The Candidates' Forum: At Large Bowie City Council

Editor’s note: As a reader service, Bowie Patch is providing excerpts from Thursday’s City Council candidate forum sponsored by the Greater Bowie Democratic Club at the Kenhill Center. Below are parts of the discussions between the three At Large candidates. Here are , and . District 1 and the mayor’s race are uncontested in the Nov. 8 city elections.

AT LARGE – City wide, all eligible city voters get to choose. There are three candidates for two seats.

James Bell, 26, has lived in Bowie for about five years. He taught at before his contract as a teacher was not renewed. This is his first run at elected office.

He said: “I’m running for city council because even though the city is doing amazingly well, the times are changing. Our budgets are no longer the way they were. We can no longer expect continued growth. And property values are declining. We need to attract a younger population to increase our property values. And instead of starting new capital improvement plans, we need to balance our budget, and when those funds are available again, continue with our work.”

Incumbent At Large Councilman Dennis Brady was first elected to the City Council in 1994, and has served continuously since then. He is a certified professional engineer, with a background that includes electrical and nuclear engineering.   

He said: “I am in my 18th year as a city councilman, and over that time the city of Bowie has grown and changed significantly. The city councils that I have been on have managed that growth in an appropriate way. You have to remember that the city does not have zoning and planning authority. We are a super lobbyist with the county when it comes to those decisions. The decisions made over the years have been fairly good and we’ve benefited greatly from them. We see good roads. We see strong schools in our community. We see excellent recreational services. We have a very, very close knit, tight community that benefits from a well run, well governed city. I am proud to be a part of that over the last 18 years, and I want to ask for your support Nov. 8 to give me a ninth term to continue that excellent work.”

District 3 Councilman Todd Turner was first elected to the council in 2005 and then re-elected in 2007 and 2009. A legislative officer for the Prince George’s County Council, Turner has a background in lobbying and professional government services.

He said: “I represent the 3rd council district, and I am candidate this year for one of the two At Large positions.  My slogan is serving the heart of Bowie; I thought that because District 3 is in the heart of Bowie, in the heart of the city. But it’s also about what makes Bowie great. I’m asking your support to give me a promotion to become one of the At Large members.”

Moderator: What is your plan to bring economic development to the city, specifically, filling the space at the former Border’s book store?  

Bell: “Bowie needs to rebrand itself to bring in more young families. That, will in turn, drive up property values and increase spending in the area. Not only would that bring in further business, but it would help fill in the very few vacant buildings, or vacant store fronts, such as Borders. While the loss of Borders was tragic, it has nothing to do with the area, it has more to do with a dying business. And that business could easily be replaced if we bring in a younger group that would bring more diverse spending and more diverse shopping in the centralized area.”

Brady: “We are in the same boat as everyone else because of the economy right now, but we have to market ourselves and move forward. The city is about 84 percent residential as far as the tax base is concerned. We do an excellent job based upon that of providing services, but it would be helpful if we could bring in more businesses. And really the only way we can expand our business base in the city, notwithstanding the vacant space at the Marketplace and other places, is to annex in potential existing companies and businesses.”

Turner: “We are seeking to try and expand our commercial base and our office base in order to relieve the tax burden that we have on the residential property owners.”

He noted that he has been a strong advocate for the city government’s business incubator program, which will assist home grown, local businesses “to expand and move into some of the vacant office space that we have in the city of Bowie;” and the city’s economic incentive fund, rare for a city’s of Bowie’s size to have, which “will provide funding to increase, improve and keep businesses that are here in the city of Bowie.”  

Moderator: What can you do to develop new ideas regarding our sewer and trash collection methods?

Bell: “The city recently implemented the new recycling bin containers…That’s one of the platforms of my candidacy; a new way of doing something in this harsh economic time is not the way to go. What we have in place is operational. What we have in place works well. What we have in place is cost effective.  Though it would be great to increase the amount of recycling we have, putting over $200,000 in a new recycling program seems excessive. It’s not where money should be spent at this moment. In the future, I would love to see those programs being developed. But first, I’d like to see our roads being paved, before I see my trash being picked up more frequently.”

Brady: “This new program is providing citizens a chance to expand the amount they recycle. For every dollar of recycling you set aside, you get actual money coming in. You also save a significant amount of money for the tonnage that doesn’t go to the landfill. In a very short period of time we are going to pay off the costs incurred to implement this program.

“The city is not broke, the city is not poor. The city has been well managed throughout the last 30 to 40 years. The City Council before me set up pay as you go. In other words, you don’t put yourself in debt in order to fund exotic and expensive programs. You do it in a common sense approach, in a very scheduled and programmatic approach, and that’s what we’ve done and that’s what we will continue to do.”

Turner: “I did support implementation of the expansion of recycling by including the 64-gallon cart. The council was fiscally prudent. Instead of doing it in one fiscal year we wound up doing it in two...We did a pilot program, based upon a federal grant that we received. We found in that pilot program success in the amount of trash we were picking up, so that’s our expectation with the expanded program. We have a very active environmental advisory committee that is always asking the council to do more in environmentally sensitive ways, and this is one way to do that. We will be able to recover most of the cost.”

Moderator: With respect to the Marketplace shopping center, the marketplace owner is neglecting this retail space. It is big, dark and in need of repair right now, otherwise it will become an incubator for crime. What are you going to do to make the owner of this space make it a safe, active area and upgrade it to Bowie’s high standards?

Brady: “What we are seeing is that this property is held hostage to the economy. The owner came and asked us for help about a year and a half ago, and we set up the tax program to possibly help him finance the development. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for him to do it, and the economy turned south, which really precluded his ability from doing anything. Until we get out of the economic doldrums it’s going to be a challenge for anyone to develop that site. The two previous owners really drove the Marketplace into the ground, for whatever reason. There was an opportunity to reinvest, and he chose not to. And we have had this plight with this property in Bowie for 20 years now.”

Turner: “The owner did come forward to us in requesting an opportunity through tax increment financing to be able to develop that property, because right now, the financing is not there for them to do that work. It would be a hook for us to get the senior development that we so desperately need...The last thing I will say is that we as a city don’t have commercial zoning enforcement authority. It is a county issue.”

Bell: “We can urge them to do what is right, we can provide tax incentives and funding like Mr. Turner suggested, but like Mr. Brady said, it is held hostage by the economy. We need to take what we can, and develop what we can, with them as a partner.”