Meeting Round Up: University Park Town Council

University Park's Mayor and council met Monday night for their second legislative meeting for the month of September.

Although the agenda was brief, town council discussed several topics in depth - one of which was regarding the town's new process for fulfilling community grant requests. That story will follow this initial round up.

Mayor John Tabori along with Public Works Director Mickey Beall met with State Highway Administration engineers about the Route 1 construction.  Tabori said he wanted a commitment from the SHA concerning the type of work that is getting done and how the town would like it to look.

"There is a dispute between us as what they are going to do at the bridge over wells parkway, at the stream," he said. "As of now, they are not repairing the sidewalk and the sidewalk is in terrible shape across the bridge."

Tabori walked along the bridge and said it is worse than he thought it was.

"We set the meeting up with Brian Young, but he didn't show up, his staff did," he said. "If you are handicapped or in a wheelchair you have to go around the sidewalk, or down another street"

Tabori also said that the Maryland Department of the Environment is aware of construction runoff going into Wells Run. MDE already spoke with SHA and their contractors have resolved the issue. MDE is going after WSSC about their construction runoff. Fortunately, he said, resident Tom Stickles has taken about 300 pictures of these violations all within three-week period and these pictures will be used by MDE to document the contamination.

The city of Hyattsville voted on the memorandum of understanding concerning Wells Run, but Tabori heard the vote was difficult, but passed. He hasn't spoken to Riverdale Park Mayor Vernon Archer about the MOU or the amendments Hyattsville suggested.

Councilman Mickey Lucas said he was insulted by the way the City of Hyattsville meeting went and what they said.

Police Chief Michael Wynnyk said the police are working on finding suspects for the recents criminal activities, but said there was an arrest made regarding the stolen car. Wynnyk said he is still waiting on responses regarding a grant for a radio program.  

Town Treasurer Daniel Baden discussed August's budget report, and noted the town collected $28,041 in revenue, but spent $73,995.

Tabori said he received a report from park and planning staff regarding the Belcrest/Landy Project and he, along with other representatives from the town, will attend the meeting in front of planning board on the Sept. 23.

The town named people to the town's ethics committee and to the town's STEP UP Advisory Committee. Tabori said the committee hopes to have an energy coach hired by Nov. 1.

The next meeting will be Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at University Park Elementary School.