Talisha Searcy, the new mayor of Takoma Park, is no stranger to community involvement. As a neighborhood association president and later a member of the Takoma Park City Council, Searcy served an active role in the Takoma Park community prior to her election as mayor.
Searcy is Takoma Park’s first elected Black mayor. Vernon Ricks was appointed as the first Black mayor pro-tem of Takoma Park from 1972 to 1982, but Searcy is the first Black mayor to be elected, and the city’s first Black female mayor ever. Outside her work as mayor, Searcy is the director of the Office of Performance Analysis and Management at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Rockville.
MoCo360 Politics and Enterprise Reporter Ginny Bixby talked to Searcy about her background, her goals for the city, and the city’s place as a model for other jurisdictions when it comes to topics such as rent stabilization and allowing teenagers to vote. Some answers were shortened for length and clarity.
Talk about your background. How did you get here?
I’m originally from Atlanta, Georgia and I came to Takoma Park in 2013. I got involved pretty quickly, and I became the president of the New Hampshire Gardens Community Association from 2015 to 2017. In that role, I did a lot of community organizing and mobilizing to do things like get consensus in the community around sidewalk developments, and planning block parties and translation services. I really just served as an advocate between the community and our City Council members. M y predecessor on City Council, Fred Schultz, was retiring and asked me, “Have you thought about being on the City Council?” I ran for City Council and won, representing Ward Six. While on council, I did a lot of work bringing additional amenities to that part of the city – playgrounds, Purple Line advocacy, housing improvements for some of our multifamily buildings and really striving and working to get some improvements in buildings, as well as traffic calming, dealing with those issues.
Why did you decide to run for mayor?
Outgoing Mayor Kate Stewart came to me and asked if I’d thought about running for mayor. I was like, “no!” But then I thought more about it. First and foremost, representation matters. I’m the first Black elected mayor of Takoma Park. It’s been so important, as a woman of color, to have so many young girls [come] up and say, ‘oh my gosh, this is just such a huge thing.’ Perhaps even more or equally as important — our community is at the cusp of really innovative, novel, challenging efforts, and I really felt it was important. A number of my colleagues on the prior council were stepping down and I knew that we were likely going to be in a situation where the majority of the council would be brand new. And I felt really strongly that there was a need for there to be some continuity between the prior council and this council. And so those two reasons really inspired me to run and to really make sure that we can bridge those gaps, so that so much of the work that we’ve been doing can get done and get done on time.
What are the biggest policy changes you want to implement?
We received $17 million through the American Rescue Plan Act, and a number of the activities that we have underway have to be implemented during the term of this council. For example, we’re offering direct cash assistance to people in our community where they can get a $1,000 gift card if they meet certain income requirements. We’ve been doing a lot to encourage the community to apply for those resources. We offer grants to multifamily buildings in our community to help with building upgrades, from energy efficiency upgrades to other types of infrastructure upgrades that are needed in their buildings to improve the quality of housing in our community. And there’s still so much more to do.
We have resources that are earmarked for mental health counselors for a pilot program to embed mental health counselor response units within our police department to help with that response coordination as it pertains to individuals that may be experiencing behavioral health issues, which warrant a police call. We are renovating our library. We have efforts underway to redevelop our recreation center. My priority is to make sure we can tackle these projects and that we’re able to optimize the use of those federal dollars that we’ve received.
It’s important for people in our community to understand that development is not a dirty word. There may be more people or more traffic, but we should focus more on what people gain as a community. We have a housing shortage. It’s not just in our community; it’s a national issue. And it’s important for us to make sure that there’s access to housing, that our housing is affordable and that it is of good quality.
Another big thing is advancing our climate goals, and really focusing on ways in which we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our community, but also address the impacts of climate change, including stormwater issues, which can mean flooding and financial ruin for some folks. We can’t just wait for the next catastrophic event to happen. We have to figure out how we can be better prepared and make sure that we’re establishing the infrastructure necessary to minimize the impact of climate change on our residents.
Do you feel Takoma Park’s rent stabilization policy works?
When we’re talking about rent stabilization, sometimes we might think it’s a magic bullet, right? We might think if we do rent stabilization, all of our housing problems will go away – and that’s not true. I like to think of it as a three-prong approach: access, affordability and quality. Rent stabilization is a good policy as it pertains to affordability. It has done a great job of making sure that we are able to keep people in our community. I cannot express how many times I’ve spoken to so many residents in our community who have been here for years, and they’re able to be in the city of Takoma Park because of rent stabilization.
The city of Takoma Park has not had any housing creation since the 1980s. Some would argue that rent stabilization is the reason why. I would argue that it’s because we’ve not created the right infrastructure at state and county levels to properly provide necessary tax incentives to encourage the creation of housing. We have to think through and work with partners at the state level and county level to understand what are some of the incentives that need to be created in order to get more housing built in our community. What are some of the processes, permitting, things like that make it challenging to develop? And then lastly, quality is critically important for people to be able to live in dignity. It shouldn’t be the case that if we make units more affordable, that then means you live in squalor.
What should the city do to address the lack of development, specifically of housing, in Takoma Park?
It’s important for us to look at some of the policies that we have and come up with some interesting approaches. For example, payment in lieu of taxes, which offers tax breaks for development. How does that policy work? Is it working? It’s kind of been on a bit of a hiatus and we need to review that policy. I even said on the campaign trail, I would be open to looking at aspects of rent stabilization and whether there may be some opportunities for us to allow for a break in that for a short amount of time for development in order to incentivize housing creation for low to moderate income individuals. In that case, we would work on the back end to help people with their rents. I am open to that. The housing issue that is plaguing not just the city – but the entire region, the entire nation – is going to require thinking through things differently to create the opportunities that are necessary for residents in our communities to thrive.
How do you think the Purple Line extension will impact the city?
It’s already impacted the city. The Takoma Langley Crossroads and the New Hampshire Avenue intersection is the city of Takoma Park’s largest commercial district, and the endless construction has impacted us from the perspective of creating pedestrian safety and safety issues along the route. Construction also impacted businesses restricting access to their storefronts and creating difficulties in terms of traffic navigation. That makes it perhaps less encouraging for people to drive through and take advantage of the businesses that are there.
However, when the Purple Line is done, it will be transformative for the communities along the route. Having the delays is a little bit beneficial because it is helping us to kind of get our ducks in a row, to make sure that we’re able to maintain residents and businesses that are along that route and making sure that once the Purple Line comes through, there isn’t substantial displacement. It will be wonderful once it’s done to get people out of their cars, which will help us with meeting our sustainability goals. It will be great to provide alternative modes of transportation to service so many residents that are in that area and will bring more people in our community to patronize our businesses, to go to our schools that are here. When it is done, it will be a great connector, so we’re looking forward to that.
How should the city handle funding for public safety?
When I was on City Council, I led our public safety task force effort. To truly address public safety requires addressing aspects of policing, but also addressing aspects like housing quality, safety at home. If people feel safe and happy with their living conditions, they’re less likely to get themselves into situations they shouldn’t be in. All of these things go together. How are we working with our schools? How are we working with workforce development? Desperate people do desperate things, so if people are struggling to find work for a skill or a passion, they’re more likely to fall into incidents of crime. How do we break that pathway of criminal activity in our community?
There’s this misnomer that if you eliminate funding for police, that that is somehow going to magically improve public safety when there are so many other facets of public safety that must be addressed. We are investing in a pilot project around bringing mental health counselors to our city to help with responding to calls in our community that would involve the police but would really warrant having a mental health counselor. We are working with our police department to really make sure that they have a more guardian approach to residents, embedding them in the community, getting them out of their cars, putting them on bikes, having them do things like Coffee With A Cop to really try to bridge a more personal relationship between the officers and residents. And we’ve also done some things in terms of cutting aspects of the budget, like eliminating the canine unit. We’ve moved code enforcement from the police department to our Housing and Community Development department. People have other things that are going on in their lives, and that’s usually reflected in how they maintain their home, so when someone needs assistance, we can pair them more easily with those resources. We want to think more holistically about how we view public safety.
What is your vision for economic development of the downtown/Main Street area?
The downtown area has a really innovative, fun vibe to it. I love the character of our downtown, but we are losing a number of businesses. One of the things that is great is that we are getting new businesses that are taking over empty storefront spaces every day. There’s really some unique opportunities for us to do more infill development. There’s not necessarily a lot of new spaces because we’re pretty built out. But we need to really make sure that we’re creating those opportunities and we’re identifying businesses that can more easily go in.
The elephant in the room is the Pullman Junction project, and I’ve been a proponent of developments at that lot. As it relates to the junction, we’re working in partnership with the State Highway Administration to really help us with addressing the impacts of the state highway infrastructure in that part of our city, which is creating a lot of challenges when it comes to development in that area. Downtown, it’s more about filling those spaces that are becoming vacant for so many beloved businesses that are set to close their doors. But when it comes to the junction area, it’s more about focusing on working with State Highway Administration to address some of the infrastructure barriers that we have for that area for any future development to happen.
Takoma Park has been a model for other jurisdictions, such as Rockville, that are looking into lowering the voting age to 16. What do you think the benefit is in allowing teenagers to vote?
We’ve seen the power of youth advocacy, the power of our youth, really pushing, protesting and engaging so much over the last few years. It’s important to make sure that we have that infrastructure for youth to participate in local elections. It forces elected officials to prioritize issues. And what you will see more often than not, is that youth issues align with the adult issues, but it’s from a slightly different perspective that is often not heard.
It’s beneficial for the students because it sets the path for them to become more civically minded as they grow up, go to college and do great things in life, but it also is a great value to the community because it encourages us to be even more locally minded and invested in issues that impact the community. It engages you in terms of helping inform policy. With our public safety task force, we had feedback that we received from members of our youth council around aspects of public safety. So it is helpful as an elected leader to have that voice and having the 16-year-olds and the 17-year-olds can participate in local elections. It’s just one other mechanism for making sure that that voice is heard.
Is there anything else you wanted to share with us?
The biggest thing for us is making sure that we are accessible and engaging with our community, and that we are reaching out to constituents and really striving to serve in the best interest of the City of Takoma Park. I want to stress my appreciation to the residents for instilling that trust in me. I definitely look forward to all the good things that lie ahead for the city.
