The News Review presents highlights from last year’s news stories. The reviews were prepared by Anna Bedford-Dillow, Deb Daniel, Jon Gardner, Amy Hansen, Cathie Meetre, Diane Oberg, Lois Rosado, Melissa Sites and Gloria Walters-Flowers.
Covid Infections Increase, Impacts Decline
Covid-19 in the U.S. was about 22 months old as 2022 began. Remarkably, by then, vaccines had been available for a year, a feat perhaps under-appreciated by a population jaded by daily medical miracles and technological advances.
By 2022, Covid, perhaps scenting human opposition, had mutated multiple times. Our local public schools had switched back to remote learning for much of December 2021 and January 2022. In January, after people celebrated the holidays more socially after a bleak 2021, there was a massive nationwide spike in cases. This was echoed in ZIP code 20770 statistics where the month saw nearly a thousand new infections here (almost certainly under-reported due to the use of home tests) compared to a more typical 110-150 per month.
The number hospitalized or dying among those infected, however, was much lower than pre-vaccination so though hospitalizations and deaths went up some, the result was not nearly as deadly. In June a vaccine was finally approved for children 5 and under, the only group for whom one had not yet been available. The vaccine, even if it didn’t prevent disease, has protected recipients from its worst effects through 2022, especially the new bi-valent vaccine available from early September.
Covid receded in Greenbelt’s day-to-day consciousness with the return in 2022 of Greenbelt Recreation activities and camps, a Farmers Market without orange fencing, the Labor Day Festival and a bumper holiday Art and Craft sale. News Review staff went back to its office and ad revenues began a slow recovery as businesses ramped up.
If the News Review is a microcosm of the city, though, many of its staff – who meticulously didn’t get Covid through 2020 and 2021 – caught the virus in 2022. Most members are of a vulnerable age, but all are vaccinated and boosted and so far (touch wood) all have recovered without hospitalization (though some allowed as to how they were pretty doggone miserable).
Council Organizes Reparations Commission
Many residents of Greenbelt were surprised and excited when a Reparations Commission was approved by voters in the 2021 city election. Surprised, because until then, little had indicated that a majority of residents were interested in the topic. Excited, because it was evident that many people wanted to learn more about the original people and history of this city and whether reconciliation and repair were necessary.
The city council took up the mantle and held two worksessions to organize the Reparations Commission. They designed a long application that would provide them with pertinent information, such as where candidates resided in Greenbelt and for how long, their age, gender and personal experiences. Councilmembers designed six questions to be asked of each interviewee. The interview process was the same as for any of the current residents appointed to existing city committees and advisory boards. Public announcements were made, and deadlines were established twice to ensure a large enough applicant pool. The council deliberation process to select commissioners was intense.
All 31 applicants were interviewed. A balanced and diverse group was appointed, with two alternates named in the event that any commission member needs to be replaced. A week after the names were made public, commission members received an official appointment email from the city and a week later an official letter.
Council took on this mandate, designed a process and delivered on the voters’ request. The commission will begin meetings in 2023.
Storm Rages throughout Greenbelt
On Tuesday July 12, at 6:15 p.m., strong winds hit Greenbelt, knocking down hundreds of trees, breaking utility poles in half, scattering the city with live wires and debris and causing large amounts of damage to houses, cars and apartments.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in the 33 years I’ve worked here, through hurricanes and different storms,” said Brian Townsend, assistant director of Greenbelt Public Works.
Fortunately, no injuries were reported. But the storm left huge trees lying across roads and paths. Residents lost their belongings to rain when trees knocked through ceilings. Grocery stores lost food to unfrozen freezers. Families lost daycare as camps closed. And everyone became uncomfortable without air conditioning.
Power was restored after a few days to the parts of the city that had lost power. Cleanup took a while longer. Most of the roads were cleared quickly, but Greenbelt Park has not yet fully reopened and some houses are still decorated with tarps.
But the cleanup isn’t the whole story. When the power goes out on a Tuesday, it’s a big deal for the News Review. Usually, the Tuesday night crew does the final edits and designs the front page. For this week, edits were declared done and the front page was designed by candlelight. The next morning, the layout team decamped to places with electricity. They worked from McDonalds and Starbucks, and then, eventually from the porch of a staffer who had power and internet. The newspaper, our responsibility, went to press, even with a storm and high water.
The James Webb Space Telescope
Greenbelt is home to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which led a large international team to design, construct, test, launch and operate the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb was launched on Christmas Day, 2021, into an orbit one million miles from the Earth. Webb is arguably the most expensive pure science project in the history of the United States. Many Greenbelt residents have worked on Webb during the 25-year history of the project.
Six months after launch, the Webb team brought out the first images, including the faintest infrared picture ever taken, in a White House ceremony that included President Biden and Vice President Harris. The first image appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
In its first six months of scientific operations, Webb has already found the most distant galaxies ever seen. The galaxies are so far away that the light that Webb detects has traveled for 13.5 billion years of the 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, allowing scientists to study early galaxies that formed under very different conditions than we see today. Webb has made the first detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, and has examined the interactions between giant stars and the planets that are forming near them.
Webb’s scientific journey is just beginning. A nearly perfect launch left the spacecraft with enough fuel to maintain its orbit and operations for as long as 20 years. The Greenbelters who worked on Webb, the scientists who interpret the Webb data and NASA’s fans around the world can all look forward to many more discoveries in the years to come.
Police Reform
Council kicked off the year by passing Resolution 2096-2 directing changes to the police department’s General Orders, largely based upon Councilmember Colin Byrd’s proposed police reform legislation. The police department began revising the orders, but in September the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) discovered that the department was not working from the version of the resolution passed by council and documented the variances. After investigation, the city manager reported that the substitution was due to an error by city staff in processing the resolution.
At year’s end, these discrepancies were not yet corrected in the General Orders. Nine provisions of Byrd’s proposal that council and the chief of police reviewed were not initially resolved. In addition, some provisions of the city resolution had been overtaken by changes to state and county law.
It appears that no further city legislation will be required as council appeared satisfied with the department’s proposed approach to the remaining provisions. However, PSAC remains concerned about ensuring that the correct text from the council resolution makes its way correctly into the General Orders.
ARPA City Funding
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds were given to cities by Congress primarily to address the negative economic impact caused by the Covid public health emergency. Cities have until December 31, 2024, to obligate funds and until December 31, 2026, to spend funds. However, with changes from the 2022 election, Congress may consider calling back some of these funds. In an interview with Route-Fifty (route-fifty.com), Representative Jason Smith, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee said, “There’s going to be some aggressive oversight, both of this administration and for states and local municipalities.”
The city started the process of funding ARPA projects with a community survey. The survey involved stakeholder focus groups, three community input meetings and 344 web survey respondents. From this survey came approximately 50 priority projects. The city has created a sophisticated ARPA funding spreadsheet (engagegreenbelt.org) to track ARPA spending projects.
Charts pulled from data on the spreadsheet show that the city has obligated over $22 million and spent approximately $500,000 of those obligated dollars as of December 25, 2022. To create charts, visit the website and click on the EXPLORE button in the lower right corner. When EXPLORE opens, enter any inquiry to get similar charts (the inquiries for the charts will show above the chart). The ARPA Spending website is created and maintained by James Wisniewski, public information specialist for the city.
Greenbelters Win Recognition
Three Greenbelters were recognized this year for their contributions to science. All are associated with NASA and all three find the time to also serve this community. Hats off to them all.
Gardner
The launch and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was a long-awaited goal for NASA and a significant team member is Dr. Jonathan Gardner, active in Greenbelt as a member of this newspaper and other local organizations. His British-born wife Anne (the newspaper’s layout designer) and their family also comprise aptly-named Transatlantic Crossing, a toe-tapping band that plays at many Greenbelt functions.
For his work on JWST, Gardner, head of Observational Cosmology at Goddard Space Flight Center, was awarded the 2022 Lindsay Prize for outstanding contribution to space science. The citation quotes his “exceptional scientific leadership” of the JWST science teams.
Bonnell
One of the News Review’s two expert photo editors is Dr. Jerry Bonnell, a University of Maryland astronomer based at Goddard. He and Dr. Robert Nemiroff, formerly of Goddard, won the prestigious International Astronomical Union 2022 first prize for outreach for their 25-year joint production of NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. Bonnell and Nemiroff’s website debuted in the early days of the web and retains its original simple but appealing format, inspiring books and multiple satellite sites that translate the pages into over 20 languages. Bonnell and wife Letty, also a News Review writer, travelled to Korea to receive the prize.
Fischer
Dr. Jim Fischer, now retired from Goddard, was feted for services to technology achieved during his career. He is active in the Greenbelt Community Foundation and the Greenbelt Interfaith Leadership Alliance and writes occasionally for this newspaper. He pioneered using ordinary and inexpensive computer components in parallel to provide exceptionally high-speed computing for applications like atmospheric modeling and weather forecasting. His Beowulf cluster implementation, which alleviated the input/output crimp on processor speed, was inducted into the Space Foundation’s Space Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., in April 2022.
Emancipation Day Celebrated
The Emancipation Day celebration was a successful community event. Despite the unusually warm November day, the Community Center gym was packed. The Greenbelt Black History and Culture Committee hosted the program. Dr. Frank Smith, director of the African American Civil War Museum, gave a short but educational lecture. He paid homage to the 200,000 brave African American men who served in the Civil War and gave a peek into that typical experience.
Members of FREED, the Female Re-Enactors of Distinction donning their 19th-century attire, gave the audience a glimpse into Civil-War-era tensions, real-life experiences and the emotions of people of color.
Community members learned about lesser-known local historical figures. The program showcased the bravery, resilience and wit necessary to survive a tumultuous time in American history.
Theft from Autos in 2022
Most crime in Greenbelt is “theft from auto,” targeted against unattended vehicles, locked or unlocked, on the street or in parking lots or driveways. The most common type of theft from auto is “smash and grab,” when the thief breaks a window and removes personal property from the car. Many times the window is smashed, and the thief rummages through the car but nothing of value is taken.
Theft from auto also includes the removal of parts of the car. The biggest trend of 2022 was the removal of the steering wheel airbag from Honda Accords. This type of theft usually had multiple occurrences most weeks.
Greenbelt’s concentration of Toyota Priuses makes the city a prime target for catalytic converter theft. Stolen catalytic converters contain valuable metals, including platinum. In 2022, catalytic converters were also stolen from other types of vehicles, even though hybrid cars offer more valuable metal to the thief. In terms of trends, this type of theft was on the decline, especially compared to steering wheel airbag theft.
One of the most striking kinds of theft from auto is when a vehicle has been put up on blocks, and all four wheels stolen in the middle of the night. License plates and handicap parking hangtags are also targeted for theft. In Greenbelt, 164 vehicles were stolen – the most common makes being the Hyundai Elantra and Sonata – with 145 recovered. All carjacked vehicles were recovered.
News Review reporters process the weekly crime report provided by Hannah Glasgow, public information officer for the Greenbelt Police Department.
Redistricting at Many Levels
County Districts
On January 31, Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge William Snoddy ruled that the new district map created by Prince George’s County Council was accepted illegally as a resolution instead of as a redistricting bill in November 2021. Though it was stopped on procedural grounds opponents had complained that the map was gerrymandering. It was also criticized for separating Greenbelt Park, which is within the city limits though a part of the National Park System, from the rest of the city. At the time Greenbelt City Council sent a letter to the county council urging them to accept the map of the nonpartisan redistricting commission, which would keep the park with the rest of the city. Prince George’s County Council lost the appeal to have the map validated, and ultimately the nonpartisan map was adopted.
Congressional Districts
Greenbelt, previously in the 5th Congressional district for many years, became part of District 4. The change means the loss of Steny Hoyer, who continues to represent District 5 and had been Greenbelt’s Representative since 1981.
School Boundaries
In addition, school boundary changes adopted this year will affect Greenbelt Elementary and Middle Schools. Sixty-four students currently attending Greenbelt Elementary School will be reassigned to Magnolia, impacting students who reside in the area east of the Beltway between Greenbelt Road and Good Luck Road. Meanwhile, 204 students currently attending Greenbelt Middle School will be reassigned – 200 will go to Buck Lodge Middle School and four will be within a new catchment area for William Wirt Middle School, as areas of Hollywood and College Park will no longer be zoned for Greenbelt Middle.