Monthly Archives: September 2020

Chamber of Commerce, Montgomery County Council, Robin Ficker, taxes

County Chamber of Commerce Takes Positions on Ballot Questions

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce has announced that it is supporting Question A (Council Member Andrew Friedson’s tax limit charter amendment), opposing Question B (Robin Ficker’s tax limit charter amendment) and opposing Question D (nine council districts). The chamber took no position on Question C, which would keep the at-large council members and create two new district seats. The chamber’s press release is reprinted below.

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MCCC Board of Directors Votes to Oppose Questions B and D, Supports Question A
View the Official Sample Ballot

At its September meeting, the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce (MCCC) Board of Directors voted for its positions on the Montgomery County ballot questions for the 2020 General Election.

“There is so much at stake on the ballot in this year’s election,” said Gigi Godwin, President and CEO of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. “The County ballot questions could potentially have long-lasting impacts for Metro Maryland’s residents and businesses.”

The MCCC Board of Directors recommends the following:

Vote FOR Question A – The Chamber strongly supports this change to the County’s tax policy by establishing a cap on the property tax rate instead of the total revenue that the County can receive. Importantly, Question A keeps the requirement an affirmative vote by all Councilmembers, as is currently required to raise the revenue limit.

Vote AGAINST Question B – Question B risks the County’s ability to respond to emergencies and could compromise the Triple-A bond rating which would increase borrowing costs by substantially.

“Question A is a strong solution to Montgomery County’s broken property tax system that promotes more transparency and understanding,” said Lowell Yoder, MCCC Board Chair. “It sets a consistent tax rate each year and is straightforward, as tax policy should be. By simply keeping tax rates stable, the County would generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue over time, without even raising taxes to do so.”

Vote AGAINST Question D – The Chamber strongly opposes moving to a nine district County Council. Currently, Montgomery County residents are represented by a majority of the Council (five votes): one district member and four at-large members. Question D would eliminate this majority representation.

“Question D arose out of frustration by the lack of Upcounty representation,” stated Leslie Ford Weber, MCCC Immediate Past Chair and Legislative Committee Chair. “The Chamber fully appreciates and acknowledges the need for fair representation on the Council; however, this proposed change is not the way to go about it.”

Currently, the Chamber is not issuing a recommendation on Question C or the statewide ballot initiatives.

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Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County Council, Republicans

Developers, Help Save Maryland Director Contribute to Nine Districts for MoCo

By Adam Pagnucco.

On August 5, I reported that a combination of developers and county employee unions had accounted for most of the Nine Districts for MoCo group’s financial support. At that time, the leading contributors were:

Charles Nulsen, Washington Property Company: $50,000
UFCW Local 1994 MCGEO: $10,000 (in-kind)
Bob Buchanan, Buchanan Partners: $5,000
Fraternal Order of Police: $5,000 (in-kind)
Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters Association PAC: $5,000 (in-kind)
Gingery Development Group: $5,000
Arlene Hillerson (listed as being in real estate): $2,000

Nulsen, Buchanan, Gingery and Hillerson are all in the real estate industry. As of August 5, the four comprised 94% of Nine Districts’ cash receipts.

On August 13, I reported that a number of prominent county Republicans, including seven members of the county party’s central committee, had supported Nine Districts with cash or in-kind contributions. Republicans support a nine district council structure because they believe it might lead to a Republican council seat.

The county Republican Party is asking voters to vote for Question D, which would create nine council districts.

On August 24, Nine Districts amended its financial reports and new information about its contributors is now available. Of notable interest is that Gingery Development Group contributed another $25,000 on August 3 and Willco, a Potomac developer, directed a $15,000 contribution to the group’s campaign consultant, Rowland Strategies of Baltimore, on August 5. If Willco’s contribution, listed as in-kind but relieving the group’s obligation to Rowland, is counted as a cash contribution, that means that 96% of Nine Districts’ cash support has come from developers.

One more interesting fact emerges from the group’s amended financial report: a nine dollar contribution from Brad Botwin. The contribution is probably a response to the county Republican Party’s “$9D for 9D” solicitation for Nine Districts. Botwin is the county GOP’s contact for volunteer opportunities. But he is a lot more than that. Botwin is the director of Help Save Maryland, a group opposing illegal immigration. Help Save Maryland has been designated as a “nativist extremist group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, provoking a counter-attack describing the center as “a demagogic bully.” Help Save Maryland’s denunciation of an “illegal alien child rapist freed by MoCo County Executive Elrich” is standard fare for the group.

Botwin’s contact info on the MoCo GOP’s website. His phone number has been redacted.

The line between Botwin and Nine Districts is already drawn through the MoCo Republican Party, which supports Nine Districts and lists Botwin as its volunteer contact. If Botwin is more directly involved in Nine Districts than that, that would be big news in MoCo politics.

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Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County Council, Robin Ficker, taxes

Ballot Question Committee Scorecard

By Adam Pagnucco.

Over the last few weeks, a spate of political committees have formed to support or oppose the four charter amendments on the ballot. At this writing, six have filed paperwork with the State Board of Elections. This post summarizes their information. First, let’s recall what these ballot questions are.

Question A: Would freeze the property tax rate but allow a unanimous vote of the council to increase it. Authored by Council Member Andrew Friedson.
See Why Progressives Should Support the Friedson Amendment.

Question B: Would remove the ability of the county council to break the current charter limit on property taxes, thereby capping property tax revenue growth at the rate of inflation. Authored by Robin Ficker.

Question C: Would add 2 district seats to the county council, thereby establishing 7 district seats and 4 at-large seats. Authored by Council Member Evan Glass.
See MoCo Could Use More County Council Districts.

Question D: Would convert the current council’s 5 district seats and 4 at-large seats to 9 district seats. Authored by Nine District for MoCo.
See Don’t Abolish the At-Large County Council Seats, Nine Kings and Queens.

These are the ballot question committees that have formed to advocate for or against at least one of the above charter amendments. Only one (Nine District for MoCo) has filed campaign finance reports so far, but that will change on October 9, when the next round of reports is due.

Nine District for MoCo

Formed: 7/24/19
Supports Question D (9 council districts), opposes Question C (7 council districts and 4 at-large seats)
Chair: Kim Persaud (Wheaton activist)
Treasurer: Mark Lautman
Contributions so far: $ 128,959 (includes in-kind of $37,286)
Website: https://ninedistrictsformoco.org/
Supported by MoCo Republican Party, Greater Olney Civic Association, Town of Laytonsville. Contributors include MCGEO, police union, fire fighters union, developers.
See Revealed! Funders of Nine Districts.

We Support Nine Districts

Formed: 5/7/20
Supports Question D (9 council districts)
Chair: Robinson Sean Rowe
Treasurer: Serina Cheung Moy (former candidate for Republican National Convention)
Contributions so far: NA (has only filed affidavits)
Website: https://ninedistricts.org/

Vote No on B & D

Formed: 9/11/20
Opposes Question B (Ficker amendment) and Question D (9 council districts)
Chair: Ike Leggett (former county executive)
Treasurer: Larry Rosenblum
Contributions so far: NA
Website: NA
Supported by former congresswoman Connie Morella, business owners David Blair and Carmen Ortiz Larsen.
See Why Montgomery County Ballot Questions B and D are Truly Bad Ideas You Should Vote Against.

Montgomery Neighbors Against Question B

Formed: 9/14/20
Opposes Question B (Ficker amendment)
Co-Chairs: William Jameel Roberts (former Jamie Raskin staffer), Jill Ortman-Fouse (former school board member)
Treasurer: Daniel Koroma (business liaison officer, Montgomery County Government)
Contributions so far: NA
Website: https://www.mocoagainstb.org/
Supported by CASA, Metro D.C. DSA, Jews United for Justice, LIUNA, MCEA, MCCPTA, MCGEO, Progressive Maryland, Progressive Neighbors, MoCo Women’s Democratic Club, SEIU Local 1199, SEIU Local 500, SEIU Local 32BJ, MoCo Women, Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors.
See JOF, Progressives Take on Ficker.

Montgomery Countians For Question A & Against Question B

Formed: 9/14/20
Supports Question A (Friedson amendment), opposes Question B (Ficker amendment)
Chair: David Blair (businessman, former candidate for county executive)
Treasurer: Marjorie Anne Nemes Galarza (Latino Economic Development Center)
Campaign Manager: Scott Goldberg (Democratic central committee member)
Contributions so far: NA
Website: NA

Residents for More Representation

Formed: 9/17/20
Supports Question C (keeps at-large council seats and adds 2 districts), opposes Question D (9 council districts)
Co-Chairs: Marilyn Balcombe (Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce, former candidate for council at-large), Michelle Graham
Treasurer: Deborah G. Williams
Contributions so far: NA
Website: https://mocoforc.org/
Supported by MoCo Democratic Party, MCEA, Jews United for Justice, Association of Black Democrats of MoCo, Latino Democratic Club of MoCo.
See Balcombe Co-Chairs New Group Opposing Nine Districts.

The MoCo Democratic Party supports Question A (Friedson amendment on taxes) and Question C (Glass amendment on county council structure). The party opposes Question B (Ficker amendment on taxes) and Question D (9 council districts).

The MoCo Republican Party has taken the opposite position on the ballot questions from the Democrats.

The Washington Post editorial board opposes all four questions.

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Adam Pagnucco, budget, COVID-19, Fire Fighters, Marc Elrich, MCGEO, police

How Will We Pay for This?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Confronting one of the worst recessions in its history, the MoCo government is projecting a loss of $190 million in revenue this fiscal year and over $1 billion over the next six fiscal years. With such dire financial projections, one would think that the county would be looking for ways to save money above and beyond the low-hanging fruit it has already plucked. Instead, the county has created a new spending stream with no obvious way to pay for it.

What is this new spending stream? On April 10, County Executive Marc Elrich announced that he had reached an agreement with the three county employee unions (MCGEO, the fire fighters and the police) to provide their members with COVID-19 differential pay. The extra pay applied to two categories of employees.

Front Facing Onsite: work that cannot be performed by telework, involves physical interaction with the public and cannot be performed with appropriate social distancing. These employees would get an extra $10 per hour.

Back Office Onsite: work that cannot be performed by telework and does not involve regular physical interaction with the public. These employees would get an extra $3 per hour.

The extra pay was retroactive to the March 29 pay period and was supposed to be in effect for six pay periods “or until the Maryland State of Emergency is lifted.” At the time, county council staff estimated that the extra pay would cost the county $3.2 million per pay period. As of this writing, I am told that the COVID pay continues. (Note: this pay arrangement does not apply to MCPS or other agencies legally separate from county government.)

My sources tell me that the county’s COVID pay program is one of the most generous in the United States. It is far more generous than the state’s COVID pay, which was an extra $3.13 per hour for some classifications of public safety, juvenile center and healthcare employees plus $2.00 more for those working in quarantine areas. (The $3.13 per hour ended on September 8 while the quarantine pay continues.) The generosity of the county’s program can further be seen by its cost: $3.2 million per pay period versus the state’s $3.3 million. MoCo has roughly 10,000 employees while the state has more than 80,000.

Elrich painted this extra pay as a financial win for the county. His press release stated, “The County Executive noted that under provisions of existing county bargaining agreements (which were negotiated years ago), the unions could have insisted on much larger benefits, but they understood the importance of the ongoing fiscal health of the county.” So according to Elrich, by giving the unions something less than what their agreements gave them, he was saving the county money.

In retrospect, that was a dubious claim. The unions are indeed entitled to double pay during emergencies under their agreements. However, a careful examination of the county’s collective bargaining agreements with MCGEO, the fire fighters and the police shows that their emergency pay provisions relate to weather emergencies. The emergency pay provision in the police agreement is actually labeled “Snow Emergency-General Emergency Pay.” All three agreements contain this language:

“General emergency” for the purpose of this agreement is defined as any period determined by the County Executive, Chief Administrative Officer, or designee to be a period of emergency, such as inclement weather conditions. Under such conditions, County offices are closed and services are discontinued; only emergency services shall be provided.

The county suspended some (but not all) services early during the COVID crisis but many of them are being provided now. The county even said as far back as March 13, “While schools and public facilities will be closed, Montgomery County offices remain open for business and operations are continuing.” This status does not qualify as a general emergency under the contract language.

MCGEO’s agreement contains this additional language:

Implementation of General Emergencies shall be in accordance with Administrative Procedure 4-21, dated July 12, 1991. In addition to the above, before making a determination whether to declare a General Emergency, the CAO or designee will consider recent weather reports regarding the amount of precipitation already accumulated, as well as the forecast for further accumulations during the succeeding 8-hour period. Other considerations that the CAO or designee will take into account include whether the major roadways of the County are passable and safe for travel and whether the County public schools have been closed for the day and what actions other public sector jurisdictions in the Washington Metropolitan Region take. The decision whether to declare a General Emergency shall be based on the cumulative of all these factors and no one factor shall be conclusive or determinative. The County Executive or CAO should attempt to give employees the earliest notice of whether a general emergency or liberal leave period will be declared.

Again, this clearly relates to a weather emergency.

Either Elrich knew all this and granted concessions anyway or he didn’t bother to read the union contracts and was out-negotiated by MCGEO’s shrewd president, Gino Renne. If the latter, he is not the first executive to be cleaned out at the bargaining table by Gino! The unions were quite upset to see the council cancel $28 million of compensation increases last spring, but they have already earned more than that in COVID pay.

It’s important to note that the county council had no role in this. Normally, the council would approve economic elements of a new collective bargaining agreement inside county government. But in this instance, a renegotiation occurred of an existing agreement. Elrich did not ask for council approval and the council did not bless it.

The issue here isn’t whether employees should get COVID pay. Of course they should. If you were a police officer, a fire fighter, a correctional officer, a Ride On bus driver or another employee interacting with the public for hours on end, you would want it too! The issue is whether the county has a way to pay for it, especially given its troubled financial condition. And that’s where the matter gets complicated.

One place where the county can turn for COVID expenses is federal grant funds, especially those disbursed under the CARES Act. To date, the county has received $223 million in federal grant funds during the COVID crisis. The status of those funds is a bit murky, but my quick and dirty math from examining the county council’s spending resolutions is that close to all of that money has already been appropriated. Last summer, the county was hoping a deal in Congress would produce more federal funds but it didn’t happen. Now there is talk of covering at least part of the COVID pay through a FEMA reimbursement but who knows if that will occur. Looming over all of this is the question of how long the payments will continue.

If federal funds are not available, the county’s options for financing its COVID pay program are difficult ones. It could make offsetting spending cuts although most county spending is tied to labor in one way or another. (How crazy would it be to pay employees more and then furlough them?) It could dip into reserves, which might impact its AAA bond rating. It could raid retiree health care funds yet again (something that was hinted at in July), which has already earned it a rebuke from Wall Street. Or it could raise taxes.

Readers, what would you do?

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Board of Education, COVID-19, MCEA, MCPS

Harris Apologizes for Comments on School Reopening

By Adam Pagnucco.

School board at-large candidate Lynne Harris, who blasted the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) for allegedly obstructing school reopening, has apologized. Harris issued the statement below on her website.

STATEMENT REGARDING COMMENTS IN SEPT. 27 SILVER CHIPS PRESS RELEASE

I deeply apologize for comments I made to the reporters from Silver Chips, the student newspaper for Montgomery Blair High School. I recognize that the comments hurt and offended fellow teachers and do not reflect my deep respect and gratitude for their dedicated work to support our students.

As a teacher myself, I know how hard MCPS staff members are working during this time of crisis. Many of us are balancing the work with supporting the distance learning of our own kids — that can be a gargantuan task, particularly if you have young learners, or students with special needs. As rewarding as the work is, many of us are feeling fatigue and frustration working 7 days a week to get the job done.

It’s a bad idea to speak to the media when you’re tired and frustrated. My words do not reflect how much I value the hard work of MCPS educators. I am sorry to anyone who feels unappreciated by my poorly-worded comments. Offending hard-working fellow teachers is the last thing I ever intended to do.

I’m grateful to the many teachers and staff who volunteered for the important work on design teams last summer. I also worked on a curriculum review/writing team, which included writing a plan to bring small groups of students safely back into our buildings for specialized training. While teachers were working on these projects, MCEA (the teachers’ union) and MCPS were simultaneously engaged in difficult contract negotiations, impacting a more collaborative approach to create a plan for distance learning.

I hope you’ll read my blog below for a more thorough perspective. Teachers, MCPS, families – we all want to keep students and staff safe. I welcome a meeting with MCEA anytime to clear up any misunderstandings.

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Adam Pagnucco, Board of Education, COVID-19, MCEA, MCPS

Harris Blasts MCEA Over School Reopening

By Adam Pagnucco.

Silver Chips, the online newspaper for Blair High School, had quite a scoop yesterday. The newspaper asked school board at-large candidates Lynne Harris and Sunil Dasgupta for their opinions on the statement issued by MCPS and its three employee unions about potential reopening for in-person instruction. According to Silver Chips, Harris said the following in an email on Saturday:

Personally I’m completely frustrated that the associations, especially MCEA, would NOT get in the boat and row since Spring to help create meaningful Covid plans for teaching and learning, especially limited in-person instruction––they were obstructionist, inflammatory, and just said ‘no’ to everything. We need plans in place NOW to bring small groups of students into schools safely––for special education instruction, for specialized arts and other programs that require access to MCPS facilities and resources to be equitably delivered, for CTE programs that can’t be delivered virtually etc.

Harris had more to say about this topic on her website.

Silver Chips also carried a reply from Dasgupta that conforms with his guest blog on Seventh State today.

Dasgupta has been endorsed by MCEA (the teachers) and SEIU Local 500 (support staff) among others. Harris has been endorsed by the Washington Post editorial board, which at various times over the years has been critical of MCEA.

During the primary, there weren’t a lot of apparent differences between Harris and Dasgupta as both were defending MCPS’s boundary study from criticism by fellow at-large candidate Stephen Austin, who finished third, and his supporters. Silver Chips has done the public an immense service by revealing a meaningful difference between these candidates.

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COVID-19, MCPS

Changing the Reopening Timeline: A Recipe for Confusion and Anxiety

Guest column by Dr. Sunil Dasgupta, Candidate for Montgomery County Board of Education At-Large.

MCPS’s decision to start the 45 day clock on potentially reopening school buildings is premature. While MCPS should absolutely be working collaboratively with teachers, staff, families, and students on a reopening plan, starting the clock before answering some basic questions is disruptive and anxiety-producing for everyone involved.

To calm anxieties and provide a clear path forward, MCPS leadership should focus on three goals in the near term. The first goal should be clear communication with all stakeholders. The second goal should be to meet student needs in the immediate context of online learning. And the third goal should be to collaboratively develop a safe reopening plan with employees, families, and students.

Clear Communication

Clear communication with the public has been MCPS’ biggest shortcoming during the pandemic. We are only four weeks into the first quarter, so it is unclear why MCPS is making an announcement on a 45 day timeline that could place some students and staff back in buildings in early November, after announcing in July that the first semester would be online-only.

In his July announcement regarding the fall semester, MCPS Superintendent Dr. Jack Smith wrote, “the safest choice for our district is to remain in a virtual-only instructional model through the first semester—January 29, 2021; or until state and local health officials determine conditions in our county allow for students to return safely after the first semester.” MCPS should stick to its previous timeline in order to ensure student and staff safety, and to provide desperately needed clarity for all stakeholders.

Meeting Students’ Immediate Needs

MCPS has performed much better in this area, but there are still students who need additional resources and support to make online learning as productive as possible. Many students in certain zip codes still lack access to high-speed internet and functioning Chromebooks. MCPS leadership and local staff are focused on this issue, and they should continue to reach out in every way possible to get these students and families connected to the learning that is taking place online.

MCPS recognizes that student mental health is suffering during the pandemic and is rightly focused on providing additional support to students and staff. And the school system continues to provide meals to thousands of students on a weekly basis.

A Collaborative Plan for a Safe Reopening

While teachers and staff are doing an amazing job considering the circumstances, not every student’s needs can be met through online instruction. Unfortunately, MCPS continues to persist with poorly designed surveys to gauge what families and staff want, hindering our ability to craft a reopening plan that fits the situation.

To honor individual choices of families and employees, MCPS needs better data. Rather than running poorly-designed surveys, there needs to be a census of every student and every staff member. We should ask the question, “When do you want to return,” and offer a menu of conditions to choose from. The census could be tied to student and employee dashboards, so everyone must answer before they can proceed with schoolwork. Importantly, respondents should have the ability to log back in and change their minds by picking a reason from a menu. Rather than an artificial 45 day timer, this evolving census data should help drive decisions to return.

The MCPS employee associations must be at the table contributing to the discussion on safety precautions, equipment and materials, protocols for testing, tracing, and quarantining, medical leave, substitution, and the many transitions between online and in-person delivery of instruction. There is also considerable work to be done to assess infrastructure – especially school building ventilation – and to identify safe teaching spaces. Teachers and staff must be involved in every step of the planning process.

What Now

This difficult moment requires steady leadership, deep collaboration, and clear communication. We should be squarely focused on how to safely meet the needs of all students. By all means, we should be planning how and when to reopen, but setting an artificial timer is not going to bring clarity. It’s a recipe for confusion and further anxiety.

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Ike Leggett, Montgomery County Council, Robin Ficker, taxes

Why Montgomery County Ballot Questions B and D Are Truly Bad Ideas You Should Vote Against

Guest column by Isiah Leggett.

Since leaving public office after 12 years as County Executive in December of 2018, I have been doing some travelling (pre-COVID), enjoying my family, and serving on a number of boards and commissions including as a member of the University of Maryland Board of Regents.

What I have not been doing is involving myself in County politics.

Until now.

Why now? Because I believe that two measures on the November ballot will seriously impact this County in significantly negative ways.

Question B is the latest offering from Robin Ficker. Question B would prohibit any increase beyond inflation in property tax revenue. The County already has the 1990 Fairness in Taxation law, which I authored to avoid a referendum with even more draconian limits a la Proposition 13 in Calfornia. That 1990 law limited property tax revenue from one year to the next to inflation plus the value of new construction, unless overridden by a super-majority of the County Council.

Additionally, a 2008 referendum approved by the voters upped the requirement to a unanimous vote of the nine-member Council to override the Charter limit.

I was elected County Executive just as the Great Recession hit this County. Over my 12 years, I closed budget gaps of over $3.5 billion. In 2011 alone, our budget gap was over one billion dollars. What did we do? We reduced the County workforce by 10 percent – 1,254 positions. I remember that number because it seemed to me that most of those folks contacted me personally. I furloughed employees – including myself. We restructured County employee benefits and retirement to save the County hundreds of millions of dollars. We renegotiated promised labor agreements. While maintaining critical services, we tightened the belt on all other County spending.

Some of our surrounding jurisdictions did some of these things. We did them all.

And, yes, after all that, we had to exceed the Charter limit on property taxes to help close those gaps.

Exceeding the limit was a last resort, not a first. That’s the way it should be in effectively managing a budget.

Given all this, I am proud that over my 12 years, property taxes only went up a total of one percent over inflation. And all County taxes as a percentage of County residents’ income actually decreased by five percent. That didn’t happen by accident. I truly needed all the tools at my disposal.

Under most circumstances, the Charter limit in property tax increases is practical. But there are those years where circumstances mean it isn’t.

Under Question B, even if we had four years in which the County didn’t even go to the maximum allowable tax, saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, we could not — in a fifth year, when we were not so lucky — exceed the Charter limit by even a nickel.

That’s not penny-wise and pound-foolish. That’s just foolish.

Such a cap critically compromises our ability to deal with emergencies, whether natural or man-made. It could adversely affect the ability of our public safety agencies to protect our lives and property. It could compromise our Triple-A bond rating, increasing our annual borrowing costs by tens of millions of dollars.

Keep in mind that about half of the County budget goes directly to the schools. Public safety spending is 10 percent. Debt service on borrowing for things we build is about eight percent. That means over two-thirds of the budget already spoken for – without including Montgomery College, health and human services, transportation, libraries, housing, and more.

Forty-seven percent of County revenue comes from the property tax. Forty-two percent comes from the County income tax, which is at the legal limit and cannot be raised. An additional five or six percent comes from energy taxes. Add this all together and that’s about 95 percent of the money we take in.

Question B is a bad idea at any time. Right now, given the pandemic, it is totally nuts.

Question D is likewise a bad idea. In a previous referendum, some years past, it lost overwhelmingly. And rightly so.

Now we have a mixed system — four at-large seats and five geographical district seats. This mix helps ensure local representation, plus it builds in and strengthens an overall County perspective. County residents are represented by their district member and four at-large members. Each citizen gets five votes. Question D would limit that number to only one.

Jurisdictions across America are finding that this blend of at- large and district seats works best – better than all at-large and, yes, better than all district as proposed in Question D.

Change can be a good thing. Or not. Our job, as voters, is to separate change that moves us forward versus change that undermines common sense and practicality. Questions B and D will both throw a wrench into the operational machinery of local government – to no good end.

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The writer served on the Montgomery County Council from 1986 to 2002. He was County Executive from 2006 to 2018.

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Adam Pagnucco, Andrew Friedson, Ethics

Real Deal Ethics Bills

By Adam Pagnucco.

The ethics scandal involving MoCo’s former Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) was a trying moment for the county government but it has produced a happy outcome: the introduction of two robust ethics bills by Council Member Andrew “Real Deal” Friedson. Together, the two bills – if passed – will ensure that the events leading to the now-former CAO’s resignation will never happen again.

Quoting the introduction packet, Bill 42-20 would:

1. Require the Executive to disclose a proposed employment contract with an appointee to a non-merit position and any employment contract with an employee currently serving in a non-merit position to the Council;

2. Include the sale or promotion of certain intellectual property by a public employee as other employment;

3. Prohibit a public employee who has received compensation from an individual or organization in the previous 12 months from participating in a procurement with that individual or organization;

4. Require a public employee who participates in a procurement process with an individual or organization seeking to do business with the County that compensated the public employee for services performed more than 12 months before the participation began to disclose the prior relationship to the Procurement Director;

5. Require an elected official or non-merit employee to disclose, with some exceptions, the source of each fee greater than $1,000 received for services in a financial disclosure statement; and

6. Prohibit the Chief Administrative Officer from engaging in other employment.

Bill 43-20 would prohibit severance pay to non-merit employees. The bill’s language says:

The Executive or a Councilmember must not authorize any payment of money or paid administrative leave to a non-merit employee in the Executive Branch or in the Legislative Branch upon separation from County employment unless the payment is expressly authorized by law. The Executive or a Councilmember must not enter into an employment agreement with a non-merit employee that provides for any type of severance pay for an employee who is terminated with or without cause.

The bill allows payments of unused leave and discontinued pensions. It expressly prohibits “severance pay for an employee who admits to or is found to have violated the Ethics Law in the 12 months prior to separation from County employment.”

These bills are an absolute no-brainer. The entire county council should be all over them like white on rice.

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Adam Pagnucco, alcohol

Poll: 71% of Marylanders Want Beer and Wine in Grocery Stores

By Adam Pagnucco.

A new push to allow beer and wine sales in grocery stores, which is illegal in most of Maryland, is underway by the Maryland Retailers Association. And the retailers have posted a Mason-Dixon poll from 2018 on their website showing massive support for their initiative.

The poll of 625 registered Maryland voters in September 2018 shows that allowing grocery stores to sell beer and wine had 71% support overall. Support had significant majorities across every split on region, sex, age, race and party tested by Mason-Dixon.

A few elected officials in the state favor grocery sales of beer and wine, including Comptroller Peter Franchot and Montgomery County Council Members Hans Riemer and Andrew Friedson. But since this issue is a matter of state law, it’s the General Assembly that counts. The retailers are asking consumers to sign up through their website to get involved with their campaign. The prohibition on grocery store sales of beer and wine is ancient and the package store lobbyists are powerful. Consumer support is absolutely necessary to get this done.

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