Landover Hills Council begins multi-point revision of town charter, sets follow-up review

At a Town Council workshop on Aug. 5, 2024, the Landover Hills Council opened a section-by-section review of proposed amendments to the town charter, with Town Attorney Karen Ruff advising that any changes "must follow the mandates outlined in Maryland State Law." The body agreed to several structural and wording changes and directed the attorney to prepare draft language for subsequent review.

The most significant procedural change the council approved in principle would shift how the town records annexation descriptions. Ruff outlined options used by other municipalities — filing meets-and-bounds descriptions with the Director of Legislative Reference, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and the Commissioner of Land Records while keeping a copy on file with the Town Manager for public access — and the council agreed to adopt that filing approach rather than embedding detailed meets-and-bounds text in the charter.

Councilmembers also flagged a series of technical and substantive edits. The mayoral term sentence in Section 301(A) will be rewritten to say the mayor’s regular term expires "following the election and swearing in of the newly elected Mayor," and the comparable language for councilmembers will be adjusted to expire "following the election and swearing in of their successors." Removal-from-office language in Section 306 will be revised to refer to failure to attend "three (3) consecutive meetings" without being excused, removing the current word "monthly."

Other changes requested include removing the sentence in Section 311 that required mayoral approval for an ordinance to take effect; updating references to the Court of Appeals to read "Supreme Court of Maryland" in Section 404; and asking the attorney to rewrite the Town's enumerated specific powers in Section 502 to conform with current State of Maryland law. The council also agreed to add cross-referenced language in Sections 312 and 313 from Resolution C-0-106 and to include a footnote in Article 3 clarifying that masculine terms are to be construed to include the feminine in line with Section 1105.

Financial and administrative edits were discussed: Section 722 purchasing thresholds were revised in draft to set one threshold at $10,000 and another between $5,000 and $10,000, and the town will change the written-contract exception threshold from $1,000 to $5,000. The council also agreed that Section 505’s penalty language should be revised to be "consistent with the State of Maryland law" rather than specifying a $400 maximum, and it corrected a typographical town-name error from "Landover Hill" to "Landover Hills." Section 602 will be edited to remove "the registration of voters" from the Town Clerk's duties and direct registration to the Prince George's County Board of Elections; absentee ballot request timing in Section 609 will be changed to not more than 15 days and not less than five days prior to elections, with late requests handled via Town Hall pickup.

The council set a follow-up workshop to continue reviewing the draft amendments on Sept. 9, 2024. The session closed with scheduling adjustments for the September workshop and the regular council meeting and with routine newsletter and community-event planning noted by Town Manager Rommel Pazmino.