Pr. George's County leaders host priorities forum. Was it a missed opportunity?

October 16, 9:14 AMMaryland Grassroots Politics ExaminerJoseph Kitchen

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First Baptist Church in Glenarden.

Last night Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, the county delegations in both the House of Delegates and the Senate, the County Council, State's Attorney, and Sheriff all joined together to host their first ever joint Priorities Forum at First Baptist Church in Glenarden. Before the event most community leaders saw it as a great idea and important toward building a united agenda before the annual legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly. "It should be a way to get everyone on the same page about what we want to see," a member of the House of Delegates said entering the church. That all seemed to change once the event started however.

On a dark, cold, and rainy night more than a hundred people turned out to the event that 24 of the more than 50 elected officials declined to attend. On the bright side is the fact that of those elected officials who did attend the event, most of them stayed the entire time and even spoke to angry or just upset residents after the meeting until nearly eleven o'clock. All in all this event in my mind started out with promise. Where it seemed to miss the mark was communication. Not many people attending the forum knew how it would be ran or what would take place. To say the misunderstanding upset many who attended the meeting would be an understatement. "I am just so mad at the way they conducted this meeting," Sonya McPherson of Fort Washington said.

In setting up the meeting elected officials had hoped that residents would come to the event with a list of things that they wanted to see their elected leaders work on and a fight for over the next year or so. What this was not was a town hall for residents to vent their frustrations about government and get a response from their leaders as Delegate Melony Griffith who chairs the house delegation made clear more than once. I personally don't think the format that the leaders had set up was wrong at all but the communication about it seemed to help confuse people which never is a good thing. If residents would not be able to ask questions and get a response from their leaders that should have been clear in the marketing for the event. It was not. If what residents said would not be responded to, there was no reason to have voters addressing their comments to a head table that just sat and took notes, those leaders should have maybe been in the audience like the other elected officials. Having people stand at a microphone facing a stage where a handful of officials were sitting with microphones of their own, had almost everyone thinking that it was a question and answer forum.

At the end of this event it should be noted that Del. Griffith and other elected leaders said what I think they should had. This was the first event of this nature and somethings didn't work out the way they envisioned them. I would hope that this is not the last event like this and that many more would happen before January. This was a well intended effort and good shot that in some ways missed the mark. We should all hope that the leadership would plan more of these events.