UPPING THE ANTE Customer benefits boosted in Pepco, Exelon deal. A-4
NEWS: Bowie woman among those honored for her education efforts. A-4
Gazette-Star SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNT Y
SPORTS: This could be the year Roosevelt’s domination ends, Bowie’s tennis team says. B-1
DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Thursday, March 12, 2015
25 cents
Prince George’s seeks input on $2B school priority plan New maintenance report expected to be finalized late May n
BY JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS BY DANIEL LEADERMAN/THE GAZETTE
Andrea Alvarez, 12, a seventh-grader at Samuel Ogle Middle School in Bowie, poses March 2 with her artwork at a gallery reception at Bowie City Hall. Her work, along with that of dozens of other area students, has been on display at Bowie City Hall since mid-January.
Bowie students’ art on display at City Hall First exhibit in years gets students excited about their work n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
Cassidy Smith (left), 10, and Nora Jones, 9, both fourth-graders at Tulip Grove Elementary School in Bowie, stand March 2 with their art project.
Dozens of young artists and their families packed into Bowie City Hall, crowding past each other to get a glimpse at the artwork decorating the building. Some of the artists were still getting used to the idea that it was their work that was being shown in a gallery. “It feels really exciting and unbelievable that I’m at City Hall with my artwork on display,” said Bowie’s Nora Jones, 9, a fourth-grader at Tulip Grove Elementary, at the gallery reception March 2. Art created by Nora and students from nine other Bowie-area schools has been
on display at City Hall since mid-January, the first show of student art at the building since it opened in April 2011, said Kathleen Parker, chair of the City of Bowie Arts Committee, which organized the exhibit. Usually, the gallery space in City Hall — stretched along hallways on the lower and upper floors of the building — plays host to juried art shows every three months. Those shows are open to local artists from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Parker said. This year, there was room in the gallery schedule for a shorter exhibition, and since March is Youth Art Month, the committee decided on a student art show, Parker said. In Bowie’s old City Hall, there was a small gallery space that used to host 15 to 20 works of student art each month, Parker
Investigators say traffic stop accident led to fatal crash
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
Prince George’s County police are praising a fallen officer as a dedicated man who was committed to his community.
Brennan Rabain, 26, who died in an earlymorning crash in Lanham Saturday, was an ofRabain ficer whose “passion for his work and the people he served was evident to
A memorial fund, set up by a fellow officer and hosted by gofundme.com, had raised over $12,000 dollars for Rabain’s daughter, Samiyah, by Tuesday morning. Investigators were still searching Tuesday for a darkcolored minivan that Rabain may have been trying to pull over just before the crash.
his colleagues, friends and family,” County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) said in a statement. Funeral services for Rabain were scheduled for Thursday at Victory Christian Ministries in Temple Hills, with interment to follow at Lakemount Memorial Cemetery in Davidsonville, according to police. Police say Rabain is survived by a 3-year-old daughter.
See OFFICER, Page A-8
Annual Upper Marlboro celebration shuts down Officials to look for ways to replace Marlborough Day festival n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
Marlborough Day, an annual tradition in Upper Marlboro for decades, is no more, but town officials say they want to find a new way to celebrate the town in the future The group of volunteers that has orga-
INDEX Automotive Calendar Classified Entertainment Opinion Sports
NEWS B-8 A-2 B-6 B-3 A-9 B-1
nized the celebration for nearly 40 years has decided it can no longer keep running the event, said Bill Milligan, chair of the Marlborough Day Committee. “We’re looking for a younger group to step up,” he said. Milligan, 72, needed to bow out to care for his ailing wife and no one on the committee was willing to take the lead, he said. Marlborough Day, held on the Saturday before Mother’s Day each year, traditionally featured local artisans selling home-
made crafts, food vendors, local music and dance performances, a parade, and demonstrations by local firefighters, Milligan said. But both Milligan and Steve Sonnett, president of the Town of Upper Marlboro Board of Commissioners, said the festival had been in decline over the past few years. Local craft sellers had given way to more and more commercial vendors, such
See FESTIVAL, Page A-8
TEAM’S TRIUMPH Coach sparks Boys & Girls Club program revival, reintroduces basketball.
A-5
See SCHOOL, Page A-8
See ART, Page A-8
County officials honor fallen police officer n
A new process for evaluating and rating school system facilities is under development to help Prince George’s Public Schools prioritize over $2 billion worth of deferred maintenance. “It does seem overwhelming, but if you can break it down into manageable pieces, it can be done, if there is a will, and if the public has a will,” said Sarah Woodhead, PGCPS director of capital programs, during the first of three public hearings, held Tuesday at Charles H. Flowers High School in Springdale. A final public meeting is scheduled March 19 at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville. Jay Brinson, project executive for Washington, D.C.,based project management firm Brailsford and Dunlavey, said a final master plan prioritization report is expected to be completed by the end of May, with drafts released to the school system in late April. Woodhead said the school system typically has a capital
improvements budget of $130 million per year. “If you look at the number, $130 million sounds like a lot, but if you’re trying to take care of $2 billion in deferred maintenance, overcrowding issues, plus modernizing to meet current standards, we do have a shortfall,” Whitehead said. Whitehead said the $2 billion backlog is due to maintenance needs over the past 40 years that were put off, and have now added up. “That’s roofs, boilers, windows, mechanical systems, things that should have been replaced every 20 years, or 30 years or 15 years, that didn’t happen, all adds up to over $2 billion,” Whitehead said. Woodhead said more than 50 percent of the school system’s inventory of schools is over 40 years old. “Those old schools, from the ‘60s and ‘70s, that didn’t get made over, we’ve been working an awful lot on fixing maintenance issues, but we haven’t been able to do it in a holistic manner,” Whitehead said. The new plan will not only take into consideration facility condition, but will also how well facilities meet the current needs they’re being used for, Brinson said.
Volume 18, No. 7, Two sections, 20 Pages Copyright © 2015 The Gazette Please
RECYCLE
IMAGE FROM BERMAN ENTERPRISES.
An artist’s redering of the planned redevelopment of Bowie Marketplace, which will be anchored by a Harris Teeter grocery store.
Shoppers: Harris Teeter will be good for Bowie Customers say they welcome additional grocer option n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
Bowie shoppers will have more options next year with the addition of a Harris Teeter that will serve as the anchor for a redevelopment that will also bring a Chipotle restaurant, a Sport Clips barber shop and a Petco store to the area, the shopping center’s owner says. Shoppers say the new supermarket, which will be across the street from a Giant grocery store, will be a welcome addition. “I like Harris Teeter,” said Kathleen Lyons, a Bowie resident since 1969, as she left the
Giant Saturday afternoon. “Giant needs the competition.” The new supermarket will anchor a redevelopment of Bowie Marketplace on Annapolis Road, which was once home to a Safeway, but has been in decline for years, officials say. Lyons said she’d shopped at Harris Teeter in North Carolina, where the chain is based, while visiting her son. Lyons also said that the Giant was getting too expensive, and she wasn’t alone. J.R. Chapman said that he’d heard Harris Teeter was pricey, but that another supermarket was better than having a vacant space across the street. “More competition will be nice,” he said. In addition to the Petco, Chipotle and Sport Clips, the
See GROCER, Page A-8