Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy on Friday moved to oust planning board Chair Darryl Barnes, whom she appointed last summer.
The move came one day after three planning board members removed the vice chair from his leadership position and just hours after The Banner published a story detailing misconduct allegations against Barnes dating to his appointment in July.
Barnes, reached by phone Friday, declined to comment on Braveboy’s push to remove him.
The County Council will have the final say over Barnes’ removal, and it has scheduled a virtual meeting for May 22 to vote, according to a notification letter sent from council Chair Krystal Oriadha to Barnes and reviewed by The Banner.
State law requires the County Council to hold a public hearing before its decision, unless Barnes waives that right. The council has scheduled its hearing for 1 p.m. on the day of the vote.
“They’ll hear all of the information and make the decision that makes the most sense based on everything that’s presented,” Oriadha said.
In an 11-page complaint filed in February and reviewed by The Banner, Debra Borden, who is on extended leave from her role as general counsel for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, accused Barnes of operating outside the bounds of his roles as planning board chair and the presiding officer for the M-NCPPC.
Through her attorney, Borden alleged that, in a handful of cases, Barnes violated the commission’s policies on procurement and ethics, Borden’s employment agreement, personnel confidentiality regulations, bond covenants and state law.
Barnes, in a statement from his attorney, has denied the allegations and disputed the “accuracy, completeness, and characterization” of the complaint.
Barnes acknowledged the reporting in a message sent to M-NCPPC employees Friday afternoon, before Braveboy moved to remove him.
“I take these allegations seriously and recognize the weight they carry and how they affect our organization, our employees, and the communities we serve,” he said in the message, which was reviewed by The Banner.
“While I do not agree with the characterization in the reporting, I understand the importance of accountability and transparency in moments like this,” he added.
Recent events suggest a vacant chair position on the planning board could be filled by Billy Okoye, who was named vice chair Thursday.
But the board may have violated state law by voting to replace its second-in-command.
The decision also flew in the face of legal advice from two attorneys from the commission, who told the five-member board it needed to provide the public at least 24 hours’ notice of such a vote.
The board’s three newest members — Okoye, Brittany Jenkins and Lori Matthews — stripped the board’s longest-serving member, Manuel Geraldo, of his role as vice chair and elevated Okoye.
Geraldo is the only member not appointed by Braveboy.
“We serve the public,” Geraldo said in an interview Friday. “That’s why there is an Open Meetings Act. It’s so that the public can be aware of what the board is going to do or consider. And so the fact that you violate that, my question is, what else are you willing to violate?”
He added that the ordeal was “embarrassing for the commission.”
The Prince George’s and Montgomery planning boards serve as the governing body for the commission, which oversees parks and regional planning.
Barnes and Geraldo voted against the move.
Okoye, Jenkins and Matthews did not respond to voice messages left on their cellphones Friday.
The vote
In the opening minutes of the meeting, Jenkins, who joined the planning board in March, asked the board to “elect a vice chair and add that” to the board’s meeting agenda.
Barnes, who as chair leads the meetings, responded that he would “circle back on that” and returned to the scheduled items.
About 30 seconds later, Okoye questioned why Barnes was moving ahead.
“I don’t want to put that on the table for today,” Barnes said. “As chairman, that’s my prerogative.”
But Okoye, Jenkins and Matthews didn’t see it that way, and Barnes failed to get a majority of votes to allow him to move on.
Barnes, sitting in the center of the dais, appeared to assess the situation, looking first to his left at Okoye and Jenkins, who stared into the audience. To his right, Geraldo appeared to try to engage Matthews, who stared into her lap.
They sat in silence for more than 12 seconds before an associate attorney for the board counseled as to how to proceed.
Confusion ensued for nearly 30 minutes, with more moments of prolonged silence and some whispering. A few members repeatedly glanced at their phones, into the audience and toward their associate attorney, who searched for the meeting rules applicable to the situation.
Eventually, David Warner, the commission’s principal counsel, appeared via video call and coached members through portions of the Maryland Open Meetings Act. The law requires state and local bodies to meet in public and provide adequate public notice, among other stipulations.
To take up an item without providing the public at least 24 hours’ notice, Warner said, the board would have to attribute its decision to an emergency, a natural disaster or another unanticipated event.
“Just put it on the agenda for next week. Don’t run the risk of violating the [Open Meetings Act] for something like this,” he said.
The advice didn’t deter those seeking a new vice chair, including Okoye, who responded by questioning what would happen if they moved ahead anyway.
The consequences can be rather mild.
If the state’s Compliance Board were to find that the planning board violated the law, a member would likely have to explain why and send the state a signed copy of a notice of violation.
Okoye, Jenkins and Matthews voted to add the item to the end of the meeting’s agenda.
Barnes joined Geraldo to vote against it, explaining that “we will be in violation and I want to make sure that I am on record for not agreeing.”
When the board returned to the item in the meeting’s closing minutes, Barnes pressed Jenkins on her reason for wanting a new vice chair.
“The vice chair serves at the pleasure of the board, and so, you know, I think in my opinion, I would like to see a change there,” she said.
Geraldo said Friday he didn’t know why his colleagues wanted to demote him.
“I have suspicions, but I don’t know what their rationale was,” he said.
He said he would have expected at least a heads-up before the meeting from colleagues whom he said he had mentored.
“As vice chair, it’s not like I get additional money or I have additional responsibilities, you know. So that wasn’t the issue,” he said. “My biggest issue was the Open Meetings Act.”
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