Baltimore City Council member Odette Ramos has been selected to chair the Sisson Street Task Force, a 13-member board that Mayor Brandon Scott formed to provide advice on possible relocation of a trash disposal facility in Remington.
Ramos, one of three council members on the task force, was appointed during the panel’s first meeting at City Hall on Monday. Samantha Horn, representing the Greater Remington Improvement Association (GRIA), was named vice chair.
Scott created the panel to recommend the best way for the city to handle bulk trash and hazardous waste disposal if the Department of Public Works (DPW) closes the Sisson Street Sanitation Yard and Citizen Drop-Off Center at 2840-2842 Sisson St.
Public officials say they’re exploring plans to move the Sisson Street facility because the city has received a proposal to redevelop that property for commercial use if the drop-off center can be relocated. Seawall Development, the likely buyer, has proposed building a grocery store-anchored commercial center on the property.
The relocation site that city officials suggested in August, a storage yard at 2801 Falls Road that’s owned by the Potts & Callahan construction company, drew widespread opposition because it’s in a floodplain and located along a picturesque stretch of the Jones Falls Valley. Opponents urged city officials to come up with a better solution and the mayor responded by forming the task force.
Scott has said he wants the task force to consider all options for the future of the Sisson Street drop-off center, including keeping it where it is, moving it or simply closing it. He said in September that he’d like to receive the task force’s recommendations by December.
The other task force members include City Council members James Torrence and Jermaine Jones; a representative from DPW; a representative from the Mayor’s Office and eight representatives of community organizations. These are unpaid positions.
The DPW representative is Valarie Matthews, a supervisor of traffic maintenance workers at the agency. She didn’t attend Monday’s meeting. The Mayor’s Office was represented at Monday’s meeting by Alan Robinson, deputy director of DPW. Also attending from the Mayor’s Office but not listed as task force members were Khalil Zaied, Deputy Mayor for Operations, and Dana Moore, senior advisor to the mayor. Moore presided over the meeting until Ramos was named chair and took over towards the end.
In addition to Horn from GRIA, the community representatives are: Sandy Sparks, Friends of the Jones Falls; John Ellsberry, Stone Hill Community Association; Mary Ann Henderson, Midtown Community Benefits District (including Bolton Hill, Charles North, Mount Vernon and Madison Park); Keondra Prier, Reservoir Hill Community Association; Blaise Ahearn, Hampden Community Council; Kevin Macartney, Charles Village Civic Association; and Jed Weeks, Bikemore.
The panel has five more meetings scheduled. The dates are Oct. 27, Nov. 10, Nov. 24; Dec. 8 and Dec. 22.
During their first meeting, which was carried live on Charm TV, panel members addressed a number of subjects, from what it means from an ethical standpoint to serve on a mayoral task force to the difference between a trash transfer station and a residential drop-off center. They did not take testimony from the general public but will do so at their Oct. 27 meeting, which will start at 7 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall.
Robinson told the panel that the Sisson Street facility shouldn’t be called a transfer station because bulk trash is not compacted there. He said the correct terms are drop-off center or convenience center.
‘Off the table’
Moore said Scott has made two decisions that will affect the task force’s deliberations: that any new drop-off center will not go in a predominantly black neighborhood, and that Falls Road will not be closed to traffic.
The panel members talked only briefly about possible sites that ought to be considered for a new location. They said they expect suggestions to surface when they hear from the general public.
At one point, Sparks said she was pleased to hear that Falls Road was off the table as a potential site for a relocated drop-off center. “We’ve already achieved not having it on Falls Road, so how great is that?” she asked.
Moore spoke up to clarify that the idea of closing Falls Road to traffic was off the table, but moving the drop-off center to Falls Road was not necessarily off the table.
“A decision has not been made to not place the site on Falls Road,” Moore said. “It is very clear that there is a decision to not close Falls Road.”
Weeks, from Bikemore, asked why the Mayor’s Office is adamant about not closing a portion of Falls Road. If moving the drop-off facility to Falls Road is still on the table, he said, it would make sense from a pedestrian- and biker-safety standpoint to close part of Falls Road, and many people support the idea of a partial closure.
“We’re coming into a meeting where there’s predetermined outcomes here,” he said. “We’re saying we cannot close a portion of Falls Road to thru-traffic. We just said that right? So we cannot do a point closure of Falls Road. Why? Why is that something that we are predetermined to say no? Why is there not DOT coming in and giving us expert testimony on why that is a good idea or not?”
“We actually don’t have predetermined decisions about the [Potts & Callahan] site,” Moore said. “We do have a decision that we are not going to close Falls Road. That is not going to happen.”
The decision to keep Falls Road open to traffic is separate from any decision about relocating the drop-off center to 2801 Falls Road, Moore stressed.
“We took that off the table” after the COVID-19 pandemic showed the importance of keeping Falls Road open, she said. “That does not mean anything about the location of the Sisson Street [facility]. It doesn’t mean anything other than – and I want everybody to hear this — Falls Road will remain open. Everything else is fair game, open for discussion.”
“If we’re saying that we’re not going to close the street, we’re going to take that off the table, then we should take Jones Falls Valley off the table,” Weeks said.
Hearing from experts
Moore asked panel members who they would like to hear from at future meetings. The list included representatives from: Blue Water Baltimore; the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay; the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore; the Hampden Village Merchants Association; public health experts; people who work at the drop-off center; and the prospective buyers of the Sisson Street parcel, among others.
In terms of public agencies, panel members mentioned representatives from the city’s Department of Transportation; Real Estate Department and Planning Department, including its Office of Sustainability; the state’s Department of the Environment; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as potential sources of information.
Task force members also said they’d like to get detailed information about certain subjects that would help them make their recommendations. They said they wanted to know how much any new facility would cost and how it would be paid for. They also wanted to get specifics about the development or developments that have been proposed to replace the Sisson Street drop-off center.
The task force members will be sworn in by Mayor Scott during a ceremony at City Hall on Nov. 3 at 11:30 a.m.
Towards the end of Monday’s meeting, Moore said she was asked before the session started whether she thought the task force would be ready to make recommendations to the mayor by December.
“I think that you will,” she said. “But if you’re not, as we move along, I think we’ll have to go back to the mayor and ask for more time. We’re willing to do that.”
