Long-time activists, officials run for Council seats

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2006

Voters will nominate at least two new members of the Prince George’s County Council in Tuesday’s primary, in a campaign where many experience community leaders are trying to move up to council seats.

Councilman Thomas Hendershot is quitting the District 3 seat, which represents the College Park⁄New Carrollton area, because of the county’s two-term limit. Councilman Douglas J.J. Peters is giving up the District 4 seat, which represents the Bowie⁄Greenbelt area, to run for state Senate.

Seven other council members, who have been in office for just one term, are running for reelection. Four of them – Council Chairman Thomas Dernoga (D-Dist. 1), Councilman David Harrington (D-Dist. 5), Councilwoman Camille Exum (D-Dist. 7) and Councilman Tony Knotts (D-Dist. 8) - are unopposed in the primary.

All but Harrington are also unopposed in the general election, meaning Dernoga, Exum and Knotts likely will cruise to new, four-year terms.

District 9

Councilwoman Marilynn Bland (D-Dist. 9) has more competition than any incumbent. Her challengers generally accuse her of being unresponsive to her district.

Five Democrats are trying to unseat Bland in the primary, including Keith Washington, a former police officer and deputy director of the county’s Office of Homeland Security, and James ‘‘Fred” Harley, former commissioner for the Prince George’s Planning Board under the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Washington, who was a police officer for 16 years, says he would focus on building more schools, increasing spending on public safety and curbing over-development.

Rumors have circulated that County Executive Jack B. Johnson is supporting Washington, but Johnson denies it.

‘‘Keith Washington has been very astute in giving the appearance that he’s with me, but I’ve told people from day one that I’m supporting Marilynn Bland,” Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Harley has picked up AFL-CIO, teachers’ union and police union endorsements.

Harley is advocating more vocational training in high schools and concentrating development in areas that already have adequate infrastructure.

Landlord and activist Wanda White, consultant and former professor Vernon Hayes and minister Marvin Silver are also running.

Meanwhile, Bland’s staff has defended her performance. David Billings, her chief of staff, said Bland is responsive to her constituents, contributing to nearly 30 organizations this year. She has trouble making all the meetings she is invited to because her district is geographically the largest one, he says.

In District 2, Councilman William Campos (D-Dist. 2) is facing former County Councilman Anthony Cicoria.

District 3

The list of candidates ready to succeed Hendershot is a long one. This is the most crowded council race, with eight Democrats and one Republican running.

Florence Hendershot, a high school social studies teacher and wife of Thomas Hendershot, was one of the first to enter the race. She earned the teachers’ union endorsement.

College Park Councilman Eric Olson has been endorsed by most County Council members and the AFL-CIO.

‘‘We continue to tell people about my experience, almost a decade representing people in College Park,” Olson said.

Olson, who works for the Sierra Club, has named revitalization and improved mass transit as two of his top priorities for the district.

Also running are director of the county’s Community Ministry, Terence Collins; former school board member James Henderson; county employees Derrick Coley and Ken Laureys; Landover Hills Mayor Lee Walker and Melvin Bernard Johnson, a resident who calls himself the non-candidate.

Districts 4

Three very different candidates are running to take Peters’ place on the County Council in District 4.

The only road-tested politician among them is Bowie Mayor G. Frederick Robinson, who was recently endorsed by Peters and the state legislators who represent the same area.

Robinson, a retired Prince George’s police officer, was one of the key cheerleaders on the Bowie City Council for establishing the city’s first police force. He says he would continue to push for increased police staffing levels for the county. He’s a long-time advocate for extending land use authority to the county’s municipalities.

The other two candidates have kept pace with Robinson’s fundraising. Ingrid Turner, a former Navy attorney, has similar goals for the Council including expanding mass transit options in the district.

Darrell Carrington, a former program director for the county government, says the county needs to pay its teachers better to stop the migration of qualified educators.

District 6

In District 6, County Executive Jack B. Johnson has linked arms with civic activist Phil Lee, president of the Kettering Civic Federation, in an effort to oust Councilman Samuel Dean.

‘‘As the president of the federation, I’ve represented over 5,000 homes and over 10,000 people ... they want more of what they’ve seen us do here,” said Lee, who has been active in fighting truancy in his area and pushing for community policing.

But Dean, who won 41 percent of the vote out a field of five in the 2002 primary and has hundreds of thousands of dollars on hand, says he stands by his record of being responsive to his constituents.

E-mail Judson Berger at jberger@gazette.net.