Mayor Colin Byrd was censured for his remarks at the April 7 press conference marking the opening of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mass vaccination site at Greenbelt Metro Station.
In an item added to the agenda at the meeting, Councilmember Emmett Jordan moved “to formally censure Mayor Byrd for his behavior during the opening ceremony for the Greenbelt Metro Station mass vaccination site.” Jordan charged that “the mayor failed to exercise discretion and decorum in carrying out the duties conferred upon him by council and the city charter.”
“During the ceremony Mr. Byrd expressed his views as an individual in a context where his role was to speak as mayor,” said Jordan. “As the ceremonial head of the city, he was expected to express gratitude to FEMA and to welcome the government leaders who were the city’s guests.” (See box on page 12 for full motion and separate story on the press conference.) Councilmember Judith Davis seconded the motion.
The censure motion was approved at the April 12 regular meeting of the Greenbelt City Council. This appears to be the first time council has formally censured one of its members based upon the News Review’s check of its archives and the recollections of a couple of longtime city employees.
While any censure motion was likely to be controversial, the controversy was increased by several factors. Byrd and Councilmember Rodney Roberts both objected to the vote when there had been no advance public notice that the issue would be discussed and, Roberts pointed out, even the item Jordan added at the meeting referred only to the FEMA site with no mention of the intention to censure the mayor. In addition, after comments by Roberts and Byrd, Davis moved to close debate, which Councilmember Leta Mach seconded. Byrd then moved to table but City Solicitor Todd Pounds, in his role as parliamentarian, ruled that the motion to close debate must be voted upon first. The motion to close debate passed on a 5 to 2 vote, the motion to table failed on a 2 to 5 vote and the motion to censure passed on a 5 to 2 vote. In all three votes, the majority consisted of Jordan, Davis, Mach and Councilmembers Silke Pope and Edward Putens, with Roberts and Byrd in the minority.
Roberts, while noting that he had not watched the press conference but had heard bits and pieces of it, declared that he was glad that Byrd spoke out. He charged that Governor Larry Hogan is “trying to destroy Greenbelt with the maglev and road widening” and that the governor has shown no respect for Greenbelt and the people who live here. He said that the city must hold Hogan, Representative Steny Hoyer and others to account for their actions that “will destroy our community.”
Byrd said that “to circumvent public input by not providing any notice to the council as a whole or the public, more importantly, that this was going to come up tonight is an extraordinary disservice to the people of Greenbelt.” He said council could just as easily have raised this issue, in a much more appropriate way at the next council meeting and called for justification of why it should be taken up at this meeting. Censuring him, he said, does not help the city. Instead, it will undermine the city’s position with these officials on a number of issues where the city needs to have a firm position advocating for our constituents. He said that it was highly problematic that council would be more focused on censure than on issues such as maglev and road widening. He also charged that some unnamed councilmembers were pushing this action due to personal animus toward him.
After the vote, several residents spoke on the issue. LaWann Stribling said that anyone who has a problem with what Byrd said has no respect for the people of Greenbelt. “Anyone who looks like me knows that [Hogan and Hoyer] do nothing for the well-being of people who look like me. For Mayor Byrd to speak up about what they are lacking, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. For you to keep thinking that it’s okay to keep people who look like me oppressed, that we don’t have anything to say – it’s crap.”
Carla Johns said that Byrd was exercising freedom of speech. “He does represent me and what you are doing is disgraceful.” She assured Byrd that he had her support and that more people were for him than against him.
Michael Hartman said that not allowing people to speak on something this momentous is antidemocratic.
Former Councilmember Konrad Herling said that his concern, which he would have had with any councilmember who spoke as Byrd had done, was that it was not the appropriate time to make those remarks. He should, instead, have spoken to the governor and his staff in a separate setting.