Prince George's Council Names a County Auditor in a Last-Minute Meeting on Election Eve — and the Lone 'No' Says the Notice Broke State Law
Announced by email 40 minutes ahead and started 35 minutes late, Monday's virtual meeting voted 6-1 to appoint Marcel Emerson to a job that had been open a year — while the audit office he will lead is investigating millions awarded to an organization run by the council chair's close friend.
Prince George's County has a new auditor, appointed in a meeting most of the county — and at least one council member — learned about 40 minutes before it started. The County Council voted 6-1 on Monday, in a last-minute virtual meeting on the day before the general election, to appoint Marcel Emerson, a financial controller for a New York City-based acquisition holding company and a former account manager for Prince George's Community College. Three members were absent and one abstained; Councilmember Danielle Hunter cast the decisive sixth vote, saying the county needs an auditor in place.
The process is the dispute. Councilmember Jolene Ivey, the lone dissenter, said the council violated state law by not providing proper notice: Maryland's Open Meetings Act generally requires public bodies to give reasonable advance notice, and Ivey argued short notice is for truly urgent matters — "since this is a position that's been open for a year, I hardly think that this is something that had to be rushed like this." Councilmember Tim Adams disagreed, calling the vacancy an emergency. Ivey also alleged Emerson is friends with Councilmember Edward Burroughs; Burroughs, who did not attend, denied it, saying he knows all three finalists for the job and considers none of them a friend.
The appointment has been made, unmade and remade over two weeks. Chair Krystal Oriadha first announced Emerson's appointment on October 23, days after the council voted 9-0 in closed session to appoint him; a public vote scheduled for October 26 was then quietly removed from the agenda, and the council's 2026 legislative session ended the next day without it. Oriadha said Monday the decision had been delayed for due-diligence review.
The office Emerson takes over is not a quiet one. The Office of Audits and Investigations has recently started investigating the millions in public dollars awarded to Community on the Frontline, a local organization run by a close friend of Chair Oriadha — and Ivey and Councilmember Sydney Harrison have separately called for audits of that organization and of another nonprofit with close ties to Burroughs. The new auditor inherits both files, and a county that will be watching how he handles them.
