Newsflash District 9 Spotlight: to Govern

Eight Years of Representation Require More Than a First Public Statement

Your recent public comments regarding data centers have been praised by some as a “lesson in leadership.” From the perspective of Brandywine and Southern Region residents who have lived with the consequences of industrial concentration, environmental harm, infrastructure neglect and top-down development decisions throughout your eight years in office, that characterization requires a serious reality check.

You stated that this was your first public statement regarding data centers.

That admission matters.

District 9 has not had the luxury of waiting eight years for its elected representative to publicly address another major industrial land-use threat. Brandywine and the Southern Region have already carried an extraordinary concentration of power-generation facilities, mining operations, warehouses, diesel-truck traffic, environmental contamination, flooding and infrastructure failures.

Ribbon cuttings received your presence. The massive amount of tree loss in the background?

283-acre ELP DC (Elion Logistics Park) in Brandywine, MD, is a ±3.1 million sq. ft. heavy industrial project (I-2 zoning) featuring eight warehouses, approved by the Prince George’s County Planning Board in 2020-2021. While specific total daily truck counts were not highlighted in the available, the site features "abundant" trailer storage and loading docks designed for high-volume, last-mile distribution. Approval and Context Approving Body: The Prince George's County Planning Board approved preliminary subdivision plans for the site in 2020 and 2021.

Residents have been documenting these cumulative impacts, requesting meetings, seeking government intervention and demanding meaningful public participation for years. This work did not begin when data centers became politically visible.

The History Cannot Be Separated From the Speech

Our 2016 Title VI action placed government officials and agencies on notice about the disproportionate concentration of polluting industries and the failure to provide meaningful engagement to the communities carrying the greatest burdens.

Nearly a decade later, residents are still fighting for early notice, transparent information, cumulative-impact analysis, enforceable protections and direct access to the officials elected to represent them.

During your two terms, the development pattern did not stop.

You participated in the Elon Logistics Center ribbon cutting alongside Steve Proctor while residents continued raising concerns about warehouse expansion, diesel traffic, public health, infrastructure capacity and the cumulative consequences of concentrating more industrial activity in the Southern Region.

Community leadership seeking accountability has repeatedly struggled to receive the same access and responsiveness.

You have now been invited multiple times to participate in a Maryland Department of the Environment tour of Brandywine and the Southern Region. The purpose is straightforward: allow state and local officials to witness the conditions residents have spent years documenting.

To date, we have not received a meaningful response from you. As a matter of enagement from the At-Large Council persons?

You also make time to attend District V Coffee Club gatherings in Clinton, while established community leadership within the heavily burdened areas of your own district has struggled to secure direct engagement.

The issue is no longer simply whether you are available. The issue is which communities receive your time, presence and responsiveness—and which do not.

An Industry-Packed Task Force Is Not Community Accountability

Your recommendation for a countywide community-benefit task force raises another serious concern.

We do not need another top-down process dominated by industry leaders, institutional representatives, political appointees and organizations that do not live with the daily consequences of these decisions. Residents cannot be invited into a predetermined structure after government and industry have already framed the problem, selected the participants and defined the acceptable solutions.

That is not meaningful public participation.

That is managed engagement.

Our Title VI work addressed this exact failure: government decisions affecting overburdened communities cannot continue to be developed from the top down while residents are treated as an audience, an advisory voice or a box to be checked.

Directly affected residents must have real authority in shaping the standards, monitoring the impacts, reviewing the data and determining whether promised protections are actually delivered.

We also reject vague community-benefit agreements that can be negotiated behind closed doors, controlled by developers or used to substitute financial promises for public-health and environmental protections.

District 9 needs enforceable standards, transparent oversight and resident-controlled accountability—not another task force that gives industry greater access to the decision-making process.

What Accountability Now Requires

Your prepared remarks are part of the public record. The next step is not more discussion about what government should study. The next step is measurable delivery.

We are calling upon you to:

1. Attend the upcoming MDE environmental tour and personally witness the cumulative conditions affecting Brandywine and the Southern Region.

2. Meet directly with established District 9 community leadership that has documented these concerns and carried this work for years.

3. Publish a written District 9 action plan identifying the legislation, funding, oversight actions and implementation deadlines you will pursue.

4. Reject industry-dominated task-force structures and require directly affected residents to hold meaningful decision-making authority.

5. Support cumulative-impact and public-health reviews before additional industrial, energy-intensive or data-center approvals in already overburdened communities.

6. Advance enforceable environmental public-reporting requirements, rather than voluntary commitments and public-relations promises.

7. Require complete disclosure of energy, water, transportation, emergency-response, environmental and ratepayer impacts, including who will pay for every necessary infrastructure upgrade.

8. Disclose your legislative and oversight record from the previous eight years concerning District 9’s environmental, industrial and infrastructure burdens.

9. Establish regular public accountability reporting so residents can track what was proposed, funded, implemented, delayed or abandoned.

10. Show up before decisions are finalized, not only after projects have been approved, constructed or celebrated.

Comfort or Accountability

We understand that some people do not like BTB’s direct partnership with the People's Agenda 1st accountability approach.

Accountability is often uncomfortable—particularly when it requires elected officials to explain where they have been, whose invitations they accepted, which communities received access and what measurable results they delivered.

Directness is not disrespect.

We will remain factual, evidence-based and resident-centered. But we will not soften the truth to make government neglect, selective engagement or failed public participation easier to defend.

BTB is not here to preserve political comfort while residents carry the consequences.

We are here to establish a public record, demand corrective action and protect the future of our communities.

Council Member Harrison, District 9 does not need another description of the problems residents have already spent years documenting.

We need attendance.

We need legislation.

We need funding.

We need enforcement.

We need transparent timelines and measurable results.

A prepared speech after eight years is not enough. Leadership will now be measured by what you sponsor, fund, attend, disclose, enforce and complete as you move into another four-year term.

Your words are on the record. Now District 9 needs the receipts.

Comfort or accountability—the choice is clear.

Respectfully,

Brandywine | TB Southern Region Neighborhood CoalitionExecutive Community Citizen’s Board

Build the Block. Protect the Future.