By Nate Harold
For The Diamondback
The College Park City Council postponed its decision on whether to provide city support to community diversity dialogs until it learns more about the ways the city would be involved.
College Park resident and Church of the Nazarene Pastor Mark Garrett first approached Mayor Patrick Wojahn after the Orlando nightclub shooting in June. Garrett expressed his desire to start a community dialogue to “build bridges between religious communities and the LGBT community in College Park,” according to city documents.
Wojahn requested a discussion about providing city support — in the form of city staff’s time — for these dialogs at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
“It was a good idea and a good opportunity … to make sure we have a strong relationship between communities here in College Park,” Wojahn said after also mentioning the shootings of black men by police around the country, and the shootings of Dallas police officers over the summer.
Wojahn is participating in the Race, Equity and Leadership initiative of the National League of Cities, which encourages communities around the country to participate in diversity dialogues and is supported by President Obama.
Wojahn arranged a conference call with members of the REAL initiative, as well as Garrett and Imam Tarif Shraim, a Muslim cleric at the University of Maryland, according to city documents. The participants agreed to hold “a series of diversity dialogues to discuss the many issues relating to diversity that impact College Park and its diverse community.”
Wojahn, City Manager Scott Somers and Public Services Director Bob Ryan agreed to bring together a group of stakeholders to discuss how the dialogues would be organized and “who would facilitate or participate in the dialogues,” according to city documents. Ryan offered to coordinate the participation of police agencies and local public safety official in these dialogues.
But city officials expressed concern about over-tasking city staff members. The time they spent coordinating the dialogues would take them away from other city projects.
“My only concern is the use of staff time and how we would go about it procedurally,” District 1 Councilwoman Christine Nagle said.
Somers agreed.
“We cannot take on any more tasks without derailing other [city] projects,” Somers said.
Councilmembers Fazlul Kabir, Mary Cook and Dustyn Kujawa were also worried about the use of city staff to support the dialogues, with Cook questioning how city support would be defined.
Wojahn said city staff members only have to participate in tasks they decide to, and clarified that the decision would not create a committee for the dialogues.
“There are issues of diversity [in College Park] and how we act with our residents,” Wojahn said.
District 2 Councilman P.J. Brennan, who originally moved to support city involvement in the community diversity dialogues, later rescinded his motion after the debate on how to define city involvement.
There will be a meeting Oct. 19 between stakeholders to discuss how to move forward with the dialogues. Ryan said representatives from both the Prince George’s County Police Department and the University of Maryland Police Department will attend the meeting.
The council decided to postpone a decision on whether to provide city support for the dialogues until after the initial stakeholder meeting.
