heights and Greenbelt stations.
Mellits said removing daywork career staff from a service model built because volunteers aren’t available for daywork and thinking it will have no effect “is a poor choice and inaccurate decision by the person in charge of public safety.”
Beltsville activist Karen Coakley shared this year’s Beltsville VFD experience when PGFD threatened to remove career staff if volunteers didn’t commit to address facility issues before PGFD identified the issues. Coakley said though grants and plans are now in place, PGFD is still pressuring Beltsville volunteers to sign agreements that could give Beltsville-purchased assets to PGFD, and spoke of new career removal rumors. She said, “I’m disgusted with the way these communities have been treated. We’ve got to stay in this together.”
Ehrenreich cited rumors that Greenbelt’s career staff aren’t coming back, asking Doubleday to “clearly state that’s not the case, that this is temporary and they will be restored.” Nearby Branchville career staff were removed in 2013 and never restored. Another attendee asked for a commitment to immediate reassessment if response times get too close to eight minutes. Former Greenbelt mayor Judith Davis said she worries Greenbelt will lose its fire station altogether. Doubleday did not ease concerns, saying the fire chief and administration will decide at the end of September about when personnel need to come back. He said eight minutes is the standard response time. Greenbelt Councilmember Rodney Roberts later said, “The county wants us to accept this eight-minute number. [Gigliotti] said our response time was six minutes [before] so why should we accept eight minutes?”
Davis warned the fire chief, county council and county executive: “Whatever is decided, you need to include municipalities in this discussion, otherwise it’s not going to work. You’ll anger a lot of people. You have got to include the municipalities so we can all work together to solve this problem and so we can figure out how to get rid of the shortage and build up the staff we need.”
Payment for What Service?
Councilmember Amy Knesel shared concerns that Greenbelt residents pay taxes for emergency services that aren’t being delivered, and Jordan noted the city has purchased equipment worth $2-3 million for the station that is being less used.
Unique Challenges
Amid nationwide shortages of teachers, school bus drivers, police and fire and EMS staff, Olson, Coakley, Mellits and others described challenges specific to Prince George’s. Coakley cited long onboarding processes required of career and volunteer staff (up to six months of interviews, exams and background checks before training), saying Prince George’s loses volunteers and career candidates to other counties while waiting. Mellits pleaded for officials to engage the fire department to reduce these hurdles.
Cities’ Efforts So Far
Officials said they requested county data to understand the problem and a task force to jointly address it. They obtained a career-staffed ALS unit for Greenbelt and at city expense put Automated Emergency Defibrillators in all city buildings and several police cars per shift. They appealed for engagement from Alsobrooks and Green. They said they have advocated privately with county councilmembers and the Prince George’s Annapolis delegation, and publicly by posting press releases and materials and holding community meetings. Olson said he repeatedly tells Green that staff return “had better be the case.” The cities are continuing the lawsuit and on September 17 a judge denied the county’s motion to dismiss it. Salmerón said Greenbelt will write Green to thank her for efforts so far, describe them as inadequate, restate “our fair requests,” ask for an October meeting and reiterate the cities’ desire for partnership instead of litigation.
Jordan asked Doubleday whether cities or volunteers will have input in the reassessment. “How can we participate, and when is it going to happen?” Doubleday said, “I’m sure [the chief and administration] will communicate with you.”
Call for Residents’ Voices
Jordan said, “We need each and every one of you to contact the county administration to make sure they know we are engaged and we are watching,” before the reassessment that Doubleday said will occur at the end of September.
Some residents have already contacted Green, Alsobrooks, county councilmembers and the Annapolis delegation. Salmerón told the News Review that during the week of September 16, Greenbelt will prepare language for the city website for residents to use when contacting officials. Ehrenreich established a petition that received almost 850 signatures by September 17.
Residents were also encouraged to talk to their neighbors and friends to speak up to protect the emergency services they depend on, services they may not think about until they need them and they aren’t there.
Your Station
Attendees were encouraged to volunteer at the station, which needs operational and administrative support. For operational volunteers, the free training is rigorous and the work is physically and mentally challenging, but volunteers say their hearts are in it. Greenbelt recruitment officer Lisa Ray says she makes a difference to the people she serves. She sees young volunteers develop teamwork, leadership and problem-solving life skills which few volunteer opportunities offer. And they do it in Greenbelt, which she described as one of the last community-centered places in Prince George’s County where “you feel a part of the community and know this is YOUR community firehouse.”