On Wednesday, she was sworn in privately, but on Thursday, Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy celebrated her inauguration at University of Maryland, College Park.
The Largo High School graduate’s alma mater is UMD, and she later admitted she picked also picked Juneteenth for a reason.
Her inauguration was a two-and-a-half-hour affair, with nearly the first hour spent entirely on prayer and gospel music. There were also shout-outs and praise from her sorority sisters, and actress Taraji P. Henson, a Prince George’s County native, also spoke.
Braveboy then got down to business, acknowledging the county faces several challenges, while promising to be a voice for those who don’t have one. She said leadership was unified to face those challenges in a county often beset by petty political grudges.
“That means our personal interests have to be subordinate to the interest of the people,” she told the hundreds who gathered for the celebration.
During her speech, she touched on the need to focus on beautifying the county and keeping streets clean and litter free. She also pledged to focus on economic development.
“We have to become more competitive as a county,” she said. “That starts with beautifying, because you want to be able to attract investments, good investment.”
Afterward, Braveboy said she is going to lay out more details of her 100-day plan later this month, but promised the county’s notoriously thick red tape will be dealt with.
“We put together on our transition team leaders from inside government and outside government to really focus on streamlining the zoning process as well as the permit process,” she told reporters. “I am going to be laser focused on that, because that is what’s keeping us out of the game for some of the big development projects. We just take simply too long to build here in Prince George’s County.”
Braveboy said it would be done legislatively, but without the use of a task force studying the problem — as so many problems are otherwise addressed.
“What you’ll see is a business-friendly Prince George’s County that’s still respects the community, is inclusive of the community and moving forward with development,” she said. “We are in a structural deficit. We can get out of it. It’s some of our doing by not being able to really keep up with the times. And so we are not going to be second to any other jurisdiction when it comes to being able to move forward major developments.”
During her speech she also addressed another project the county has long banked on bringing in economic development — the FBI’s new headquarters. President Donald Trump has made it clear that the project is getting nixed by his administration. But Braveboy predicts the county would prevail.
“We have some interesting folks running government right now, but … they won’t be around forever,” she declared. “We will be. We will be and so we’re going to keep our eyes on the prize.”
“We can wait them out!” she added.
The keynote speaker was Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who described Braveboy as fearless and declared that his administration would continue to be a strong partner for the county.
“You have the full-throated support of this administration and the full-throated support of this entire state,” Moore said. “The challenges that we are facing in this moment are enormous, and we also know that leaders don’t pick moments. Moments pick leaders. And in this moment, with so much on the line, we need County Executive Aisha Braveboy.”
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