Forum Theme: Moving Past Council Discord

Amid discussions about transit, senior services, development activity and public safety, one topic kept bubbling back into last night's Hyattsville City Council Candidate's forum: how to improve the state of civic discourse behind the council dais. 

"The general feeling is that there is a failure in the leadership by the mayor and council executive committee," said Ward 1 Candidate Bart Lawrence.

"It's not about the size of the council, it's not about specific solutions to OPEB," said Clayton Williams, one of three candidates running for one of Ward 5's two open city council seats in next month's election, in response to the first question of the evening, which dealt with city council relations and municipal policy. "The root issue is the tone and the ability of council members to work together professionally." 

Joseph Solomon, another Ward 5 candidate, said that he looks "to be a consensus building voice" on the city council. 

"A lot of the bickering can be resolved in other ways," said Solomon. 

Edouard Haba, one of two candidates running to represent Ward 4, said he was frustrated by the tone of debate displayed when the city council discusses controversial issues. 

"We don't see productivity coming out of the council," said Haba. "We see a lot of debate taking place, but we don't see a lot of compromises."

Ross Gateretse, running against Haba in Ward 4, said "the Mayor and the city council should be a cohesive unit. We don't need to argue on any topic. We need to listen to each other."

Pastor Herrera, running for one of Ward 5's two open seats, spoke to concerns about civic discourse, saying he would be able to work well with those who disagreed with him. 

"I am not a king. They aren't going to agree with me on everything," said Herrera. "I just do the best I can with the support from the people that give me the vote."

Creating a more transparent city government was a common theme echoed at last night's forum as a way to help improve discourse between council members, city staff and city residents.  

William Jenne, Lawrence's rival in Ward 1, and Joseph Solomon, running in Ward 5, were critical of the council's frequent use of closed sessions.

"You create more questions in the mind of constituents," said Jenne.

responded to critiques about closed sessions, noting that they are sometimes necessary for legal and confidentiality reasons to discuss sensitive matters. But he stressed the importance of making sure closed session discussions do not wander into open session topics.

"We, as council members, have an obligation to make sure that the things discussed in closed session are only the confidential things," said Paschall.

Robert Croslin, running against incumbent Council Vice President David Hiles (Ward 2), said that city council members should not have to resort to public information act requests to get information about items up for consideration.

Hiles, who has run campaign ads highlighting  efforts to make city government more transparent during his first term, said that better communication was needed between the city and residents who may not have access to the internet or the city government access cable channel.

Last night's forum was organized by Hyattsville Aging in Place, a non-profit organization dedicated to making it easier for senior citizens to live in Hyattsville well into their golden years, and was moderated by Flawn Williams, a media professor at Georgetown University and an audio engineer. 

Candidates had an opportunity to make brief introductory remarks. This was followed by three rounds of questions which saw Williams aggregate questions submitted by the audience according to broad topics. Candidates then took two questions directly from audience members at the podium before moving on to closing statements. 

Hyattsville residents go to the polls in less than two weeks, on May 7, 2013, to select candidates running for six city council seats.