Comments are by Councilmember Susan Whitney and are not approved or sanctioned by the City of College Park.
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City Manager Report
Kenny Young, City Manager, thanked Council and the community for its support for the 4th of July parade. Saying he’d heard nothing but positive reports from residents, he said we’d have a wrap-up at an upcoming worksession that looks at 4th of July fireworks and parades going forward. He said there would be challenges with fireworks as the Purple Line comes in.
Mr. Young then announced that, after 7 years of work on Acela implementation, the City had a soft launch that kicked off at midnight on June 30th. He said Acela’s code enforcement and permitting modules will allow residents to report/apply online. He pointed the Mayor and Council to information on the website where they and residents could begin interacting with the system. Residents can make requests or report a problem. The reports will be visible to staff and leadership only and can be made anonymously. Residents can also apply for permits online & check on the status of their applications. The forms can be completed from all internet-enabled devices, including smartphones.
He ended his report by announcing that the next Friday Night Live event will be on July 15th and will be themed Salsa and Fiesta.
Councilmember Fazlul Kabir asked if residents would be able to use the Acela app. Mr. Young said that integrating the app is part of the plan, saying that what we see now will become a back-office operation in the next phase.
Clarification on permitted use of the City Seal
Mr. Young started the discussion by saying that the Ethics Commission had requested clarification on use of the City Seal during elections.
City Attorney Suellen Ferguson explained that there are two kinds of uses of city insignia (flag, city seal, etc.) private/political OR commercial. She said the City has concerns when someone uses city insignia in order to give the impression that they represent the City or the City signs off on them. Ms. Ferguson said it’s easier to regulate commercial than personal speech. With personal/political speech, you have 1st Amendment concerns. She said that Under 15 United States Code §1052 (the Lanham Act), a municipality may not copyright its flag or coat of arms or other insignia. She said a good way to think about whether a use is acceptable personal/political speech is to think of standing in front of the city seal like you would standing in front of the American flag, something that candidates frequently do. She said it’s the same thing.
With commercial uses, the City might be concerned if a business were to give the impression that its services or products had City approval, support or sponsorship. She said most of the time, it’s not worth bothering about it. Laurel has a pretty broad law, which she wouldn’t recommend. She said the Director of Communications has dealt with the issue on many occasions, and the city has no formal policy.
She said that as for the Ethics Commission’s concerns, any candidate is free to stand in front of the seal or show it in their materials. When asked by Councilmember Susan Whitney, she said a candidate might cross the line if she were to promote herself to residents on what looked to be City letterhead, as it might give the impression that the candidate has the approval of the city. Such misuse would be considered on a case-by-case basis. Finally, she stated that there’s already an Ethics Committee position against using City-issued business cards while campaigning.
Councilmember Denise Mitchell said it seemed like there was nothing definitive to stand on, saying she’d seen things happen in past elections that might have blurred the line.
Ms. Ferguson said the Ethics Commission is asking for more assistance in making sure the policy on political use is clear, but she acknowledged that it seems a little squishy because it is. It’s easier to limit commercial cases. She said she thinks the Ethics Commission should work with elections supervisors to provide examples of instances that have arisen in the past.
Councilmember John Rigg expressed concern that enforcing a policy would take a lot of staff and attorney time, suugesting just requiring a statement that “this is not endorsed by the City of College Park” should be sufficient.
Ms. Ferguson said staff gets a lot of requests, indicating they might appreciate additional guidance. Mr. Rigg said he’d be comfortable with the city manager making that call, and Mr. Young said he and Mayor Wojahn often discuss requests that come in.
Councilmember Kennedy said she agreed with having a policy because conversations around use of the seal have happened more than once. She was curious if councilmembers could be prohibited from using the seal town halls and meetings that aren’t official council events. Ms. Ferguson explained that you don’t lose 1st Amendment rights by being elected, but the council can self-govern. If the council agreed to such a rule as a body, they could enact it. Mayor Wojahn reminded council they could change their own rules at any time.
Councilmember Llatetra Brown Esters shared via Councilmember Whitney that she believes we should regulate use of the city seal within our legal means and thinks its commercial use is important enough to warrant written permission from the Mayor/City Manager or designee.
The discussion closed with the request that the rules for elections specify the prohibition against incumbents using city-issued business cards or email addresses for campaigning.
The Council agreed to move forward with staff suggestions to:
1. Authorize staff and the City Attorney to prepare a response to the Ethics Commission with respect to its request for clarification on use of City insignia during elections
AND
2. Authorize staff and the City Attorney to prepare a general policy for use of City insignia, to reflect what is currently allowed by the law
Discussion of expanding the City’s provision of health and human services for residents, including virtual mental health services, medical services (health officer) staff, and partnerships needed to support such programs.
Kiaisha Barber, Director of Youth, Family and Senior Services (YFS) began the discussion by explaining that currently, if an adult between the ages of 19-61 came to her department outside of a family unit, looking for mental health services, YFS would provide a list of services available, the same list they’d provide if there was a wait list for services. She said there was a time when remote therapy wasn’t considered a best practice in mental health, but that’s shifted, especially during the pandemic. She said several national platforms provide such services and there are pros and cons to each of them. She said the per-session cost is generally lower than that for in-office mental service. One downside she noticed after signing up as a test was that she received a lot of ads, but the providers through the platforms are licensed professionals, and users can sign up for text messaging support, video sessions and phone calls.
She said another route would be to go with local providers. Prince George’s just partnered with Luminis Health to launch a behavioral health center. She said there are some private providers in College Park, as well.
She came before Council to ask if it wants to provide subsidies or mental health services that could serve adults that are not currently served by YFS. If so, she said Council could calculate an amount per resident or an amount per household. YFS could, perhaps, accept applications for local providers to be on a list that would accept city payment up to a certain amount per resident.
Councilmember Kennedy said she’d been doing online therapy since beginning of pandemic, and it had been very helpful. She shared the following:
- She wonders if people will sign up to use this. She thinks it will take a lot of marketing to get people engaged. She asked if there might be an intermediary step.
- She’s concerned about program sustainability, asking if it might be a pilot program.
- She said UMD has a program around mental health and wondered if there might be a partnership opportunity there. She mentioned getting the word out about the county’s mental health facility as well as the suicide prevention line, saying doing so could elevate the conversation around mental health.
- She suggested an awareness campaign such as New York’s, THRIVE NYC.
- She mentioned suicide prevention courses offered in Missoula for residents 15 or over might have smaller barriers to entry since it’s a group setting.
- Finally, she wants to ensure we’re providing staff with mental health options and subsidies.
Ms. Barber said telehealth is a big part of the solution now, but cautioned that there is no option with national providers to see someone in person. She’s found it’s more appealing to know someone is available. At YFS, they’re doing a combo of both.
Councilmember Rigg said he started his public health career in the public health system space and mental health care. He said College Park is a federally-designated mental, health and oral healthcare underserved area and that a federally-qualified health center, Elaine Ellis Center of Health, is located here because of that and should be very receptive to the needs of College Park. As a health center grantee, Rigg said Elaine Ellis has to accept all patients and provides services on a sliding scale based on income. The site in College Park is very small, but there’s already a lot of money flowing into this space. He suggested:
- Reaching out to Elaine Ellis to see what we could do to help them expand their services.
- Asking our city Economic Development Officer Michael Williams to encourage healthcare providers to come to College Park by promoting the fact that healthcare providers in a federally-designated healthcare provider service area are eligible for higher reimbursement.
- Being cautious that we don’t push aside general healthcare and dental care by focusing on mental healthcare. He said we should consider wholistic needs.
Councilmember Mitchell said she envisions three phases in our approach: robust discussion, followed by an awareness campaign and, finally, seeking partnerships with UMD and HHS for offering support for younger children and maybe those who are older. Basically, she said, we need to first identify needs, then decide what action to take based on that.
Councilmember Maria Mackie said our goal needs to be connecting College Park residents and staff with the services they need while ensuring we’re not being redundant. She said she thinks the main problem is that people don’t know what to do to get help.
Mayor Wojahn suggested the next steps should be reaching out to Elaine Ellis and the county department of health to get a better understanding of where the gaps are so we know where to put resources.
Ms. Barber agreed with conducted a needs assessment, but said there are needs she can already identify. She said she knows YFS has a wait list and that there’s a shortage of therapists. YFS has filled one vacancy and has another to fill. She said they maintain an updated service directory and might have one person who spends hours trying to get someone connected to services.
Councilmember Whitney agreed that the long-term goal should be to assess needs and develop partnerships, but she said we shouldn’t lose sight of the mental health crisis created by the pandemic and the struggles many are having in its wake. She said ARPA dollars were specifically intended to deal with those effects, and providing immediate support for access to mental healthcare might be a bridge to the longer, more permanent partnerships we’re aiming for. She also stated she had concerns about creating a community health officer position that would require a medical records database, citing concerns with HIPAA security and insurance required when maintaining such a database.
Ms. Barber said they already have mental health records that are treated the same as medical PHI and that Ms. Ferguson has examined the issue and crafted language around it. Barber said she has, however, brought up with Ms. Fergusen issues of liability around the City selecting a particular platform through which to offer services to residents. Councilmember Whitney agreed that was a wise concern and wondered if offering vouchers for residents to select their own services might be a way around that.
Councilmember Kennedy said that in the long term, she sees leveraging partnerships is our strong suit, but she wondered if we might have a program where we can say the city is going to spend x amount of money for two years to help people through this tough time.
Mayor Wojahn suggested we start with a means-tested pilot program that would crack the door open to a limited number of people so we might determine what the demand actually is and whether or not we can meet it.
Mr. Young said the City has already been doing that with its ARPA grants to College Park residents. He said he’s also begun having conversations with UMD’s Carlo Colella and Anne Martens about partnership, resources and reaching out to aging residents. He said we have some issues we have to face as YFS, and we need to look at how to get that funding, saying we’ll have to take some legislative actions in regards to that.
Councilmember Kabir asked how long a needs assessment would take. Ms. Barber said both a needs assessment and establishing a pilot program would require a lot of staff time. Councilmember Kabir asked about using ARPA dollars to fund a consultant to assist, and Ms. Barber said she liked that approach.
Councilmember Mackie said that as for a health officer, she’d simply like someone on staff who’s proactively helping residents address health concerns.
Since she could not attend the worksession, Councilmember Esters reached out with questions via email, including whether there’s an estimate of the annual costs associated with the options we’re considering. Ms. Barber said that now that she has direction on a pilot, she can look at estimated expenses.
Councilmember Esters also asked if we could obtain any information on the usage of 211 and other mental health resources by College Park residents. Ms. Barber said there’s a public-facing fact sheet offered by the county, but she’s not sure whether it gets down to the city level. She expects it doesn’t but could ask. She said organizations are typically pretty guarded about such information, but she’d see how specific she can get about how College Park residents use mental health services.
Requests for/Status of Future Agenda Items
Mayor Wojahn asked that discussion of a plan for affordable housing be brought back to the future agenda list. He said it’s a broader discussion than just a community preservation trust.
Mayor and Councilmember Comments
Councilmember Whitney shared her and her residents’ appreciation for College Park Animal Control Officer Rebecca Bailey’s thoughtful, caring guidance in response to a dog attack in the City.
Councilmember Kabir thanked staff for posting signs about loud mufflers. He said he knows it won’t fix everything but hopes it will help. Mr. Young said requests for additional sign locations have been received.
Councilmember Mackie encouraged all to vote in the primary.
Mayor Wojahn said he’d be out of town for the 7/12 meeting, so Mayor Pro Tem Mitchell will preside.
Click here to see the worksession agenda for July 5, 2022
Click here to view the Mayor and Council Worksession held on July 5, 2022
Click here to see the Mayor and Council Meeting agenda originally scheduled for July 12, 2022 that will be rescheduled due to the emergency weather event that occurred that night.
The College Park District 2 Digest 