Tag Archives: Montgomery County

Al Carr, District 18, MCDCC

MCDCC to Fill Vacant D18 Delegate Nomination

In the wake of Del. Al Carr’s decision to seek election to the county council rather than reelection, the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee is moving to fill the vacant nomination:

NOTICE OF VACANCY IN CANDIDACY FOR STATE DELEGATE, DISTRICT 18

The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) will meet at 7:30 pm, Tuesday, April 19, 2022, via Zoom Meeting to interview candidates to fill the vacancy in candidacy for the Maryland House of Delegates created by the withdrawal of Delegate Al Carr as a candidate for re-election from Legislative District 18. Delegate Carr has instead filed to run for election to the Montgomery County Council, District 4.

The MCDCC derives its authority to fill this vacancy in candidacy from the Maryland Elections Code, § 5-901 [2002] and from the Rules of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee as last amended May 12, 2021.

By order of the Maryland Court of Appeals dated March 15, 2022, the MCDCC must fill the vacancy in candidacy no later than Wednesday, April 20, 2022.

Candidates should submit a cover letter and resume by email to office@mcdcc.org no later than 11:59 pm, Monday, April 18, 2022, with the subject line Application for Vacancy in Candidacy, District 18 Delegate.

Candidates should also provide their current home address or legal residence.

An applicant must be a registered Democratic voter in the State of Maryland, a resident of Legislative District 18, and have attained the age of 21 years.

Candidates who meet the above qualifications will be invited to make introductory statements at the April 19 meeting, to be followed by questions posed to the candidates by members of the Central Committee

The Central Committee will vote publicly to fill the vacancy immediately after concluding the interviews.

The April 19 meeting will be conducted via Zoom Meeting and will be open to the public. Any person wishing to attend must register in advance at bit.ly/mcdcc-04-19. Registrants will receive an auto-reply email with the Zoom Meeting link.

Please email any questions to office@mcdcc.org.

Share
2022 Democratic Primary, Tom Hucker

In Lane 4: Decision Time for Tom Hucker

County Councilmember Tom Hucker (D-5) has filed to run for county executive. Today he has to decide whether to stick with that chancy race or file for reelection. Positioning himself as a strong progressive, Hucker was first elected to the Council in 2014 after narrowly defeating now-at large Councilmember Evan Glass in the Democratic primary.

The campaign’s January campaign finance report showed that he had $252,533.09 in bank. To my surprise, googling “Tom Hucker County Executive” did not produce a campaign website, so here is his twitter account. (Thanks to a reader; it’s tomhucker.com.) On the plus side, he represents the one-fifth of the county with the most Democratic primary voters.

Hucker’s run for county executive has nevertheless always struck me as quixotic because I don’t really see a lane for him. His core argument is essentially that he’d be a more effective leader than Elrich, which is unclear and exactly what the other candidates claim.

Two candidates are competing for the same base. The major policy difference I see is that Hucker is ardently pro-Thrive, the proposed general plan for the next 30 years, which alienates a good section of Elrich’s supporters. I imagine Hucker would contend that this makes him more progressive while others would say it aligns him with big business against ordinary residents of the county.

Elrich’s supporters may also not appreciate his efforts to set himself up for the run by taking potshots on the administration while serving for a year as Council President. Meanwhile, Hans Riemer seems to have the ardent urbanist vote, such as it is, nailed down. Hucker doesn’t have pots of money like David Blair and is not going to win business support.

Hucker also lacks the identity constituency around which so many Democrats align. While not a bad politician, he also doesn’t have the sort of charisma that is getting Wes Moore a lot of positive attention in the gubernatorial race.

Unlike Councilmember Riemer, Hucker can still run for one more term on the county council before he runs up against term limits. At that point, the county executive’s race would be open. It’d still be a tough race but at least he’d have more of an open lane. Labor is sticking with Elrich, who has already been endorsed by MCEA and three SEIU locals. Progressive Maryland and Progressive Neighbors have too.

Several candidates have filed for Hucker’s redrawn district, including Takoma Park Mayor Kate Stewart Porter and Friends of White Flint Executive Director Amy Ginsburg. Hucker would still be the strong favorite. On the other hand, Hucker could also file for one of the at-large seats. Brandy Brooks’s campaign is tanking, so there is a real opening for a progressive candidate for the open seat.

Hucker has until 9:00pm to decide.

Share
planning, Thrive 2050

Thrive’s Failure on Housing, Part I: If We Zone It, They Will Come

The Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan casts the lack of robust housing growth as a major challenge facing the county, suggesting that it will leave people unhoused. It further suggests that job growth won’t happen unless we have more housing. The proposed solution is to increase allowed residential density in both commercial centers and single-family residential neighborhoods.

This approach wholly misunderstands both the reality of the situation and market economics. Much land is already zoned both for housing and density. According to Montgomery’s Planning Department, there are roughly 36,500 unbuilt residential units. This doesn’t even include Rockville and Gaithersburg.

In 2019, the Council of Governments (COG) released a housing target of 41,000 new units for Montgomery by 2030. We built 4,739 new units in 2019 and 2020, leaving 36,261 to be built by 2030. Even excluding all of the units built in 2021, we have already approved enough new units to meet COG’s housing target.

The ideas that there is no place to build and that insufficient housing is planned to meet expected needs are simply false. The lack of opportunities to build is not the problem, as anyone who has driven past the remains of White Flint Mall knows. Of course, sections of nearby Pike & Rose are also still being built.

But can we get even more housing built through adding density? Proponents envision developers responding to Thrive-enabled upzoning by building massive numbers of new units and thereby depressing the price, whether for rental or sale. New jobs, they say, will come to Montgomery as a result. But that’s not how the market works. Developers build in response to demand. New jobs result in new housing—not the reverse.

Developers also naturally consider many complex factors in deciding when and how much to build, especially land prices, building costs, sales prices, and likely profits. No matter how much we upzone, developers won’t dump more housing on the market. Developers look to make a profit, so they build at a rate that allows them to make money based on demand—not at a rate that results in profit-killing price declines.

This isn’t a nefarious plot to limit housing. It’s just how the economy works and assures that new housing gets built. But zoning for more housing won’t result in more housing unless there is a demand for it in that area and the economics of building it make sense. No one is going to build more if prices are going down and they can’t make money out of it.

Just because you zone it doesn’t mean that they’ll build it. Rampant increases in density may slow building because tall buildings are much more expensive to construct. But builders don’t want to lose the profits off the increased density, so they wait to build until it’s profitable. Indeed, this is the rationale behind the expensive payments to build at Grosvenor Metro even as property taxes rise.

The evidence that “smart” growth results in lower prices is thin on the ground. Neither Portland nor New York is known for affordability. But Houston, the embodiment of sprawl, is. Why? Texas is big so the city can expand outward much more easily than here. They also have no zoning, so development can be densely packed or spread out. It’s an argument for a set of policies very different from smart growth.

In short, Thrive promises a chimera. If only we increase density and allow more housing to be built, housing prices will come down and jobs will increase. Montgomery County has allowed more density repeatedly in recent years and it hasn’t happened. Thrive’s doubling down on the strategy won’t work either.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County

Once Again, MoCo’s Two Electorates

By Adam Pagnucco.

In November 2016, I wrote a three-part series called MoCo’s Two Electorates. (Here are the links to Part One, Part Two and Part Three.) I also wrote a piece titled “MoCo Revolts” in the wake of the term limits vote.

The combined thesis of those pieces are the following.

1. MoCo has two electorates: people who regularly vote in Democratic primaries and people who vote in general elections. Both electorates are important. Democratic primaries choose the county’s elected officials while general elections decide ballot questions and charter amendments.

2. There are roughly 40,000 Super Democrats in MoCo who vote in every primary. Relative to general election voters, they tend to be slightly more female, older, slightly higher income, slightly more likely to live in a single family home and more concentrated in downcounty. They are also slightly LESS diverse than general election voters.

3. Democrats comprise roughly 60% of general election voters with some variation by year. Republicans have outnumbered unaffiliated voters among the rest of actual voters though not by a lot. That means Republicans and unaffiliated voters can team up with a minority of Democrats to pass ballot questions.

4. On four straight meaningful local ballot questions since 2008, the general electorate took arguably the less progressive position in their votes. They voted in favor of Robin Ficker’s anti-tax charter amendment in 2008, against Ike Leggett’s ambulance fee in 2010, in favor of repealing some collective bargaining rights for police in 2012 and for term limits in 2016. This trend among the general electorate should not be comforting to the left. Term limits passed with a whopping 70% of the vote and only four precincts in the entire county voted against them.

Accordingly, these are the prophecies I made back then.

November 7, 2016: “Term limits is the issue of the day and will be decided soon enough. But a broader question looms. Given the differences between MoCo’s Two Electorates, what happens when elected officials cater to one of them at the heavy expense of the other? The recent large property tax hike, which was spread all across county government, was aimed at the priorities of liberal Democratic voters. It also became the core of the push for term limits which is aimed at the general electorate. This suggests a need for balance and restraint by those running the government. Because if one of the two electorates feels unheeded, either one has the tools to strike back – either by unseating incumbents or by shackling them with more ballot questions and charter amendments.”

November 11, 2016: “Opponents of term limits may be right about one thing – they may change the names of elected officials, but not the type of them. Democrats, often very liberal ones, will continue to be elected because of our closed primary system. But the combined message of the last four ballot questions imposes a hard choice on the elected officials of today and tomorrow. They can try to balance the interests of various constituencies across the political spectrum at the possible cost of losing the progressive support that influences Democratic primaries. Or they can stay the course and watch more moderate general election voters pass even more restrictive ballot questions, including perhaps the ultimate bane of progressivism – a hard tax cap.”

What has happened since then? First, let’s consider these two facts from the 2018 elections.

Geography: In the 2018 Democratic primary, the Democratic Crescent (a term I coined for the areas in and near the Beltway stretching from Takoma Park to Kensington and Bethesda) accounted for 34% of voter turnout while Upcounty accounted for 25%. In the 2018 general election, the Democratic Crescent accounted for 27% of voter turnout while Upcounty accounted for 31%. (The rest of the county accounted for 42% in each case.)

Diversity: Precincts that were majority white cast 60% of the votes in the 2018 Democratic primary and 58% of the votes in the 2018 general election. Precincts that were at least three-quarters white cast 22% of the votes in the Dem primary and 20% of the votes in the general. Precincts that were less than 40% white cast 24% of the votes in the Dem primary and 26% of the votes in the general. All of this suggests that the general electorate is slightly more diverse than MoCo’s Democratic primary electorate, which I also found in the 2014 data I examined years ago.

In other words, despite the substantial growth in voting in 2018, the differences between MoCo’s two electorates continued.

Two years later, ballot questions are THE local issue now. The county’s elected officials are up in arms about Ficker’s newest anti-tax charter amendment (which I predicted four years ago) and the nine districts charter amendment. Groups like Nine Districts for MoCo and former school board candidate Stephen Austin’s Facebook group did not exist in 2016, but they are playing in county politics now. Austin’s group has 8,500 members, bigger than any other online group devoted to MCPS. Nine Districts gathered more than 16,000 petition signatures for their charter amendment, of which 11,522 were found to be valid. Both groups direct their influence at the general electorate rather than just Democratic primary voters. Neither depends on the blessings of the Democratic Party but rather employs a combination of social media, press interest and (in Nine Districts’ case) developer money to get their points across. As for the Republican Party, it has found new life in promoting ballot questions like Ficker’s Question B and Nine Districts’ Question D.

Guess what? These kinds of things are here to stay. Regardless of what happens this year, don’t be surprised if more charter amendments appear on the ballot in 2022 and 2024 that arouse the ire of those in power. Tough beans for them because they are powerless to prevent it.

Have today’s county elected officials heeded the prophecies of 2016? For the most part, their agenda reflects the wishes of the progressive left – defunding the police, pursuing racial equity, cracking down on rent increases, resisting ICE and emphasizing transit over road construction. The one exception is that the county council (unlike the executive) has been resistant to tax hikes. Progressives sometimes complain that the county government doesn’t go far enough, but it does go in their direction. The problem is that other groups in the general electorate – Republicans, unaffiliated people and moderate to conservative Democrats – either don’t rank these priorities as highly as do progressives or in some cases might even oppose them. Mix that in with the county’s perceived anti-business reputation and geographically specific issues like school boundary lines and M-83 and many in the general electorate are not in the same place as the Super Democrats.

MoCo still has two electorates. One has the power to pick elected officials. The other can decide ballot questions that fundamentally change the structure of county government. We shall soon discover the depth of differences between them as well as their relative balance of power in controlling the county’s destiny.

Share
Democrats, Kirill Reznik, Montgomery County

Dear MoCo Democrats, It’s Time to Back the Nominees

By Delegate Kirill Reznik (D-39).

You may not know it, but there is a war raging.  It’s mostly among my 3,000 or so Facebook friends.  You see, apparently there is a civil war between the Clintonite, corporatist pseudo-fascists and the Sanderista, Marxist communists for the Presidency of…yeah, it’s the County Executive Primary.  By the way, these are not my descriptions, these are how you have described supporters of David Blair and Marc Elrich.  Don’t believe me?  I have screenshots.

It doesn’t matter that we all agree on literally 90% of all issues.  Yes, that’s right, we do.  But recently, it has become popular to discount any politician or elected official who doesn’t agree with you 100% of the time as the worst example of the other side.

Let’s be very, very clear.  Republicans don’t actually do this.  Yes, they fight in the Primary, and then they back their nominee.  Every. Single. Time.  And they will do it for Robin Ficker.  And they will come out to vote.

I did not support either Marc Elrich or David Blair in the Primary.  I did not support David Trone for Congress.  I did enthusiastically support Ben Jealous for Governor.   But I would have supported Rushern Baker or Rich Madaleno or anyone else, just like I plan to support the Democratic nominees for County Executive and Congress.  Why?  Because they are all 1,000 times better than the alternative.  David Blair is not going to sell the County to the highest bidder and Marc Elrich is not going to put us all into gulags.

I guarantee you that the Republicans will be out in force in November to back Larry Hogan, Amie Hoeber and Ficker, and they will pretend that they are all moderate to siphon votes from our side.  They are so afraid of an educated, healthy and reasonably compensated middle class workforce that they will vote for the Republican nominees no matter what.

They will portray Hogan as moderate.  The guy who nominated a gun nut who thinks that Democrats are responsible for mass shootings to the Handgun Permit Review Board.  The guy who nominated a woman who thinks doctors who perform legal abortions should lose their license to practice medicine to the Maryland Board of Physicians.  The guy who exploited an alleged rape in a high school to deny Montgomery County Public Schools a waiver to extend the school year for five days.  The guy who called teachers “thugs.”  They will portray him as a moderate and they will be out in force to elect him.

They will portray Amie Hoeber as a moderate.  The woman who thinks that separating children from their parents is a “complicated issue.”  The one who will vote for a right wing Speaker of the House dead set on rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s agenda.  They will be out in force for her too.

And if you doubt they will also vote for Robin Ficker, you are kidding yourself.  So go ahead, split the vote with an independent run, launch a write-in campaign, do it all. Cut up the Democratic vote so much that a camouflage shorts-wearing sociopath becomes County Executive.  Don’t think it could happen?  Take a look at the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who received 93,000 votes in Montgomery County.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Democrats, Montgomery County

MoCo Democrats are Badly Divided

By Adam Pagnucco.

This may not be the most polite thing to say in the wake of the MoCo Democrats’ Kiss and Make Up Party, but it’s the truth: MoCo Dems are badly divided.  Consider the following.

The photo finish in the Executive race between Marc Elrich and David Blair is exacerbated by the fact that many Democratic activists are part of Anybody But Elrich or Anybody But Blair factions.  No matter who wins, that person will have 29% of the primary vote, far lower than any prior MoCo Executive.

That’s not the only divide in the Executive race.  The three incumbent Council Members received a combined 52% of the vote.  The three outsiders received 48%.  That suggests an even split between those who want more of what they have seen from the council and those who want something different.

Gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous won MoCo with roughly 36% of the vote, four points ahead of Rushern Baker and 22 points ahead of MoCo State Senator Rich Madaleno.  No one wants to talk about this publicly, but there are quite a few county Dems out there who will consider voting for Governor Larry Hogan.

Now Nancy Floreen has filed a declaration of intent to run for County Executive as an independent.  This is sure to attract the attention of some Dems who are upset that the nine-member County Council will include just one woman.  Floreen is one of the most prominent female Democrats in the county’s history.  No woman has been elected countywide more times than Floreen since charter government was established in 1970.  If she does indeed get on the ballot, a not-insignificant number of Dems – especially women – could vote for her.

All of this adds to county Democrats’ pre-existing divide about land use, the Upcounty vs Downcounty split, long-standing tensions between progressives and moderates and the Hillary vs Bernie disputes of two years ago (and the Hillary vs Obama disputes before that).  Throw that in with the fact that a majority of Democrats voted for term limits and there’s a lot of bubbling in the cauldron right now.

The county’s two most popular Democrats are U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen and Congressman Jamie Raskin.  Neither is known for intervening in and settling local disputes.  County Executive Ike Leggett is widely respected but is leaving office.  The Governor is a Republican who is happy to see Dems fight Dems.

As for the Republicans, they must be kicking themselves that they couldn’t find anyone else to run for Executive other than Robin Ficker.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Economy, Frederick County, Marc Elrich, Montgomery County

Marc Elrich: “I Prefer to Put Jobs in Frederick”

By Adam Pagnucco.

Yesterday, Greater Greater Washington (GGW) wrote a long essay about Council Member Marc Elrich, who is running for Executive.  GGW has many disagreements with Elrich about smart growth and housing and mostly concentrated on those issues.  But the essay contained this quote from an interview with Elrich.

Broadly, Elrich isn’t convinced Montgomery County needs to add many new homes or residents, or jobs. Many people with jobs in Bethesda or DC are now living in Frederick County and other outlying areas and driving through Montgomery to get to work. We asked Elrich what he’d do for these folks, and his answer was, “I prefer to put jobs in Frederick.” He’d encourage the growth of both households and jobs to happen there, and in Prince George’s County, and elsewhere.

Elrich has disputed quotes before and we will see if he disputes this one.  But if the quote is accurate… well.

The chart below uses data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to compare growth in total employment in Frederick and MoCo from 2001 through 2016.

Frederick’s job creation record is clearly better than MoCo’s in both absolute and relative terms.

Now let’s use BLS data to compare growth in establishment counts in the two counties.

Frederick beats MoCo in growth rate and, over the last decade, in net new establishment count too.

Let’s bear in mind the relative size of the two counties.  Frederick has about a quarter of MoCo’s population.  Yet, Frederick has created a larger absolute number of jobs over the last fifteen years than MoCo and had a net gain since 2006 while MoCo had a net loss.  In terms of establishments, Frederick created more than double what MoCo did over the last decade despite being much smaller.

Now let’s recall the research we did three weeks ago on taxpayer migration.  MoCo is often compared to Fairfax, but the truth is that we have lost more taxpayer income to Frederick than to Fairfax over the last decade.

Between 2006 and 2016, MoCo had a net outmigration of $582 million in real adjusted gross income to Frederick.

The greatest losses to Frederick occurred during MoCo’s home price boom of 2002 through 2007.  MoCo home prices are rising again so let’s connect the economic dots.  Suppose we cut off housing construction in the ways Elrich described to Greater Greater Washington.  Unless there is a recession – which would bring a different set of problems – a housing shutdown in MoCo would cause more home price and rent hikes, exacerbating our already oppressive cost of living and pushing some folks into Frederick.  Once in Frederick, some of those people would start businesses, hire people and create more economic activity there.  That’s great for Frederick and it’s part of the explanation for the growth they have seen in the last fifteen years.  But what exactly does that do for us?

Look, folks – with surging needs in schools, transportation and everything else and with maxed out county debt, we have a lot of bills to pay.  There are two ways to do it.  Option one is to grow our commercial tax base and create jobs, thereby generating more tax revenue.  Option two is more big tax hikes which will further strain the cost of living.

If we have a County Executive who is fighting to put jobs in Frederick and NOT in MoCo, which option do you think our county will pick?

Disclosure: the author supports Roger Berliner for Executive.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County, State Aid

MoCo’s Mighty Seven Zip Codes

By Adam Pagnucco.

For a long time, Montgomery County has been thought of as a wealthy jurisdiction.  It has long appeared in lists of the nation’s richest counties (although it is about to drop out of the top twenty).  Politicians elsewhere in Maryland view it as a gold mine, with Senate President Mike Miller famously saying, “It’s like Never Neverland for other legislators of the state.”  The county is regularly shorted by state wealth formulas which disproportionately distribute state aid, especially for public schools, to other parts of Maryland.

But most of Montgomery County is not particularly rich.  Its wealth is concentrated in seven zip codes which skew its mean household income upward and make the county as a whole appear richer than it really is.

All residents of MoCo understand that there are huge differences between areas in the county even though many outsiders do not.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county’s mean household income was $133,543 over the 2011-2015 period, just barely squeaking past Howard County ($132,751) for tops in the state.  But that conceals big variations.  MoCo has nine zip codes in which mean household incomes were under $100,000.  The combined mean household income of these areas ($92,668) is roughly equal to the mean household income of Prince George’s County ($90,268).

MoCo has seven zip codes in which mean household incomes were over $200,000 in the 2011-2015 period.  These zip codes, mostly located northwest of D.C., account for 14% of the county’s households and 25% of its household income.  If these zip codes were regarded as a separate jurisdiction, their combined mean household income would be $238,917.  The combined mean household income of the rest of Montgomery County is $116,618 – about half the income of the Mighty Seven.

How do the mean incomes of the Mighty Seven and the rest of the county compare to the rest of the region?  We show the mean household incomes of those two parts of the county along with the other large jurisdictions in the region below.  The Mighty Seven as a group are easily at the top although we suspect that extracts of the wealthiest parts of Loudoun, Fairfax, Howard and D.C. would also be in that range.  As for the rest of the county, its income is average compared to the rest of the region.

That’s right, folks – with the exception of its wealthiest zip codes, MoCo is a middle-income jurisdiction by the (admittedly high) standards of the Washington region.

This reality has interesting implications for policy makers and candidates.  The issue of equity between different parts of Montgomery County is getting traction as a political issue in the upcoming election.  But in terms of who pays the county government’s bills, there is no question that county revenues are hugely dependent on a limited number of wealthy neighborhoods, especially in the absence of robust economic growth.  If those residents decide that they can get a better deal by living somewhere else, that would be a huge threat to the county’s tax base.

As for the state level, there’s a tendency to look at differing incomes and wealth BETWEEN counties but not INSIDE counties.  That’s how state wealth formulas work – they compare counties to each other but not local areas to each other.  How many state policy makers have understood prior to reading this blog post that there is a large part of Montgomery County that is economically comparable to Prince George’s?  It’s time for a serious examination of how to direct state aid to local areas in need regardless of which county borders they happen to occupy.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County

Where Are We Going?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Your author has written over a thousand posts over the last decade about state and local politics.  Some of those posts were tough.  Some called out elected officials by name and others took strong positions on issues that were unpopular with some.  But none of them provoked a more negative reaction from the political establishment in Rockville than our three recent posts on the history of MCPS funding.

Those posts did not contain ad hominem attacks.  They relied on budget data to make a point: the county restricted local funding for public schools for seven straight years and relied on state aid to fund the school system until property taxes were raised last year.  We then recommended that the school system get small, steady per pupil increases to deal with their needs financed by restraint in the rest of the budget.  This was not enjoyed by the officialdom in Rockville.  Terms were used like “misleading,” “distortions,” and “over the top.”  But in the end, the response from Council Member Nancy Floreen wound up confirming, not refuting, much of what we wrote.  There is no real disagreement over the facts of the matter; the budget data tells the same story no matter how it is read.  There is only disagreement over how those facts are characterized.

All of this provokes a thought.  Everyone reading this post has suffered a huge defeat at some point in their lives.  What does one do?  Well, after regaining consciousness and asking, “What the hell happened?” many people try to reconstruct what led to the defeat and assess the various factors that contributed to it, including self-inflicted wounds.  Then a resolution is made to avoid repeating those mistakes in the future.  Sure, we often mess up again.  But sometimes we learn and improve.

For the Rockville political establishment, the 40-point passage of term limits was that moment of huge defeat.  It was the biggest voter revolt since two consecutive County Councils were thrown out in the 1960s.  Where is the self-reflection and soul searching in the wake of that moment?  We’d like to see someone in government say, “Here’s what we learned from term limits.  Here’s what will be different going forward.”  Anyone who does that would deserve great respect.

Your author speaks regularly to candidates who knock on doors.  There is considerable diversity in the views of the voters.  Development is one issue provoking different opinions.  “We need more jobs.”  “We are overdeveloped.”  “We need more affordable housing which is why we need to stop all this building!”  (Yes folks, that was an actual quote from a MoCo voter!)  But there is also a bit of unease.  “My kid’s school is crowded.”  “I pay more in taxes but I’m not getting more in return.”  “I’m having problems affording the cost of living here and I’m worried that my kids won’t be able to afford to live here.”  “The county doesn’t listen to me.”  These are not tea partiers or Trump supporters; these are Democrats who regularly vote.  This isn’t hatred of incumbents.  But lots of folks are asking the same question.  Where are we going?

The interest groups in the county are asking the same thing.  None of them feels content.  The business community, the labor folks, the PTAs, the Realtors, the civic community and the rest of them are all uneasy and some are downright unhappy.  They have more in common than they believe.  What happens when they start talking to each other?

The 2018 election will not be a normal event.  It occurs in the context of a stagnant economy, a school system in desperate need, a tight budget, abject failures in the White House and Capitol Hill and voter rejection of the status quo.  We haven’t seen anything like this in decades.  The good news is that the candidate field is outstanding.  Some of the incumbents have tremendous experience and substantial achievements in their records.  All of them who were in office in 2010 can claim credit for saving the county from complete fiscal disaster.  The non-incumbents are smart, energetic, diverse and gifted in life experience.  Many of them would make great elected officials.

But we need something more.  We need to ask: where are we going?  And where should we be going?  To do that, we have to honestly assess where we’ve been – even if it means breaking a few eggs – and then figure out how to move forward.  It’s not easy.  As the incumbents will tell you, the constraints are real.  Do you want to give more money to the public schools?  Fine – then understand the state’s maintenance of effort law and be prepared to raise taxes or control spending elsewhere in the budget.  Do you want to improve the economy?  Fine – then avoid increasing the difficulty of doing business in the county, especially when it comes to employer costs and predictability.  Do you want to increase incomes?  Fine – that involves a discussion of rebuilding the working and middle classes through encouraging collective bargaining.  Do you want to increase funding for school construction?  Fine – then you need to find new revenue or be prepared to restrain the rest of the capital budget.  Do you want to help immigrants and people of color?  Fine – then be attentive to the needs of small businesses, which in this county are dominated by owners who are immigrants and people of color.  Do you want to close the achievement gap?  Fine – get ready for some difficult discussions about housing policy.  We could go on and on.

These discussions are necessary for us to move forward.  They must be honest.  They must be driven by data, not ideology.  And they must not spare political sacred cows.  Because if we don’t figure out where we are going, we will wind up in one place.

Nowhere.  Nowhere at all.

Share
Minimum Wage

Elrich Slams Berliner on Minimum Wage

The following is by Councilmember Marc Elrich (D-At Large):

Earlier this week, the Council’s HHS committee voted 2-1 (Berliner and Rice vs Leventhal) to delay the full implementation of the minimum wage by two years for BOTH large and small businesses. (My bill cosponsored by 4 of my colleagues would raise the minimum wage 2020 for businesses with more than 25 employees and 2022 for those under 25.) While everyone acknowledges that there will be some impact on some small businesses, yet again no evidence was presented that demonstrated that it would be a significant impact.  While there are numerous studies, the meta-analysis of those studies show slight to no impacts on employment.[1] Statements should be supported by data or analysis.  The absence of data is part of what made the PFM study so bad, because their original massive job loss assertions, and even their second lower revised figure, did not reflect the data from anywhere (as this blog and others have documented[2]).  On the other side of the scale, studies clearly show the devastating impacts of poverty on children and families. I taught for 17 years at a high poverty school, and I saw up close the impact of poverty on students.

We have an opportunity to move toward a decent standard of living for these workers who have been working hard at low wages. Councilmember Berliner’s amendment to delay large businesses by two years to 2022 puts us two years behind Target’s stated nationwide plan. That is particularly inappropriate given that our county is one of the wealthiest in the entire country.

Councilmember Berliner argued for the delay using Minneapolis as the model and said that Montgomery County should use the same timing as they had. Using Minneapolis’ implementation schedule as a model would assume that it is a comparable jurisdiction. But it is not. Below I compare the living wage in the two jurisdictions. There are some big differences.

This table compares the living wage NEEDED TODAY in each jurisdiction.

Living Wage Minneapolis Montgomery County
Single adult $11.36 $15.80
1 adult 1 child $24.68 $29.82
1 adult 2 children $31.04 $34.87
2 adults 2 children $16.85* $18.72*

*This number is per adult in the two-adult family
(Source: Living Wage Calculator, MIT)

In every case, more than $15 an hour is needed TODAY in Montgomery County, but the cost difference between living here versus Minneapolis is the equivalent of $4 an hour, or $2 an hour if 2 adults are working.

However, the most important factor in cost of living differences is housing. Housing costs are what drives the cost of living and necessitate a particular wage. Here is a comparison of housing costs:

Jurisdiction 1br  yr/mo 2br  yr/mo 3br  yr/mo
Minneapolis $7824/ 652 $12635/1075 $17967/1497
Montgomery $15684/1307 $19476/1645 $25728/2144
Difference – or how much higher it is MoCo $7860/655 $6841/570 $7761/646

(Source: Living Wage Calculator, MIT)

A MoCo resident would need between $570-655/month more than a Minneapolis resident to pay the difference in housing costs. For all other expenses combined, Montgomery County is a few hundred dollars per year more costly to live in than Minneapolis, but annual housing costs are between $6841 and $7860 higher for Montgomery County. To suggest that a wage in Minneapolis, or a schedule for raising wages, should be replicated in Montgomery County ignores the enormous cost difference between the two jurisdictions which leaves our working poor deeply mired in poverty. We are simply prolonging an untenable situation for tens of thousands of families.

Finally, there is one last incorrect assumption in delaying the implementation date, and that is that Minneapolis is noticeably more gentle to small business. It’s been said that the proposed rate of increase is too fast. However, the facts show a different story.

Here is the pace of increase in the two jurisdictions:

Jurisdiction Small business increase # of years Cost/year Large business

increase

 # of years Cost/year
Minneapolis $7.25 7 $1.03 $5.50 5 $1.10
Montgomery County $3.50 5 $.70 $3.50 3 $1.16

In other words, the impact in Minneapolis on small businesses is greater in terms of total increase than Montgomery County ($7.25 vs $3.50) and greater as a per-year expense ($1.03 vs .70) For large businesses, the difference in total increase in Minneapolis is also greater than MoCo ($5.50 vs $3.50) but is slightly less per year ($1.10 vs $1.16).

So for small businesses, if the issue is pace, then the Minneapolis schedule is worse for their small business than what I’ve proposed, and for large businesses our target is 2020, no different than what Target has committed to nationally for 2020.

In short, Minneapolis is so different regarding affordability for its citizens that the impact of raising the minimum wage, and the urgency for raising the minimum wage, is simply not the same. Our residents are far more rent burdened and have far less disposable income. And if you’re worried about small employers, our steps are smaller, only 2/3 of the average annual increases that Minneapolis is implementing.

For one last comparison, I looked at Flagstaff, Arizona, which is also raising its minimum wage to $15.  Their living costs are slightly higher than Minneapolis but still much lower than Montgomery County.  And housing costs in particular are slightly higher than in Minneapolis, but about $6,000 a year lower than those costs in Montgomery County.  Yet they are raising their minimum wage for all businesses from $8.05 in November 2016, to $11.00 in January 2018, and then up to $15 an hour in January 2021.  So they are increasing by $7 per hour over just 5 years – a rate of increase that exceeds anything proposed in Montgomery County.

The minimum wage needs to reflect the costs that people have to bear in order to sustain themselves.  Prolonging the implementation simply erodes the value of the wage.  Frankly, in a perfect world we’d be close to $15 today and then let it rise with inflation.  Even my bill, with 2020 and 2022 implementation dates will mean that when $15 is reached it will be worth less than $15 today, and I wish we could do better, but the proposed delay just makes things worse and is completely divorced from the reality that low-income families face.

[1] http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-minimum-wage-increase-and-the-cbos-job-loss-estimate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JaredBernstein+%28Jared+Bernstein%29 and https://www.hendrix.edu/news/news.aspx?id=64671

[2] http://www.epi.org/blog/the-montgomery-county-minimum-wage-impact-study-is-absurd-junk-science/

Share