Oriadha bills would boost blight cleanup, reward litter reports in Prince George's County

Illegal dumping, missed 311 calls and boarded-up properties in Prince George’s County could soon face a sharper response, as Council Chair Krystal Oriadha unveiled a package meant to make cleanup more visible, more measurable and harder to ignore. The plan was rolled out at a May 12 press conference in the Tech Lounge on the first floor of the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building in Largo, and the council notice said Oriadha would bring six bills and one resolution to the Tuesday council meeting.

The package is aimed at faster cleanup of blight and litter, stronger deterrents for future violations and a temporary halt on new tobacco shop development in Council District 7 while officials study its effects. It also reaches into the daily complaints that have long fueled frustration in places such as Fort Washington, where residents have described piles of tires, furniture, beds, bottles and other trash as a recurring sign that enforcement is not keeping up.

One proposal, called “See It, Snap It, Get Paid,” would reward residents who report violations, turning neighborhood eyes into a tool for enforcement. That would be a notable shift for a county that has already spent years trying to clean up its image through policy, enforcement and capital work, from litter reduction and illegal dumping crackdowns to infrastructure improvements and other beautification measures.

The accountability test will be whether the county can show residents where complaints stand and how fast they are being resolved. Prince George’s County says PGC311 runs 24/7, lets people upload photos and track existing requests, but the system has also faced a backlog large enough to trigger Strike Force 311. The Braveboy administration said the effort began with 13,345 nuisance abatement complaints and was designed to clear more than 7,000 open cases across the Department of Public Works and Transportation and other agencies.

The new package lands after other county efforts, including Project Elevate, which launched June 23, 2025, as a countywide revitalization and beautification initiative. Prince George’s County also used legislation in 2023 to advance cleanup goals when it passed the single-use carryout bag law, which took effect January 1, 2024. Oriadha’s bills would extend that same governing logic to blight: set rules, track the response and make the results easier for residents to judge neighborhood by neighborhood.