December 2 council meeting: another project for Hyattsville?

Plus more police vehicle costs and another committee — this time for audits

Hyattsville’s city council December 2 meeting agenda includes a presentation of Hyattsville’s next ambitious project: redesigning Driskell Park, as well as more police spending, a new park, and a proposed audit committee.

The Driskell Park plan dates back to February 2017, when the city council approved $25,000¹ “to support professional services to reimagine Magruder Park [former name of Driskell Park] with Neighborhood Design Center” at the request of then-Mayor Candace Hollingsworth. At the time, almost eight years ago, councilmember Ed Haba (Ward 4) and others expressed prescient concerns about whether the design would still be relevant whenever the city got around to actually redesigning the park, according to meeting minutes. Then-councilmember Thomas Wright (Ward 3) was also concerned that the city wouldn’t have enough capital money to redesign Magruder (Driskell) because the council had already approved a new Department of Public Works building for $3.3 million and the new police headquarters at 3505 Hamilton Street for $10.3 million. Those project budgets later increased to $5.2 million and $26.2 million, respectively.²

A year passes, complete with a formal request for proposals, and council approves $51,000 in 2018 to Neighborhood Design Center for the “reimagination project,” with staff noting that the initial $20,000 will be used for “unexpected” building repairs. Another year passes, bringing the city to February 2019, and Neighborhood Design Center presents a concept design to city council — a presentation that looks quite similar to the one included in Monday’s agenda packet.