Category Archives: Montgomery County Executive

2022 Democratic Primary, Montgomery County, Montgomery County Executive

Elrich Wins. Blair Concedes Election

After losing by 77 votes four years ago, David Blair came up 32 votes short against Marc Elrich this time. Some speculated Blair would go to the courts to try and see if he could get more ballots counted, but he has sensibly chosen not to go that route. It would almost certainly have been a losing battle legally and in the public eye.

Here is the press release:

Rockville, Md., August 24, 2022 — David Blair released the following statement on the 2022 Montgomery County Executive Democratic primary election:

“Today, the Board of Elections certified the recount results of the primary election and my bid for County Executive came up 32 votes short. Earlier today, I called Marc Elrich to wish him the best over the next four years.

While we didn’t win, no doubt we pushed the conversation forward in key areas such as early childhood education, career readiness, environmental progress, affordable housing, economic development, public safety and much, much more. I wish a heartfelt thank you to our campaign team, our volunteers, and our many, many supporters. Their energy, dedication, and vision for a better Montgomery County has been truly inspiring.

I also want to acknowledge and thank the Board of Elections staff and volunteers who ensured every vote was counted and counted accurately.

While I may have come in second place in the primary, I’m blessed in life with an incredible wife, family and friends that I adore, more success than I deserve, and a deep desire to give back to the community that I call home. No doubt whatever I do next will be focused on improving the quality of life for those who call Montgomery County home.” 

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2022 Democratic Primary, Montgomery County Executive

Corrections on the Recount Post

Montgomery County does not have DRE machines anymore, so there are no memory sticks. We do have Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs). Voters can use these to create a paper ballot with a bar code and a list of candidates for whom they voted. The Board of Elections does a sample audit to make sure the barcode accurately reflects the listed candidates.

Additionally, voters can receive ballots electronically but must mail them back printed out. These ballots are then entered on the BMDs, so every ballot has a paper trail.

Another reader pointed out that an audit resulted in added votes in a previous race. If the Board finds additional votes, as I pointed out in the previous post, this could indeed alter the result, but I expect that this is unlikely.

My basic conclusion remains the same: the recount is unlikely to alter the result. I appreciate the feedback and corrections from my readers.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, Montgomery County Board of Elections, Montgomery County Executive

42 Votes. Will the Recount Change the Outcome?

Probably not. Here’s why.

Ballots are cast in three different ways. Recounting them is unlikely to change matters.

The first type is cast on DRE machines that directly record the vote electronically. Adding them up again will produce the exact same results.

The second type is bubble-filled paper ballots cast at the polling place or by mail that have been inserted into machines. Those should also produce the same results with only a slightly greater but still very small possibility for change.

Some mail ballots that have overvotes (i.e. the voter filled in voters for more than one candidate). The Board of Elections has already ruled on these ballots, applying the sensible, legal standard based on the intent of the voter. For example, if a voter filled in two bubbles but put an x through Candidate A, it will be counted for Candidate B. Ballots with no clear indication of voter intent will not be counted for any candidate. The Board will apply its decisions in the same manner as during the count.

The final ballot type is votes sent in electronically. In these cases, the votes were transferred from the electronically mailed form to a paper ballot and then fed into counting machines. There is seemingly greater chance for error here except that this process was done very carefully with two separate people overseeing the copying to make sure it was done correctly. I don’t know if the recount allows for examination the copying of these votes on to paper ballots, but it is very likely to change more than a very small number of votes—fewer than needed to change the outcome.

The only potential source of change I can see is if the Board of Elections discovers a missing DRE memory stick or stack of ballots. That is also highly unlikely. One reason that the count took so long was that the Board was being extra careful due to the tightness of the county executive race.

Some of the more extreme Blair supporters (but not Blair) are calling for him to fight to get more provisional ballots included. Except that my understanding is that Montgomery has already counted a far higher proportion of provisional ballots than elsewhere—90% as compared to the 68% state average. That means there are relatively few left and those that are left were excluded for very clear legal reasons, such as the voter was not registered with the party or changed their registration too late to vote in the party’s primary this year.

Alternatively, I suppose Blair could go to court to fight to get other votes excluded. Both approaches are way to reminiscent of “Stop the Steal” for my taste. The Blair campaign has been wise to steer utterly clear of them even as it pursues its legal right and utterly reasonable request for a recount due to the tightness of the election results.

UPDATE: See new post with some corrections.

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David Blair, Montgomery County Executive, polls

Blair’s Bad Poll

David Blair recently trumpeted poll results produced by his campaign that claim he trails incumbent County Executive Marc Elrich by only a single point. They oddly left Hans Riemer out of the graphic in the blast email and press release, which present Elrich at 29%, Blair at 28% with 23% undecided. The poll was conducted by a highly reputable pollster.

Councilmember Hans Riemer’s campaign has repurposed this poll that has him in third place with 20%. They claim the poll shows Elrich falling but discount the better numbers for Blair because it came from his campaign. Their graphic excludes Blair just like Blair’s leaves out Riemer.

Except that the poll really show Blair’s weakness.

The poll was taken only after voters were primed with a bunch of messaging questions. Voters were asked questions related to Blair’s endorsement by the Washington Post and the Sierra Club combined with standard messaging. Blair’s campaign also asked negative questions about Elrich and Riemer’s longevity in office combined with a positive spin for Blair.

Priming can have large effects on poll outcomes. Beyond heavily skewing the information presented to voters, people like to please and are more likely to give an answer if they think it will make the interviewer happy. Yet even after all this priming designed to drive Blair’s numbers up and Elrich and Riemer’s down, Blair still trailed Elrich.

This message-testing poll suggests a few conclusions quite opposite from those presented by Blair as well as Riemer to a lesser extent.

First, Elrich almost certainly has a lead and quite possibly a strong one. If the Blair campaign had polling results that were at all good for him without priming questions, they would show them to us and even share the details.

These results instead suggest that Blair’s campaign is stalling despite his millions in spending. Blair’s omnipresence on television may not matter much when fewer people see the advertisements because they stream or scroll past commercials on their DVR. I have literally seen one Blair ad while streaming a YouTube video.

Second, Riemer is running uncomfortably well from the Blair campaign’s perspective. Just as the poll depresses Elrich’s numbers, it does the same to Riemer. Dropping Riemer from their graphic was hardly accidental. Blair is trying to convince people that it is a two-person race with Riemer faring poorly.

This is the logical purpose of the poll as no campaign is message testing at this late date. Campaigns have already settled on their plan and focused on execution. Other recent polls suggest that Blair and Riemer are statistically tied. My view is that Riemer has been running the best campaign of the three candidates, which would help explain why he hasn’t fallen behind Blair despite expectations and Blair’s very large wallet.

It doesn’t hurt that there are hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures funded by California donors on Riemer’s behalf separate from the campaign. (UPDATE: This is an anti-Elrich group that helps both Riemer and Blair.) Unlike four years ago, Riemer is the only councilmember challenging Elrich. Of course, Riemer’s campaign can’t have it both ways—the numbers understate Elrich’s support as well as his own.

Rather than convincing me that Blair is coming on strong and positioned well in the final weeks, this poll confirms his weakness.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, Hans Riemer, Montgomery County Executive

Executive Race Lane 3: Needs a Job

Councilmember Hans Riemer (D-At Large) is being turfed out of office by term limits. Like Marc Elrich four years ago, Riemer was the top vote getter in the previous election’s Democratic at-large council primary. Riemer’s achievement perhaps lacks some the luster since he was the only incumbent. But it doesn’t hurt.

Running for County Executive doesn’t appear to have been Riemer’s preferred path. When the Council was debating its reconfiguration in response to the initiative to eliminate the four at-large seats and move to all districts, Riemer proposed creating a separately elected Council President. The new office could likely evade the Council term limits and provide the well-known incumbent with another opportunity.

This didn’t pass the laugh test with his colleagues. The Council currently elects its President annually with the job rotating among the members. Why on earth would the rest of the Council want to give up the chance of being Council President to put Riemer in charge? I suppose one can admire Riemer’s chutzpah if not his political sense.

Until recently, Riemer was the upbeat urbanist warrior on the Council. That’s changed. Riemer has become stridently negative with his campaign marked by nearly incessant attacks on both incumbent County Executive Marc Elrich along with wealthy businessman David Blair.

Riemer has raised a tremendous amount of money through the public financing system. While it’s hard to compete with David Blair’s wallet or the developer PAC spending $500,000 on his behalf, it is still impressive. My sense is that his team has built a strong campaign.

Notwithstanding his strong fundraising and high name recognition, Riemer faces challenges. His urbanist base is split with David Blair. Some of his natural supporters find Blair’s past run and deep pockets a stronger bet than Riemer’s lengthy experience. Despite their revulsion towards Trump, Democrats seem happy to elect wealthy businessmen to office (e.g. David Trone and John Delaney), including many in Riemer’s crowd.

Riemer’s reputation among political observers who inform other voters and influencers also doesn’t help. In contrast to, say, Nancy Floreen, many see Riemer as a well-meaning guy but not a political or policy heavyweight. Though a fervent believer in his own proposals, he often doesn’t seem to know his brief and appears out of depth in answering questions.

Riemer’s campaign conversion on privatizing alcohol sales tends to confirm this view. After having previously headed the MoCo Nightlife Commission and years of telling us is that all we needed is to be able to buy craft beers, he has only now connected the dots and discovered that the alcohol monopoly is a problem.

When one of Riemer’s (very nice) campaign volunteers knocked on my door, I was amused to be handed a walk piece claiming that Riemer got the Purple Line done. I guess he has a different definition of “done” than I do. If we’re lucky, the light rail will be up and running around the time the next County Executive finishes his term complete with massive cost overruns. Though a shinier object, the unfinished Purple Line contrasts uneasily with Elrich’s ability to get the Flash BRT and up and running faster at a far lower cost.

Riemer and Elrich have never been BFFs and Riemer has dogged the Elrich administration relentlessly. But even in quieter times, councilmembers have trouble getting much attention from the public. Notwithstanding Riemer’s strong criticism of Elrich’s handling of the pandemic, and that many of the necessary choices were bound to alienate blocs of voters, voters view Elrich’s handling of it favorability to the chagrin of detractors.

Though the Washington Post had some kind words for Riemer (and harsh ones for Elrich), their endorsement of Blair helps confirm Riemer’s third-place status. Riemer has done his best to distinguish himself from both Elrich and Blair and run better than expectations. Still, it will be a real surprise if he wins the primary.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, Montgomery County Executive

In Lane 2: The Wealthy Businessman

David Blair has more or less been running for county executive since he had a heartbreakingly close 80 vote loss to then-Councilmember Marc Elrich in the 2018 Democratic primary. It’s safe to say that no one will mistake the politics of one for the other.

The most promising issue for Blair—and one that leans into his business experience—is Montgomery’s record in attracting business and jobs. Not only is it substantive issue and a genuine problem, it is also one his opponents have left wide open. Far too often, county government treats real estate development as the one and only issue. The County Council focuses heavily on zoning and various ways to spur development but gives seemingly short shrift to the rest.

But residential development doesn’t do much to grow the tax base. Residents are expensive, especially if they have children who use the public schools. If they do, chances are that they receive more in spending than they pay in taxes towards the one-half of the county budget dedicated to the Montgomery County Public Schools.

Montgomery has always provided its residents an impressive array of services beyond the schools. Unlike in some jurisdictions with comparable tax rates, you can look around and see a fair amount being provided for your money. But if we want to continue to grow the tax base to maintain it, we need more non-development business. That gives Blair both a subject that he can claim as his as well as a message.

Blair, however, is not running as an anti-tax candidate. Like the County Executive and the County Council, he strongly supported Question A in 2020, which will have the effect of raising property taxes higher than would have been possible in the past.

Instead, Blair promises to bring the executive leadership that made him so successful in business to Montgomery County government. While many would argue that shaking up the tree might well be a good thing, government is very different from business. As Truman once said regarding his successor: “He’ll sit here and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army.” Does Blair know how to operate the levers of government?

At times, Blair has sent mixed or unconvincing messages on that question and what he thinks. For example, he recently set himself apart by coming out in favor of ending Montgomery County’s antiquated liquor monopoly. But this is after previously hiring Robert Dorfman—the former head of the then-Department of Liquor Control—as his campaign manager. Dorfman is no longer with the Blair campaign.

Moreover, how does Blair plan to get either the county council or state legislative delegation to vote for his plan? Egged on by MCGEO, both have been adamantly opposed to dismantling the monopoly. He’ll have to do a lot of persuading to make it happen.

Blair’s Economic Development Plan is a grab bag. Some appear to be more wish list items than plans, such as “Attract Venture Capital Funding” and “Attracting Hospitality Tech Companies.” Others sound like old ideas repackaged, such as creating a “microincubator program” for life sciences.

I like his idea of cutting barriers to doing business but more specifics would help. His plan states that businesses should not be “bogged down by strict regulations, cost-prohibitive processes and unsatisfactory customer service.” Great, but concrete examples are badly needed to make it meaningful instead of a campaign slogan like his catchily named “Montgomery County Business Bill of Rights.”

People voted for Elrich and Blair last time in a rejection of the status quo.. Blair needs to show that he knows the real nuts and bolts of creating change even as he identifies with the problems faced by ordinary businessmen and residents. And show that it isn’t just a redux of focusing on development interests yet again.

Blair’s huge advantage, of course, will be his cavernously deep pockets. I imagine that, as in 2018, he will spend incredible sums to dominate the airwaves, internet ads and any other form of communication. He’ll also be able to pay an army of campaign advisors and workers. It worked for Reps. David Trone (who used his resources very skillfully) and John Delaney, so I don’t see why it couldn’t work for him.

No doubt his business record will come under close scrutiny. Many will also ask “If he wasn’t so wealthy, would anyone be interested in what he had to say?”

Even if the answer is no, opponents would do well to remember that Americans, including poor ones, tend to admire successful businessmen and women. We don’t hate them; we want to be them. After all, it’s the American Dream.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Executive

Executive Race Lane 1: The Incumbent

Marc Elrich drove the other members of the Montgomery County Council a bit nuts by winning the Democratic Primary in 2018. It was an unpleasant surprise for them that primary voters opted for him despite their frequent rejection of his ideas as either too progressive or anti-business. One of his Democratic colleagues, Nancy Floreen, even went so far as to leave the party so she could challenge him unsuccessfully in the general election. Hans Riemer, also an at-large member, had to think hard before endorsing him.

When asked about his greatest challenges as prime minister, Harold Macmillan famously replied “Events, my dear boy, events.” So it has been for County Executive Marc Elrich, who no doubt had intended to concentrate his term on pushing forward with vision for a more effective, progressive county but instead faced the major health and economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The crisis has provided opportunities and pitfalls for Elrich. Montgomery has the highest rate of vaccination of any county in the nation of its size and has done an especially impressive job of vaccinating Black and Hispanic residents compared to other jurisdictions. However, Elrich has also had to make tough choices regarding school closings, masking, dining, and vaccination requirements that were virtually guaranteed to anger large constituencies no matter the decision.

But he has made them and it’s hard to argue that the county has fared badly or that he strayed from science in the process. Council opponents have snapped at his heels all the way, but I don’t know it has had much public impact. The Council has trouble gaining attention even at the most placid of times.

Elrich was most vociferously attacked for not having imposed vaccine requirements on the police. But in a time of rising crime did we want to potentially find ourselves without substantial numbers of officers and further alienate the police—the group of county employees with the highest non-vaccination rate? While many said “damn the torpedoes,” it is easy to bet that the same people would rush to the front of the line to attack Elrich for any increase in crime that resulted.

To my mind, Elrich faces two challenges as he seeks reelection. First, he needs to communicate clearly what he has done. Elrich explains things well and laudably avoids jargon in the process—one reason residents find him accessible—but is not known for being succinct. He needs to sell a short list of top accomplishments concisely.

Beyond arguing that he’s kept the county safe during the pandemic, Elrich can argue that he got the new FLASH new bus-rapid transit line built with more to come. Elrich also needs to articulate how his administration has worked successfully to protect struggling Montgomeryites throughout the pandemic despite opposition. Everyone likes someone who stands up for the underdog.

This last point will help Elrich with his second challenge: keeping movement progressives on side and active. In both parties today, many expect politicians to work miracles and are ready to attack anyone who hasn’t accomplished them even amidst a world roiling pandemic and absent legislative support. While Elrich’s alliance with labor should hold firm, will progressives be as active for him in 2022 as in 2018?

His opponents may unwittingly help him out there by continuing to caricature him as a throwback Marxist who can’t manage money. And yet, pensions are funded. The county retains its AAA bond rating. Attacks by financial scolds rely more on stereotypes than balance sheets. County finances are in better shape as they have been in recent memory despite the wrenching economic ups and downs of the pandemic.

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budget, Montgomery County Executive

Marc Elrich’s Budget Message

The following is the overview from the $5.9 billion budget proposed by Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich. You can find the full budget proposal below:

This budget is focused on providing our youngest residents with a great start to life. To that end, I have proposed funding of $2.8 billion for the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). I am also proposing $10.4 million for our Early Care and Education Initiative so that we can continue to expand and improve early education services.

This budget contains a modest 0.8 percent increase in tax-supported spending for County Government, which is directed primarily at increasing affordable housing and addressing structural gaps in our fire service and transit budgets. This budget provides our residents with a great amount of detail about my entire $5.9 billion recommended budget.

This budget also ensures that we attain our fiscal policy goal of holding 10 percent of our adjusted gross revenues in reserve in FY20, and we maintain that level in FY21. This is of particular importance now as we face uncertain times.

As I finalize the details of my recommended budget, I am keenly aware of the public health emergency facing our community and the nation. I am proposing this budget with a focus on both the next few days and weeks, as well as the next year and beyond. As we respond to this global health emergency, the economic situation of our residents and our nation are changing rapidly. While this budget reflects my view of County Government on March 16, we all need to be flexible to respond to changing conditions and needs. These conditions may result in me submitting revisions, supplementals and amendments to alter this proposal as conditions warrant.

As we address the immediate needs of our residents and plan for the future, one thing has become abundantly clear to me – our County Government’s revenue structure has reached the breaking point and must be fundamentally altered.

Our County Charter includes a provision that limits the growth in property tax revenue – not property tax rates – to the growth in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all consumers in the Baltimore-Washington Region from the December 1 to November 30 of the preceding year. Since the Federal Government no longer publishes this index, we have been using the CPI for just the Washington Region. For the period of December 1, 2018, to November 30, 2019, the CPI for the Washington region was only 1.27 percent. No matter how much assessments increase, the total amount of property tax revenues cannot grow by more than 1.27 percent.

It is important to note that this revenue limit does not mean the average property tax bill will only increase by 1.27 percent. Quite the opposite. Most individual bills will increase (or decrease) by the change in one’s taxable assessment. Since County law limits growth in assessments to 10 percent in any given year, a property with such an increase in value will see its tax bill go up by roughly 10 percent. The Charter revenue limit only redistributes the tax burden from properties with little to no increased value to those properties with the greatest increase in value. This has meant that some residents in modestly priced homes have faced 10 percent increases while some high-value properties actually saw their tax bill cut.

When the County Council proposed to the voters our current Charter limit on property taxes in 1990, few people could have foreseen the dramatic changes that would take place in Montgomery County and around the globe. In the past 30 years, our school population has grown by 65 percent and our overall population has grown by 40 percent. The services we provide are now more complex and seek to address a range of challenges, from traffic congestion and climate change to health care disparities and linguistic diversity. And over the past four decades, our property tax rate has declined by 35 percent.

We have all witnessed other local governments regionally and nationally experience generational decline due to conflicting, irreconcilable fiscal policies. Montgomery County is at the precipice of such a decline if we cannot get ourselves out of this cycle of self-enforced structural deficits and inequitable, unpredictable revenue caps. Therefore, I will be sending the Council a proposal for a Charter amendment that will revise our revenue cap to provide certainty to homeowners. This proposal will eliminate our old, cumbersome revenue cap and replace it with a three percent cap on the increase in any homeowner’s taxable assessment. This will give our taxpayers real protection from unexpected increases in property values. It will also provide the County Government with a higher degree of predictable tax revenues like every other jurisdiction in our region.

Without such a change in the Charter, our community could be facing a situation in FY21 where a recession and deflation cripple our ability to provide emergency services and a quality public education system. This perfect storm would threaten lives and diminish the value of properties in our County. I will not stand by and let our community be harmed by the ghosts of voters from four decades ago.

In order to meet the challenge of our rapidly growing school system over the next year, this budget proposal also calls for the creation of a 3.1 cent supplemental property tax rate. State law provides each county with the authority to establish a supplemental property tax rate exclusively for its public schools. While this will be the first use of this State authority in our county, three other counties have already established a similar supplemental tax for their public schools. Even with this additional funding, we will still be providing the school system with less support per pupil than in 2010. A decade of slow growth nationally, unpredictable tax policy changes at the Federal level, and our severe Charter limit has left our schools playing catch-up on funding while absorbing an enrollment growth of more than 25,000 new students.

I am proposing this supplemental tax rate this year to partially offset an unexpected underperformance of the property tax for the last two years. In preparing the FY19 County budget, the taxable property base of the County was overvalued. As a result, the property tax rate needed to generate revenues at the Charter limit for the past two years was set too low. This resulted in lost revenues of $80 million, now permanently embedded in our revenue projections. Fortunately, the income tax has overperformed estimates during FY20 to offset this loss. However, even before the current COVID-19 crisis developed, we were forecasting income tax revenues to drop to a lower level. With this supplemental tax rate, we will be back to the rate set for FY17. We will remain significantly lower than other Maryland counties and in line with the residential rates in Northern Virginia. It is also important to note that the Northern Virginia counties charge higher rates for commercial properties with even higher rates for commercial properties in business districts like Tysons and Crystal City.

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Bill Frick, budget, Montgomery County Executive

Bill Frick: Name One Program You Would Cut

Name one program in the county budget that is not working and can be cut.  Tell us how much in annual savings that would yield.

For too long, Council members have used the County budget as a piggy bank to fund their pet projects and ideas, often ones that could not survive a serious cost/benefit review.

As we reorient County government to be a constituent-consumer focused organization, we can find savings.  For example, the county employs nearly 40 personnel in its 311 call center, despite the dramatic shift in technology away from phone calls and towards electronic communications.  If Montgomery County complemented this with a constituent service app, as exists in neighboring jurisdictions, many constituent services would be routed directly to the relevant agencies instead of going first through bureaucratic call centers, and we could save taxpayer money.

Finally, the County should not be a leader in corporate welfare.  I would end our tax credits for investors, money that goes from everyday taxpayers straight to the pockets of wealthy investors, often to reward them for making investments they would have made regardless.  This is a fight I led at the state level as the architect of the Tax Credit Evaluation Act, legislation to spotlight and reform our runaway subsidies, and by going toe-to-toe with Hollywood to make sure our tax dollars were being spent productively.

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budget, Montgomery County Executive, Roger Berliner

Roger Berliner: Name One Program You Would Cut

Name one program in the county budget that is not working and can be cut.  Tell us how much in annual savings that would yield.

I have been a leading proponent of trying to find ways that our county could operate more efficiently.  Working with the County Executive, I was the lead sponsor of legislation that created the Organizational Reform Commission, led by a diverse and talented group of citizens to identify ways we could make our county government more efficient.  However, at the end of the day, while there were steps we were able to take that made our county government more efficient, direct dollar savings were not significant.

I have for years argued that the County Executive should move to what is known as “zero based budgeting”.  What is zero based budgeting?  “Zero-based budgeting is a repeatable process that organizations use to rigorously review every dollar in the annual budget, manage financial performance on a monthly basis, and build a culture of cost management among all employees.”  That would be my goal as County Executive.

In addition to rigorous scrutiny of costs, there are initiatives that you don’t readily think of that can produce cost savings – initiatives like having our county buy 100% renewable power and putting solar on our county rooftops.  Those initiatives alone will save many millions of dollars going forward.  Sometimes doing the right thing actually can save taxpayer dollars!

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