Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Residential Recycling Collections to Resume Wednesday, January 27

Trash collections expected to resume later in the week

 LARGO, MD – As the County continues the massive snow cleanup from this weekend’s monumental storm, the Prince George’s C​ounty Department of the Environment (DoE) a​nnounces the following update for its operations and services scheduled for Wednesday, January 27, 2016. 
DoE expects to resume regular trash collection service on Thursday, January 28, 2016.  However, residents are advised to monitor the County's website, social media and news outlets for further details and confirmation on when services will resume.  
DoE services/operations that will resume regularly scheduled routes on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 include:
  • Residential recycling collections (on streets deemed safe and passable)  
 DoE services/operations open on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 include:
  • Services located at the Brown Station Road Sanitary Landfill in Upper Marlboro including:
    Brown Station Road Public Container Pad
    Scrap tire and appliance disposal sites, and Recycling Area.
  • Missouri Avenue Solid Waste Acceptance and Recycling Center (Brandywine);
  • Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), (Capitol Heights); and
  • Prince George's County Yard Waste Composting Facility (Upper Marlboro).
 The following DoE operations/services that remain suspended on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 include:
  • Bulky trash and yard waste collections
  • Household Hazardous Waste Acceptance Site; and
  • Electronics Recycling Acceptance Site.
In addition, all services available at the Prince George’s County Animal Services Facility remain CLOSED until further notice. Customers are advised to contact the Animal Services Facility at (301) 780-7200 to report any animal emergencies.

Visit http://mypgc.us for further updates and alert information. To register a missed collection after 3 p.m. on the day of service, contact CountyClick at 3-1-1 from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., Monday – Friday or submit a request for assistance online at www.countyclick311.com

Friday, January 22, 2016

Impending Snow and Freezing Reminder

The management office will be closing today at 12 noon. If there are any emergencies, call Security at (301)254-2365.

Snow and freezing temperatures are predicted to start today, January 22nd, and continue through Sunday, January 24th. Single family homeowners (except the Bequest and the new section across Church Road) are reminded that snow and ice control services are provided by the County.  Therefore:
  • They ask that you park in your driveway or on even-numbered sides of the streets only;
  • You wait 12 hours after the precipitation has stopped before calling in to report conditions;
  • You shovel sidewalks that abut your homes within 48 hours of the precipitation stopping or risk being fined;
  • You note that primary roads are cleared first. Secondary roads and residential streets are second; and cul-da-sacs are last;
  • And, road conditions and requests for service should be called into the Snow Information Center at (301) 350-0500 or CountyClick at 311 or by filling out the Snow Request Form at www.princegeorgescountymd.gov.
Bequest homeowners should call the office and leave a message on (301) 809-6172.  New section homeowners should email Mark Bailey at mbailey@woodlawnllc.com.

Sub Association homeowners should contact their individual associations as noted below:

Bounty:           Comsource, (301) 924-7355
Choice:            Yining Luo, yiningluo@hotmail.com
Delight:           Comsource, (301) 924-7355
Sanctuary:       Sanctuary Board,  sanctuaryhoaboard@gmail.com
Retreat:           CMC, (301) 692-1700 

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Spring Open House brings neighbors out, together

By Sheldon Smith, Communications Committee 

The Fairwood Community hosted an event on Saturday, April 18, to introduce community members to their block captains. The event, titled the Spring Open House, is the first meet and greet event hosted since the election of the new Board of Directors.

Spearheaded by Deidra McGee, Block Captain Committee chair, the event drew residents from the various residential sections that make up Fairwood.

“We started a couple of months ago planning an event where people can come out and see who their block captains are for their respective neighborhoods,” McGee said. “We wanted people to be able to match a name with a face.”

The Fairwood Community has grown in recent years with the addition of new sections and others still under construction. As a result, many new residents may not have had an opportunity yet to meet fellow residents.

“I think it’s a great event for people in the community to come out and meet with their neighbors,”said Pam Beasley, the Pride.  “You can come out and meet the people that are close in your neighborhood and have more of a family feel within the neighborhood.

Block  captains are valuable resources in communities – especially those as large as Fairwood. 

“They are the eyes and ears of our 17 sections in Fairwood,” McGee said. “They also stay connected with the Surveillance Committee, keeping abreast of incidents that happen in the community – keeping Fairwood a safe and viable environment.”

Based on police statistics, criminal activity in the area of Fairwood is among the lowest in the county. But, that doesn’t make our community immune to criminal attempts.

The block captains meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month at the Sycamore Club, but the committee is increasingly using conference calling as a meeting option. The Surveillance Committee often holds joint meetings with the Block Captain Committee to share information and jointly develop recommendations to the Board of Directors.

Residents interested in volunteering for the Block Captains Committee can contact McGee at deemcgee68@yahoo.com. 

More Spring Open House Photos:
















Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Emergency Town Hall Discussion: Who is Devaluing our Property?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The information below was furnished by a third party and is provided for residents who may be interested in participating in this event.


“Blacks Homes Do Matter” - Who is Devaluing our Property?

Saturday, February 7, 2015 
9:00am - 11:00am

10201 Martin Luther King Hwy, Bowie, MD (2nd Floor Community Room)

Former State's Attorney Glenn Ivey will be on hand to hear our concerns as we look at how we can take action!!

The Washington Post recently featured 3 articles about what has happened to the home values in Prince George’s County?  What’s disturbing is that it inferred that our values were not going to increase any time soon.  (see articles below) So what can we do?  REGISTER ONLINE NOW!

It’s time for Prince George’s home owners to take action and demand fair and equitable value for our homes.  Join other homeowners as we discuss the following:
  • Has Redistricting affected our home values?
  • Have our Government agencies failed us?
  • How can we hold Banks accountable?
  • How are Real Estate Brokers involved?
  • What happened to the $10 million dollars from the Mortgage settlement?  Who got the money?
  • If crime is going down, then why are property values going down?
  • If the educational system is tied to our home values, then who is responsible?
Please read before coming to the Town Hall!!!
America in the Post-War Years
Wendell E. Pritchett
University of Pennsylvania

Articles appearing in the Washington Post

Government Agencies

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Fairwood: A thriving community in the wake of crisis

By Sheldon Smith, Communications Committee

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Washington Post published a letter to the editor from Steve titled, Fairwood residents have bounced back from the housing crisis

This week, we've seen two segments of a Washington Post series titled “Broken by the bubble: In the Fairwood subdivision, dreams of black wealth were dashed by the housing crisis.” Many of our residents share the opinion that this three-part series does not reflect the present state of Fairwood – recovering and thriving. One such resident, Steve Brigham, wrote a response to the Post reporting, which I want to provide below in its entirety.



Kimbriell, John, and Steven,

I want to commend you on your article, “Broken by the Bubble,” one that is honestly long overdue in getting reported by The Washington Post. It highlights effectively a core inequity in the housing bubble – in which African-Americans, Africans, and citizens and residents of Caribbean descent, were coaxed at a much higher percentage into signing predatory sub-prime loans.

However, I write both to express a concern and to question some of the data and assertions used in the article.

As a 10-year Fairwood resident, it concerns me that we have become front page/above the fold news twice in the same week over a story that had its epicenter between 2006 and 2010. Why is that a concern? As I reread the article, it makes it sound like this is a major problem still facing the community today. And although you clearly found residents who are underwater with their mortgages, and I’m sure there are more, I don’t believe at all that this comes close to representing the vast majority of our community’s current residents. Our community is not currently in crisis. I wish you had made that much clearer in what was written.

Trust me, my Fairwood neighbors and I saw the national crisis at its worst right on our own streets. I actually live in the Promise neighborhood featured in this article, and on our block alone between 2007 and 2010, half of the 16 houses on our block had either short sales, foreclosures, and/or evictions. It was wrenching to see neighbors we had grown close to, have their lives turned upside down by deceitful and destructive bank practices that were clearly epidemic in scope. In the fall of 2007, we took a family in for five weeks that had nowhere else to go.

But 5+ years later, this is not the story of the Promise nor of Fairwood. Our block is fully occupied and the vast majority of vacant houses from a half-decade ago are filled up across the community. We survived and now we are watching the community bounce back at many levels. This is the untold story in your series that needs to be told.

I also don’t believe your article was fully accurate in saying several things:

  1. “On some blocks, nearly every house went under.” This sounds like a stretch. Which streets are you referring to? The only example you give is Burke’s Promise where 20 out of 34 succumbed; this is clearly way too many but it is also not “nearly every house.” Do you have data that indicate blocks having a percentage of 80 or 90% that went under? If so, I’d love to see it
  2. “Of the 1441 loans made in Fairwood between 2006 and 2007, 416 were subprime.” The number 1441 appears to be a mis-print. By 2006 and 2007, there were probably only 600 or 700 homes that had been built; many of those built between 2002 and 2005. In fact in early 2015, I believe we only have about 1400 or so households in the community with about 350 to go. So I’m not clear how 1441 loans could have been made in that two year period. And, frankly, by publishing a number so large it inaccurately magnifies the scale of what actually occurred.
  3. “In Fairwood, houses once valued at $700,000 are going for $350,000.” I am quite sure you can find houses still selling for $350,000 in Fairwood and I’m sure if they are, they are through short sales. However, if you look at sales throughout the community over the past 3 years, which I do regularly, there are many houses selling for over $400,000 and not an insignificant amount selling or over $500,000. New houses now selling in the new section start in the $500s. Yes, all of our homes have lost significant value; but in the past few years there has also been a significant bounce-back in the value of our homes that is not at all depicted in this article. In 2010, we had our house, which we bought for $550,000 in 2005, appraised at $325,000. A year ago, when we were taking out an SBA loan for a new business, we had to get it reappraised, it was at just below $400,000. A year later, as prices continue to climb, I am quite sure that the value is north of $400,000. The point here is that your article makes it sound like everyone’s house is selling for 50% (another part of your article indicates that houses are selling “for a fraction of their original price”) of what it was bought at, which is patently untrue.
Why does this all matter? Because as grateful as my neighbors and I (this is the main topic of conversation on our Fairwood social media site) are that you have exposed the crookedness of what occurred during the housing crisis and the severe impact it has had on good people, it paints a sorry picture of the current state of our community. And the fact is, several thousand of us lived through it, stayed, helped those we could, and now that we’re on the other side of the crisis, we have proven our resiliency and remain one of the best communities, I believe, not just in the county but in the Washington region.

Through your fine series, Fairwood has become the focus of unfortunate regional publicity in a way that doesn’t come close to telling the full and inspiring story of the Fairwood of 2015. I do hope that sometime in the near future, you can revisit Fairwood and tell the other side of this important story.
Thanks for listening to my perspective.

Best regards,

Steve Brigham
The Promise, Fairwood


Friday, November 28, 2014

Crime prevention tips for the holiday and winter months

From the Fairwood Surveillance (Security and Safety) Committee

Fall has arrived and daylight savings time has come to an end. What many of us became accustomed to doing in daylight earlier this year will now occur in darkness: going to your vehicle after work, picking up your children from after-school activities and sports. Some residents may already be doing holiday shopping during evening hours. This is a time of year when thieves seek to take advantage of darkness to victimize unsuspecting citizens regardless of locality.

Although we may not be able to stop determined criminals, we can dissuade them from operating in our community through vigilance.

Here are a few crime prevention tips we hope you will consider:

Vehicle Security

Even during the winter months, police receive reports from citizens of vehicle thefts or thefts from vehicles. Thieves are opportunists and will look for the vehicle that is unlocked or those that may be locked, but have valuables left visibly inside. Don’t make it easy for them:
  • Close all windows before locking your vehicle.
  • Lock your vehicle even if you are only going to be away from it a short time.
  • Lock your vehicle even if it is parked in your driveway or on the street in front of your home.
  • Do not leave valuables (i.e. fur coats, purses, wallets, cellular phones, cameras, laptop computers, etc.) inside your vehicle, even if it is locked.
  • Report any theft from your vehicle immediately to the police.

Holiday Safety

This holiday season, don't let the spirit of giving lure you into giving burglars, scammers and muggers an opportunity to make you their victim. Crooks love the holidays as much as everyone else, especially because it's an opportune time for crime. 
  • Beware of strangers that come to the door, who sometimes pose as couriers delivering gifts.
  • Be cautious when accepting a package at your door.
  • It's not uncommon for people to try to take advantage of others' generosity during the holidays by going door-to-door with charitable donations scams. Ask such individuals for identification and find out how the funds will be used.
  • Be aware of your surroundings; look out for suspicious vehicles parked in Fairwood or following you home. 
  • Be sure not to advertise in your trash - large and expensive purchased items. Break down all boxes and enclose them in black plastic bags whenever possible. 

Report All Suspicious Activity. Notify security at 301-254-2365 whenever you see suspicious activity or people/vehicles that look out of place. If you believe a crime is being committed that jeopardizes life and property, please contact the Prince George’s County Police Department’s by calling 911. Otherwise, call the non-emergency number (301-352-1200) and provide information including, make/model of vehicle, tag number, description of individuals involved and nature of activity.

Report All Suspicious Activity

REMEMBER: IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING!!


Thursday, October 9, 2014

Upcoming HOA Board Transition​, Elections

By Sheldon Smith, Communications Committee Chair

This communication concerns a very important issue that’s upcoming. Many of you may have heard that the Fairwood Community Association Board of Directors will soon transition from developer control to homeowner control. This means that control of the five-member board will shift as owners will become the majority.

Why is this important to you? Your vote will determine which of your fellow homeowners will occupy important voting board positions that will determine the continued physical and financial wellbeing of Fairwood, a premier community in Prince George’s County.

The Fairwood Community requests your participation in our governing process. In the near future, you will have the opportunity to nominate and elect candidates. We must have every homeowner’s participation in this critical process. Our community’s future depends on you.