Leaders Promise to Get Along

"As has become our tradition," Exum said, upon assuming the job, "this council will continue to strive to speak truth to power and act in a collective voice."

Before I Go . . .

Thomas R. Hendershot (D-New Carrollton), whose second and final term as a county council member ended last week, may be under investigation by the state prosecutor for his use of a county credit card, but he pulled no punches at his last public meeting before leaving office.

The council member was forced from office by term limits. Before stepping down, he gave a rousing address Tuesday, decrying divisions within the county. Never shy about acknowledging his own desire for publicity, he even instructed a group of students and their parents who had been attending the meeting to stay in the room to hear his words. ("The worst thing for a politician is to lose his audience," he announced after asking the teenagers, who were streaming from the room after the completion of their agenda item, to sit back down.)

Quoting Robert F. Kennedy, Hendershot appealed for more love, less hate in society, more unity, less division. Hendershot, who is white, criticized white county residents who fled Prince George's as its black population grew, as well as African American residents who have moved after the arrival of African and Latino immigrants in their neighborhoods. He slammed people of all races who, he said, have found wealth and retreated behind the walls of gated communities.

The line that caused the most eyebrows to rise, however, was his citing "political slate-makers" in the county as one cause of division.

He accused such people of recently shutting out "a well-respected, well-educated, well-experienced, successful, incumbent only because she is white."

This was an apparent reference to the recent Democratic primary battle between incumbent Register of Wills Lynn L. Skerpon, who is white, and sheriff's office official Cereta Lee, who is black. For the past four years, Skerpon has been the only white person to hold a countywide office. Several black senators backed Lee for the job, however, and she won handily. "That was flat-out wrong," Hendershot said, "contrary to the kind of people we're supposed to try to be."

The comment drew a couple whistles from the crowd, but Hendershot, who has been fixture on the county scene for years, was generally applauded nevertheless at the conclusion of his remarks. Afterward, he said he has not ruled out a return to elective office.