Correcting The Lies: Fact vs Fiction

I never thought I would see the day where my effort to create opportunities for our youth would be so deeply misrepresented - sending people charging at me using the words criminal, corrupt leader, and unethical - especially when the very same people supporting these efforts are the ones misrepresenting it. Our community, our children - deserve the world and I will never stop fighting to bring exposure, resources, and opportunities back to the City of Bowie. I would like to take the opportunity to set the record straight.

Let’s talk about the truth.

Lie: The Bowie City Council is poised to spend thousands of dollars in non-budgeted money on last-minute grants. 

Fact: The Bowie City Council cannot spend any money that is not budgeted within the city budget. The City of Bowie maintains a $77.4M dollar budget. Allocating $75,000 for a one year after school program impacting 170 kids in Bowie, less than .09% of our annual budget, is the most cost efficient avenue to establish this program. As the Councilmember who led the charge against raising taxes, my track record of fiscal responsibility is clear.

Lie: At Tuesday evening's council meeting, two groups spoke, asking for money not previously budgeted for new programs, both hoping to start in a matter of weeks.

Fact: The majority of the crime being committed in Bowie is being committed by children, 25 and younger. Desperate economic times are felt differently by our local families as parents are trying to rebuild coming out of a global pandemic. After hearing from a number of different parents in our community, including over 50 parents and residents who emailed letters of support for to create this after-school program, Mayor Pro Tem Ndebumadu worked with other City Council Elected Officials, Pointer Ridge PTA Club, several parents, and two non-profit organizations to establish a new after school program starting scheduled to start in October of 2023. Each group presented the cost for the program which would require the city to spend less than .09% of our FY23-24 budget to create. Here is the introduction and need for the program explained during the council hearing at the 2:00 minute mark.

Lie: A DC-located non-profit, touted a years-long program for 10 area students to participate in DC-based seminars, a half-day social hack-a-thon, and a service trip to Zambia. 

Fact: LearnServe International, founded in 2003, has impacted over 1500 through their fellowship program, providing kids with a global network of students facing the similar life challenges as them throughout the United States, Paraguay,  Zambia, and South Africa. On September 5th 2023, the Bowie City Council voted to initiate an after-school pilot program that would be available for 10 high school students who are residents of Bowie - no matter what their educational avenue was - with the intent to lobby Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) and Prince George’s County to take over the cost and expand the program for Bowie in Year Two of the program. As a part of this initiative, the City of Bowie would also partner with LearnServe and other community leaders to host a day-long hackathon for 40 high school students who reside  in the City of Bowie in an attempt to foster leadership and social change. The total cost of this after-school pilot program and the hackathon would cost the city a total of $50,000.00, with the non-profit subsidizing the rest of the cost of the program. LearnServe is actively providing services across the Greater Washington D.C. metropolitan area in the localities of Montgomery County, Fairfax County, and Washington D.C. recently awarded LearnServe an out-of-school-time grant to create the same after-school program for 40 students after seeing their years of impact in other localities.

Lie: The students would tentatively be selected from Bowie High School. How students would be chosen was unclear. The program would begin in less than two weeks. Also unclear was why the group was standing up a Bowie program last-minute. 

Fact: It was made clear that ALL Bowie residents would be able to apply for this program. During the meeting, it was discussed that it was up to the City Council to work with LearnServe to determine how students would be chosen as the entity creating the program. The program would be open to Bowie High School students as well as ANY OTHER high school student that is a resident of the City of Bowie.

Lie: Representatives for the non-profit told the council this was their first conversation with city officials, and they have never before spoken to representatives from Prince George's County or the State of Maryland. 

Fact: LearnServe has worked with representatives from the State of Maryland and Prince George’s County. This was the first time that LearnServe spoke with the Councilmember from District 1.

Lie: Stranger was the swiftness with which the council awarded 100 percent funding to the group, $52,000 in all, with Councilmembers Estève and Woolfley alone in expressing reservations. 

Fact: Both Councilmember Estève and Woolfley voted in favor of the program which is how the pilot after-school program unanimously passed. Councilmember Estève also made the motion to fund the elementary-middle school after school program for $25,000. Please see minute 54:05 of the meeting to watch all councilmembers vote unanimously in favor of the program.

Lie: City staff also appeared to be caught off guard, indicating at the meeting that the program was not previously budgeted or discussed. 

Fact: On September 5th at 11:00am, Mayor Pro Tem Ndebumadu had a meeting with Assistant City Manager Daniel Mears to discuss the agenda. During that meeting ACM Mears indicated the logistical motions needed for staff to execute the program. Mayor Pro Tem Ndebumadu also met with City Attorney Elissa Levan to discuss the legality and appropriate ways to establish the program in accordance with the City Charter. Please see minute 47:37 where our City Attorney explains the city process regarding how the City could move forward to establish the program. It was recommended for us to award a grant and establish contractual stipulations to ensure the success of these programs. There was a motion entered to task staff with developing the contractual perimeters of the grant to establish the program.

Lie: The group's funding request also came with an ask for Bowie officials to participate as mentors and volunteers to help manage and staff several of their programs. 

Fact: The group did not request for officials or volunteers to help manage or staff programs. LearnServe offered City Officials the ability to participate as volunteers to foster relationships and create civic engagement with the kids to inspire them. LearnServe offered to collaborate with the Bowie Boys and Girls Club and the Bowie Chamber of Commerce to invite local leaders to motivate the participating kids.

Lie: Also unusual was the size of the grant. The city normally authorizes grants in far smaller amounts, up to $5,000, and almost always planned ahead in the regular budget process, which this year concluded in July. The program the DC non-profit offered never came up in any part of the months-long budget sessions. 

Fact: The city has no standard process or threshold for grant amounts. The City abated rent for the Bowie Boys and Girls Club during COVID which far exceeded $5,000 mentioned. The budget process was dominated by the Councilmember in District 1’s effort to lead the charge on raising taxes. Many other Councilmembers spent the budget process proactively seeking grant funding and areas of duplication to curb a tax increase from $.40 c to $.45 c far higher than the average.

Lie: The city also normally leaves grant decisions to public committees which advertise funds for programs agreed-to in advance. Non-profits then apply and are considered and awarded funds based on their ability to meet set criteria. 

Fact: The City of Bowie does not allow committees to make decisions on fiduciary responsibilities of the city. No committee has the jurisdiction or ability to award any grant on behalf of the City of Bowie. They are able to make recommendations on grants that they would like to see the City Council fund and it is up to the Council to vote on the decision to fund any grant. For the past two years, there has been no record of any committee formally making a request to increase grant recommendations.

Lie: City personnel are now left with the task of working with the non-profit to stand up a years-long program involving area students and volunteers who will be selected, bussed to DC, and organizing a last-minute program with a group the city is only just meeting. 

Fact: The City Attorney is tasked with creating a two page draft agreement that includes the stipulations directed by the City Council. The purpose of partnering with a non-profit is to offset overhead from staff so that city staff is not tasked with creating a program that they have limited expertise in. This is a great example of a Public-Private Partnership.

Lie: A second group requested city funds at Tuesday's meeting, this one involving a merger of several county programs intended to combine after-school athletics with academic mentoring. They would offer services to elementary and middle school aged students, providing programs at Pointer Ridge Elementary. 

Fact: Mentoring Through Athletics and Art Learn is an existing non-profit organization that is already providing programs to several Prince George’s County Schools. They have continuously attempted to obtain a grant to expand and provide more programming to Bowie residents but were unsuccessful. Their proposed after-school program for elementary through middle school students supported by the Pointer Ridge PTA Club also received a letter of support from the Assistant Director of the Bowie Boys and Girls Club and many parents before/during the meeting.

Lie: The group requested the council fully fund their program, at $25,000, also far higher than the normal grant amount, and without prior consideration or standard committee review.

Fact: The City of Bowie does not have a standard grant award amount and there is no process for committees to review City grants. Staff was tasked with creating that process at the council hearing on September 5th, 2023.

Lie: The council authorized the city to fully fund the request, with Councilmembers Estève and Woolfley alone in expressing concerns about the size of the grant and last-minute request, noting that no other local athletic group receives direct city funding. 

Fact: Please see minute 1:37:09 where Councilmember Esteve makes a motion to support the creation of an elementary to middle school after-school program for 120 students and the vote passed 5-1, with Woolfley voting against the program. This support given by Councilmember from D1 is in direct conflict with the narrative that he has shared with the public. There was a grant created years ago to support residents with sports academic team travel, however the grant received no applications in FY22.

After receiving over 50 emails of support, multiple families in favor, and support from surrounding local nonprofits, I worked with two organizations to establish an after-school pilot program to invest in our children and equip them with new skills now. At the end of the pilot program, the Bowie City Council would work with County Officials to establish a County budgeted after-school program for City of Bowie residents based on the success. The proposed elementary-middle school program would be based at Pointer Ridge Elementary to also support City Councils efforts to keep Pointer Ridge Elementary from closing. At 1:05:01 you can hear support from our Education Committee member and Pointer Ridge Elementary PTA President, Darius Hyman. After-school programs typically cost families anywhere from $295 per week to $1,460 per child with the total market cost of an after-school program costing anywhere from $500,000 to $1.1M dollars +.

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My Reflection

Imagine being an elected official and learning that parents/families are struggling with educational after-school programs that promote the academic investment into our kids - so you step up, do the research, talk to staff, and work with two established non-profits to create an after-school program to immediately meet the need, the first of its kind in the city’s history.

It gets brought to a city council hearing and is voted on and passed unanimously. Then, you wake up two mornings later to discover that the very same colleague who voted in favor of establishing these after-school programs for kids, is accusing you of nefarious and unethical practices. How would you feel? Shocked? Insulted? Betrayed? That is my story. 

I grew up in the A section of Bowie and have been a part of this community since 1999. As many of you know, my mother didn’t have much help when I was younger. Sometimes when I relive the trauma that I faced, I wonder about how it must have affected her too. I played sports after school in middle school and elementary but by the time I got to high school, I was completely disengaged from the community. Praying for someone to notice my needs, and seeking a way to productively channel my energy but nothing was available to me as an outlet.

Today, I am a 30-year-old Black woman who has amassed professional success by  transcending within the corporate worlds of Microsoft and Amazon, building a reputation based on hard-work, integrity and truth, and I am here now in public service, as a public servant to give back to my community by changing the opportunities available for future generations to come, and invest resources that have the power to expose our kids to aspire more, which is what our community deserves. 

I look back and wish that these programs existed for me. Because if they did, maybe things would have turned out differently for me or all the kids struggling in school and hoping for someone to notice them. This is my way of advocating for the needs of my community and engaging kids who are distracted, committing crimes, and inhibiting their futures. The time to act is now, and our youth deserve nothing less. I know that election years make people go crazy but I never thought that it would change them.