<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4ZIMBp_1Gxwhj0900" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4ZIMBp_1Gxwhj0900" width="1200" height="800" ></figure>A lawsuit challenging Prince George’s County over the removal of career firefighters is back on track after a Nov. 6 Appellate Court of Maryland ruling reversed a lower court decision to toss out the legal challenge brought by College Park, Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights in 2024.The ruling revives the cities’ battle against county staffing cuts and sends the case back to Prince George’s County Circuit Court.College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir called the ruling “a significant victory for College Park and our neighboring communities.” Writing on his blog, Kabir stressed that emergency protection cannot be viewed in isolation.“Fire and emergency medical services operate as a regional network,” Kabir wrote. “When one station loses staffing, neighboring departments, including College Park’s, may need to respond to additional calls. This can affect emergency response coverage throughout our area.”That network took a hit in June 2024, when Prince George’s County announced a controversial summer staffing reallocation to deal with personnel shortages and excessive overtime among firefighters paid by the county. Under the plan, then-Fire Chief Tiffany Green removed 24 paid personnel from Greenbelt and six from Berwyn Heights, shifting the burden onto local volunteers. Stations in Bowie-Belair and Bunker Hill lost their career crews, too, for a total of about 55 firefighters.The affected towns pushed back almost immediately, warning that volunteers could not handle daytime service alone. But in October 2024, a Circuit Court judge dismissed their lawsuit.The judge reasoned that having to share the burdens of neighboring communities wasn’t the kind of special harm that gives a city the right to sue.The appeals court rejected that reasoning.“We see it differently,” Senior Judge James A. Kenney III wrote for the three-judge appellate panel.The judges found that the cities did have the right to sue, and that their complaint laid out specific enough claims for the case to move forward. Among them: The cities alleged that “response times would at least double from four minutes to eight minutes or longer” without the paid firefighters.The ruling also recounts the cities’ claims that the county did not consult the local fire departments before making the move, and that it “did not verify its assumptions of volunteer availability.”The county has not had to prove or disprove any of that yet. At this early stage, a court takes a complaint’s claims at face value.“At this stage, these particularized allegations must be accepted as true,” the ruling says.That includes the claim that matters most for College Park. According to the ruling, the cities argued that moving the career firefighters “would overburden the nearby College Park Volunteer Fire Department.”Since the lawsuit was filed, Berwyn Heights got a daytime career crew back in November 2025.Greenbelt waited longer. Its station went more than two years without career firefighters. In October, the county finally sent a daytime crew back: six career firefighters, weekdays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Greenbelt News Review reported. Still, Kabir said the Nov. 6 ruling does not automatically restaff the fire stations.“Importantly, this does not mean the county has been ordered to restore the firefighters immediately,” he wrote. “Rather, the ruling allows the lawsuit to return to the Circuit Court for further proceedings.”A trial isn’t the only possible outcome, though. Kabir said the ruling could also open the door to a deal.“There is also an opportunity for the municipalities and the county to work toward a mutually acceptable resolution,” he wrote.The point of the lawsuit, Kabir said, is keeping residents safe.“Our goal is not simply to win a legal argument,” Kabir wrote on his blog. “It is to ensure that when our residents call 911, trained firefighters and paramedics can reach them quickly, regardless of where they live or what time of day an emergency occurs.”</div></body>

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A lawsuit challenging Prince George’s County over the removal of career firefighters is back on track after a Nov. 6 Appellate Court of Maryland ruling reversed a lower court decision to toss out the legal challenge brought by College Park, Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights in 2024. The ruling revives...

Lawsuit over firefighter cutbacks moves forward

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A lawsuit challenging Prince George’s County over the removal of career firefighters is back on track after a Nov. 6 Appellate Court of Maryland ruling rev

Lawsuit over firefighter cutbacks moves forward

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