Maryland Politics Watch

Post Keeps Shrinking

2009-11-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

On November 20, the City Paper reported that the Post was laying off about ten website employees as it merged that operation with the newspaper. One of the workers was told the "numbers have been bad on the digital side and because of that, that's why they're doing it."

On November 24, Howard Kurtz reported that the Post was closing all its remaining U.S. bureaus outside Washington, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Kurtz quoted Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli as saying, "We are not a national news organization of record serving a general audience. Nor are we a wire service or cable channel." Kurtz also noted that the Post's newspaper division had lost $166.7 million in the first three quarters of this year.

When is this going to end?

MoCo Government Takes Over the Redskins

2009-11-25T07:00:00.005-05:00

Beleaguered Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has turned over the team to the Montgomery County government. In an MPW exclusive, we bring you into a meeting of the County Council as they discuss what to do with the club.

Phil Andrews: The present situation is totally unsustainable. Expenses are out of control. The players’ salaries have been soaring for years. No more raises!

Valerie Ervin: These players are cream-puffs. They couldn’t tackle a donut. I’m calling the Teamsters Union so we can get some real tough guys in there.

Nancy Navarro: It’s time for us to recognize and embrace the diversity on the team. If we do that, everything will be all right.

Nancy Floreen: The devil is in the details. And who’s paying for all this?

Marc Elrich: The problem we have is the capacity tests for the players. Twenty years ago, the previous ownership instituted a local area test and a project area test for player evaluation. Then the new owners came in and their financial contributors messed up the tests to benefit their own draft picks. If we watch the money, fix the tests and change absolutely nothing else for decades, we’ll have a higher quality of life for the fans.

Tom Manger: Would a helicopter help?

Jerry Weast: I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t mess with my budget. But if there is any left-over money from concession sales, I can always use it.

Brian Johnson and Rollin Stanley: Will the team be issuing credit cards?

Mike Knapp: What do you think, Roger?

Roger Berliner: I’m waiting for four of you to agree on something and the other four to oppose it. Then I get to decide!

Patrick Lacefield: Just keep the damn bloggers out of the stadium.

Duchy Trachtenberg (just back from Boston): They need to tighten their belts! And don’t forget to protect the transgender players!

All Council Members Together: We want some state money! Where is our delegation?!

Ike Leggett: OK, it’s settled. We’ll do all of the above, except for the things we don’t do.

George Leventhal: But what happens if that doesn’t work?

Ike Leggett: Then it’s the council’s fault. What, do you guys think I’m going to take the fall for this?

State Legislators Advocate for Light Rail on CCT

2009-11-24T20:00:00.004-05:00

A group of thirteen Montgomery County state legislators has written to the Governor asking him to select light rail for the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT). The group includes every legislator from Districts 15, 17 and 39 - which account for the entire alignment of the project - except for Delegate Luiz Simmons (D-17). Additionally, District 14 Delegate Karen Montgomery and District 14 Senator Rona Kramer signed on. Kramer, along with District 39 Senator Nancy King, is a member of the Senate's critical Budget and Taxation Committee. The County Council voted 6-3 to support light rail, with Council Members Phil Andrews, Marc Elrich and Roger Berliner supporting bus rapid transit instead.

Following is the joint letter.

Eli El: "The Devil will not break my God given WILL"

2009-11-24T14:00:00.005-05:00

District 20 Delegate candidate Eli El continues to be unhappy with our revelations about his domestic abuse case, sending in eleven different comments to our original post on the subject. (One of the others came from an individual representing the "National Coalition of Men" urging male voters to "get out the penis vote" for El.) Following is the text of his most recent comment.

Greetings,

In this matter, Judge William G. Simmons proves my point..."The Mind Can Only Reason What The Heart Can Process".

I am not trying to get too philosophical over the internet; However, this "keeping it real" moment is absolutely needed. Most of us believe in some Higher Being. I believe in God. For me, God is The Provider of all Grace and Fulfillment; The Creator of Light, Love, and Life; The Great Architect of the Universe; The Creator of all things seen and unseen. If you believe in God, you may also know that there is a Devil {The Tempter}. The Devil is the opposite of everything that is good. In disputes, debates, fights, hostilities, and confrontation; we often blame our colleagues, spouses, children, bosses, or friends. However, in most cases, we fail to identify the true enemy...the Devil.

The Devil's goal is to:
DECEIEVE
DESTROY
DISRUPT
DIVIDE

Again, I did nothing to threaten or harm anyone. The facts prove it.

Isaiah 54:17 reads, '...no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me," declares the LORD.'

Throughout history, there have been many religious accounts of God's children who have been falsely persecuted and unjustly punished. One of the Devil's goals is to take away your WILL to do good deeds. The Devil is just as active in 33 B.C. and he is in 2009 A.D. My enemy is not Judge William G. Simmons; I know who is the true enemy whom is always determined to destroy what God has placed together. The Spiritual Enemy {Devil} has won that battle, but he will not win the war. The Devil will not break my God given WILL. I pray that every person, who reads this blog posting, continues to support me as I continue to walk uprightly before God and Man. Please don’t allow yourself to be influenced by the Devil.

I urge that you remain focused and not ever be temped by the Devil who makes many offers and sets many traps in order to disrupt your true calling. Whether are a student, single-parent, business owner, Scientist, religious leader, Soldier, professional athlete, or even The President of the United States of America...Do NOT let the Devil:

DECEIEVE you with disappointment, fear, or even temporary gifts
DESTROY your WILL.
DISRUPT your path or destiny
DIVIDE your families, friends, and loved ones

Recommended Readings:
The Strategy of Satan: How to Detect and Defeat Him by Warren W. Wiersbe
The Rules of Engagement: The Art of Strategic Prayer And Spiritual Warfare by N. Cindy Trimm

If you have other suggested readings, please reply with your recommendations.

Warm Regards,
Eli El

MdTA Releases More Documents on Free E-ZPasses for Legislators

2009-11-24T07:00:00.019-05:00

The one lingering mystery from the now-cancelled free E-ZPass program for state legislators concerns the number of Senators and Delegates who had them. In August 2009, the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) told us that 128 state legislators had free E-ZPasses but refused to release their names. On September 30, MdTA responded to our Public Information Act (PIA) request seeking those names and told us that only 71 had them. What happened to the other 57 legislators? We found out that MdTA tipped off the General Assembly about our PIA request in a September 23 letter, but we had no further details. So we sent another information request and MdTA has sent us its response.

Specifically, we asked MdTA for:

1. A list of legislators who held non-revenue E-ZPass accounts for any period of time between January 1, 2009 and September 30, 2009.

2. A list of the dates on which any of these accounts were canceled from January 1, 2009 through September 30, 2009.

3. Copies of any records of communication between MdTA and any member of the General Assembly about these non-revenue accounts from August 1, 2009 on.

MdTA responded to each of these questions as follows:

l. A list of legislators who held non-revenue E-ZPass accounts between January 1 ,2009 and September 30, 2009 does not exist. The September 30, 2009, list was provided to you as a courtesy, although the Authority was not required to do so by the Maryland Public Information Act. Under the P IA, you may only obtain an agency's existing records.

2. A list of dates on which any accounts were cancelled for Maryland General Assembly Members does not exist.

3. Correspondence responsive to this request regarding legislators and the E-ZPass nonrevenue account program, which is not privileged or otherwise not subject to disclosure, is enclosed. Some correspondence responsive to your request has been withheld pursuant to SG § 10-615(l) because it is subject to attorney-client privilege. Portions of documents have been redacted or withheld because they contain personal data provided to the Authority in connection with an electronic toll collection system that shall not be disclosed pursuant to SG § 10-616(m).

So the agency does not have any historical records on free E-ZPass use, does not know when they were cancelled prior to the program’s termination and – incredibly – claims to not be covered by the state’s Public Information Act. Moreover, the agency says that some documents are protected by attorney-client privilege. Did the agency consult an attorney in determining how to respond to our PIA request?

MdTA did send some documents that should be considered in a timeline of this matter’s development. It is clear from the correspondence that the agency, this blog and the General Assembly’s leadership interacted in a way that ultimately terminated the program. Here is how the issue progressed.

1. On August 24, we reported that 128 state legislators carried free E-ZPasses but MdTA refused to name them because of “privacy and security issues.” Two days later, we drafted a PIA request to get the names of the legislators who had them. MdTA received the request on September 1.

2. MdTA began its effort to respond to our PIA on September 2 by assembling data on legislators’ license plates that were associated with free E-ZPasses.

3. On September 23, MdTA wrote to members of the General Assembly who had free E-ZPasses alerting them about our PIA request. We obtained a copy of MdTA’s letter on our own and MdTA sent it to us in their latest PIA response.

4. On September 25, Senate President Mike Miller and Speaker of the House Mike Busch announced that they were asking MdTA to cancel the program. We posted a copy of their letter and mass press coverage ensued, including on NBC4.

5. On September 28, MdTA faxed Senators and Delegates a request seeking information about the vehicles covered by their free E-ZPasses. It is unclear why MdTA was requesting this information because the General Assembly’s presiding officers had announced the end of the program three days earlier. Below is a faxed letter sent to Senator David Harrington (D-47), one of many that were sent out.

6. Several members of the General Assembly began communicating with MdTA about this issue during this period. Here is an aide to Senator Rona Kramer (D-14) asking MdTA to make clear that the Senator never had a free E-ZPass.

Here is Delegate Rick Weldon (I-3B), who represents parts of Frederick and Washington Counties, responding that he does not have a free E-ZPass because he does not have to use toll roads to commute to Annapolis.

And here is Senator Mike Lenett (D-19) making it crystal clear that he has no free E-ZPass and pays his tolls like any other citizen of the state.

7. The thirty-day deadline for MdTA to answer our PIA request seeking the names of free E-ZPass holders was rapidly approaching by the end of September. MdTA knew it was under scrutiny by the press, and especially this blog. So did the General Assembly and its leadership. On September 28 – just two days before responding to our PIA seeking the names of legislators with free E-ZPasses – MdTA sent this letter to a state legislator allowing that person to cancel his or her free account. Who was this individual? Why is this person’s name redacted? Were any other similar letters sent? We will never know because the list of legislators with free E-ZPasses we obtained from MdTA was dated September 30. This letter is hard evidence that MdTA allowed at least one state legislator with a free E-ZPass to escape being outed on this blog.

MdTA was also in direct communication with the Speaker’s office on this issue. Here is an email from Gail Moran, MdTA’s Manager of Government and Community Relations, to Kristin Jones, the Speaker’s Chief of Staff, pointing out our blog post about the program’s cancellation.

And here is a second email on the same day from Moran asking Jones to “please call me NOW.”

8. MdTA responded to our PIA request and named 72 state legislators who had free E-ZPasses on September 30. But MdTA almost immediately contacted us to remove one name from the list: Senator Jim Rosapepe (D-21). MdTA told Rosapepe of its effort to clear his name from the list.

9. At the request of the Senate President and Speaker, MdTA terminated the free E-ZPass program effective November 1.

So what are we to make of all this?

First, we are unable to solve the mystery of why MdTA said that 128 legislators had free E-ZPasses in August and a month later claimed only 71 had them. The fact that MdTA tipped off the General Assembly to our PIA request – a step that was not required to answer us – may have something to do with it.

Second, the fact that MdTA was in contact with the General Assembly’s leadership suggests that damage control was one of its priorities. The public image of the state legislature should not be an appropriate topic of concern for the state’s toll authority.

Third, MdTA’s lack of historical records on free E-ZPasses means that the program was subject to abuse. The agency had no way to make sure that the passes were used only for official business and, more importantly, had no way to make sure that former state legislators did not have them.

And fourth, the fact that MdTA had to respond to two PIA requests to release the names of state legislators with free E-ZPasses when it could have easily emailed the information back in August says something about the agency’s regard for disclosure. So does its claim that it is not covered by the state’s Public Information Act and was responding out of courtesy. Agencies that depend on public funds, including taxes and tolls, are subordinate to the citizenry. Responding to our requests for data about the use of our resources is a basic part of any state agency’s duties.

But things could be worse. Other public officials have far less respect for the concept of open government than does MdTA. If Duchy Trachtenberg was in charge of MdTA, we would have received no response to our information request other than a press conference accusing us of having joined the KGB!

Birther Billboard Owner: "You Gotta Call a Spade a Spade"

2009-11-23T19:00:00.000-05:00

Hilton Spurns MoCo, Gets Nice Reward From Ike

2009-11-23T14:00:00.003-05:00

This goes into the category of stories that are difficult to believe without direct evidence. But once again, dear readers, we have it and then some!

Have you ever been to the annual County Executive’s Ball? Oh, dahlings, it’s oo-la-la! All the top power brokers, money men, politicians and trophy wives come out to gossip, gawk and gorge. The spread is spank-a-licious! More than once, your blogger has crashed the joint just to pocket some of the candy bars on the hallway tables. (You can never fit enough Butterfingers into a slacks pocket!)

For years, the ball was held at the Marriott Conference Center in North Bethesda. And that choice was appropriate, given the fact that Marriott is headquartered in Bethesda and is one of the county’s largest employers. But this year, County Executive Ike Leggett is moving the event to the Hilton in Rockville.

Remember Hilton? Montgomery County engaged in a heated competition with Fairfax to land Hilton’s headquarters after it announced its move out of Beverly Hills. Well… maybe it wasn’t so heated. Our offer was blown away by Fairfax and we lost – badly. The episode contributed to the departure of former Director of Economic Development Pradeep Ganguly and helped spark a revolt by County Council Members. Now, Hilton is a happy Virginia company and the County Executive is awarding them his signature event.

Here’s an idea. Can we get Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin to move out and then reward them with a police helicopter contract?

Dana and Duchy Take on the KGB (Updated)

2009-11-23T07:00:00.019-05:00

District 18 Delegate candidate and County Council staffer Dana Beyer has accused the county’s Ethics Commission of discriminating against her because of her transgender status and attempting to harm her political career. Her employer, Duchy Trachtenberg, has even compared the commission to the KGB. Are the heirs to the infamous Soviet spy empire really out to get them?

This issue goes back to late 2007, when the County Council unanimously passed a bill banning discrimination against transgender individuals that was authored by Duchy Trachtenberg, who is Beyer’s employer. The bill’s opponents, most of whom were organized in a group called Citizens for a Responsible Government (CRG), launched a campaign to gather signatures for a referendum to overturn the bill. The Montgomery County Board of Elections originally ruled that CRG gathered enough signatures to justify a referendum, but their finding was overturned by the courts. The transgender protection law is in effect today.

Beyer was one of several people that traveled the county to monitor CRG’s gathering of signatures in early 2008. Long-time readers will recall that we wrote about one encounter between Beyer and CRG volunteers that is relevant to the events now under discussion today. We asked Beyer what happened at the time:

Beyer, an aide to County Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg, Vice-President of Equality Maryland and former candidate for District 18 Delegate, told her side of the story to this blog. She said she encountered CRG’s petition collectors on Primary Election Day, the following weekend and President’s Day (2/18), the date of the incident in question. At the Bethesda Giant, she entered the store, told the manager that the petition collectors were violating store policy (which allows the group to collect signatures on only one weekend per month), and left soon after making the statements to the group shown on the video.

Here is the video that was taken by CRG of the incident:

After emerging from the grocery store, Beyer told the signature collectors, “An email went out; you’re going to be asked to leave. Any petitions gathered today are illegal.”

Why is this a problem? As a County Council employee, Beyer is subject to the county’s ethics code. County Code Chapter 19A-4(m) defines a “public employee” as including “the County Executive and each member of the County Council” along with “any person employed by a County agency, including the director of the agency.” No exemptions appear for council staff or any other employees operating off-the-clock. Even non-paid board and commission members are treated as employees. County Code Chapter 19A-14(e) states, “A public employee must not intimidate, threaten, coerce or discriminate against any person for the purpose of interfering with that person’s freedom to engage in political activity.”

The video by itself does not prove that Beyer violated the ethics code, but it does chronicle an incident that merits scrutiny. A reasonable person could believe that Beyer intended to discourage CRG’s volunteers from gathering signatures by her unsolicited statement to them that they were engaged in “illegal” activities. That judgment most appropriately belongs to police officers rather than County Council staffers. When CRG later filed an ethics complaint against Beyer, the video would have been available to the commission to demonstrate Beyer’s methods of dealing with the signature gatherers.

As it turns out, the video was not the decisive factor in the investigation. The Ethics Commission found enough evidence of misconduct by Beyer at another grocery store on a different day to justify holding a hearing on the matter. The commission has no power to punish offenders; it may only ask the County Attorney to take its findings to the courts. Beyer blasted the commission in a press conference and filed a complaint against them with the county’s Human Rights Commission on the following grounds:

1. The commission allegedly treated her unfairly by having investigators search her work computer without her knowledge. “You can't run a government like this,” Beyer said. “If this were a murder investigation or if it was a major multimillion fraud investigation, I could understand that. But for this?” Trachtenberg, said, “The use of KGB-type tactics to undermine the function of my council office is chilling.” According to the Examiner, County Council staff director Steve Farber was not notified of the computer search, which turned up nothing.

2. The commission allegedly leaked the existence of its investigation and its findings to unspecified individuals, a violation of the confidentiality requirement for ethics investigations.

3. Beyer told the Gazette, “The Ethics Commission has made a blatant political attack on me, because I am the first openly transgender government staffer in Maryland.”

4. The commission was allegedly motivated to harm Beyer’s political career. Beyer finished fifth in an eight-person District 18 Delegate race in 2006 and ran unsuccessfully for an appointment to replace Delegate Jane Lawton after she passed away in 2007. Beyer is currently running for Delegate in 2010.

5. Trachtenberg was another target. Beyer said, “I’m a means to an end, and that’s to destroy my boss politically.”

Your author has called out a LOT of politicians and bureaucrats over the last two years. Our rule is that big allegations require big evidence. Let’s examine each of Beyer’s charges more closely.

1. Records Access
Beyer claims ethics investigators secretly searched her work computer. If that is true, Beyer’s “rights” were not infringed since neither elected officials nor public employees have any private property rights over public records in their custody. The vast majority of those records are discoverable under Maryland’s Public Information Act. We saw the dangers of record access problems first-hand on this blog, when the Maryland Transportation Authority tipped off the state legislature on our public information request concerning free E-ZPasses for state legislators, potentially allowing some users to escape detection. Beyer also questions whether the Executive Branch should be able to conduct secret searches of County Council records. That is a matter between the Executive and the Council Members rather than a council staffer. Overall, the opinion of Beyer and Trachtenberg that inquiry into public records is equivalent to any actions undertaken by the KGB reflects basic disrespect for the concept of open government.

2. Leaks
If the commission leaked the investigation and/or its findings, it did a poor job of it. No media outlet or blog reported on this matter prior to Beyer’s press conference. Your author has MANY eyes and ears in the council building yet had no knowledge of it. The only person besides Beyer claiming that there was a leak is Trachtenberg, who would have known of the investigation through Beyer herself. The commission also interviewed several witnesses to Beyer’s behavior with CRG activists, all of whom would have had reason to believe that an investigation was underway as a result. Beyer has released no evidence of leaks at the moment. She only states her belief that leaks occurred.

3. Transgender Discrimination
Plaintiffs in discrimination cases often seek to prove animus, or overt and expressed hostility to members of a protected class, by the defendant. Beyer has presented no evidence of anti-transgender animus by any member of the Ethics Commission even though she alleges it. In fact, the video of her actions contains enough evidence to warrant scrutiny regardless of her gender status. Beyer’s theory appears to be that anyone who investigates her conduct is motivated by anti-transgender prejudice. That is far outside the scope and intent of the transgender protection law that she invokes.

4. Beyer’s Political Career
Only one member of the Ethics Commission lives in District 18: Antar C. Johnson, the chairman. He is a Democrat and made one $100 contribution to Ike Leggett on 8/5/06. Two members (Rafael Borras and Stuart Rick) are unaffiliated, one (Gilles Burger) is a Republican, and one other (Nina Weisbroth) is a Democrat. No members of the commission have ever contributed to any candidates in District 18. Weisbroth has contributed three times for a total of $175 to District 14 Delegate Anne Kaiser, an open lesbian and a heroine of the LGBT community. (Is Weisbroth the kind of person who would be logically suspected of anti-transgender bias?) There is no evidence that any commission members, much less a majority, are hostile to Beyer’s political candidacy.

5. Trachtenberg’s Political Career
Let’s remember the basic character of the Ethics Commission and its staff. Every member of the commission is appointed by the County Executive and confirmed by the County Council. The commission relies on staffers supplied by the Executive Branch. Its decisions are enforced, if at all, by action of the County Attorney, who reports to the Executive. In this case, the County Attorney actually conducted at least some of the investigation of Beyer on behalf of the commission.

Trachtenberg is closer to County Executive Ike Leggett than any other member of the County Council. When she ran in 2006, she sent a mailer featuring herself and Leggett all over the county. She endorsed Don Praisner and Ben Kramer in the District 4 special elections, both of whom were supported by Leggett, and worked to get both of them elected. She regularly accompanies Leggett at events around the county and is leaning heavily on his support to win a second term. Yet she is alleging that his Ethics Commission appointees, his County Attorney and his employees are using “KGB-type tactics” against her office. Any claim that Ike Leggett is a Soviet-style spymaster who dispatches minions to suppress Trachtenberg and Beyer is utterly preposterous and especially surprising coming from a woman who is depending on him for re-election.

The charges made by Beyer and Trachtenberg against the Ethics Commission and the County Executive’s staff are difficult to believe and, for the most part, collapse upon casual scrutiny. Their allegations’ unwarranted damage to the county’s reputation is exceeded only by their warranted damage to their own reputations. Hysteria and paranoia make for great press conferences and guaranteed coverage, but they are poor qualities in individuals performing public service.

Update: In a letter rich with unintended irony, Trachtenberg is now accusing the County Attorney of undertaking “a clandestine, and evidently unlawful, search of confidential files in the office of a sitting Councilmember. And I intend on getting to the bottom of this reckless abuse of authority.” She writes to him, “The people of Montgomery County have an expectation of transparent and ethical behavior on the part of all public servants. And they deserve no less.”

The irony here is that while Trachtenberg calls on the County Attorney to be transparent, her bone of contention is the scrutiny of public records in her possession. Those records, with very limited exceptions, are accessible to the citizenry under the state’s Public Information Act (PIA). Council Members and the County Executive answer PIA requests all the time. Is Trachtenberg saying that her records alone are confidential?

Disclosure: The author is the Treasurer of the District 18 Democratic Team. This post was written without the knowledge or sanction of any District 18 elected officials or candidates.

Marc Elrich on Growth Policy

2009-11-22T09:00:00.002-05:00

Following is an op-ed on the county's Growth Policy by County Council Member Marc Elrich that appeared in the Gazette earlier this week.

The Montgomery County Council is engaged in its biannual evaluation of the growth policy and the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. The APFO determines if public facilities can handle new development — whether schools can handle more capacity or roads more traffic. Road capacity is determined by assessing vehicle speed during rush hour.

It is now measured by a deeply flawed test that allows new development based on two factors: if auto speed remains above 14 mph (in a 35 mph zone) during rush hour and if transit maintains 50 to 60 percent of auto speed. Actual speeds in the peak direction can be less than 14 mph because speed is an average of both directions. Supporters of a lower standard claim that the current one supports free flowing highways, but I suspect you'd agree that 14 mph is a hardly free-flowing.

The Planning Board's new growth policy would lower the permissible speed to an average of 8 mph as long as the average transit speed is 75 percent of auto speed. Because this is an average of both directions and we tend to have heavy one-way congestion during rush hours, an 8 mph average could mean cars going as slow as 4 mph in peak directions. The proposal, rejected by the County Council, calls this Level of Service E, but all professionals call this an "F." If you were sitting in it, you would surely call this an "F," too.

The test is a travesty. The development community says it's worse than the old test — you can't tell what's broken or what's required to fix it. Activists find it incomprehensible. Board members can't explain how it works, nor can most council members, and the county executive wants it replaced. The highly regarded Florida Department of Transportation refers to this kind of test as lacking professional acceptance or scientific validity — it tells you nothing about whether roads or transit are "adequate." The proposed changes to this flawed policy are to accommodate one project — White Flint. Its only supporters seem to be either people who want White Flint exempted from any standards and don't care about the impact on thousands of people who use Rockville Pike, or some Smart Growth advocates who support it because it mentions transit and autos in the same breath.

The county needs tools that accurately assess transportation capacity. I have no argument with multi-modalism, requiring a shift to more transit (that is the reason behind my countywide bus rapid transit proposal), and focusing development in areas that can be served by transit. But Smart Growth is more than tall buildings and dense development —it still has to fit within real world constraints. Even if 50 percent arrive without cars, 50 percent arrive in cars. If we want fewer drivers, we have to provide a viable, cost-effective and rapid alternative. We can't turn roads into parking lots and then hope, as the board proposes, that people will give up cars to ride transit. That transition requires planning and investment for a viable alternative, not simply a plan to make commuting hell.

Smart Growth advocates and White Flint supporters fear that looking at other standards will return us (as if we ever left) to an auto-centric focus. The truth is there are nationally accepted standards that apply to both auto and transit. Others are doing it, while we insist on rare, inscrutable tests. We continue to change the rules to redefine failing roads as adequate, and we've been doing it for years. The time for these games is over.

Good tests illuminate problems and direct toward solutions. Smart Growth advocates have argued that the tests automatically lead to more road construction, but tests only indicate the problems. We must choose solutions that address congestion by reducing trips, rather than adding concrete. There is no doubt that transit must increasingly become the solution because we can't keep building roads. It's time to start focusing on transportation solutions that create transit capacity and viable alternatives to driving.

Marc Elrich, Takoma Park

The writer is an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council.

Valerie Ervin on Maintenance of Effort

2009-11-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

Following is an op-ed on the state's Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law by County Council Member Valerie Ervin, Chair of the Council's Education Committee, that appeared in the Gazette earlier this week.

#####

As chairwoman of the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee, I am extremely disappointed with the Maryland attorney general's Nov. 4 opinion that Montgomery County did not meet the state's threshold funding level for public education (maintenance of effort) in fiscal year 2010. I believe that this decision elevated form over function.

The budget enacted by the County Council provided full funding of the school system's request for its educational and operational program. The County Council did not make additional program reductions to balance the county's operating budget. This important outcome was accomplished through the collaborative efforts of the local Board of Education, the county executive and the County Council.

Montgomery County found itself in a unique position this year. While revenues overall were decreasing, our school system benefited from increased state and federal education aid, largely related to stimulus funding. The County Council fully funded the schools with fewer local resources by relying on these other funding sources, and our school system agreed with this approach. However, state law requires local jurisdictions to fund at least as much per pupil as in the prior year with local taxpayer dollars, regardless of economic circumstances.

I appreciate and agree with the law's intent to support funding for education and prevent extreme shifts in school systems' resources for children. Montgomery County has never done otherwise. As our outstanding funding track record shows, the county has provided a total of $576.8 million above the legal threshold level over the last 10 years.

As events played out this spring, state law proved to be inflexible in the face unprecedented economic challenges. In my opinion, the law's structure should not be allowed to exceed reasonable funding levels or threaten to reduce educational funding through penalties.

Montgomery County now looks to the governor, the Maryland General Assembly and the state Board of Education to resolve the situation in a way that does not threaten the ability of the Montgomery County public school system to meet the educational needs of our children or unnecessarily impair the ability of Montgomery County to meet social service, health and public safety needs. The reality of the fiscal constraints Montgomery County faces must be recognized, and the continued good-faith effort of the county to fully support our public school system should be the benchmark by which we are measured.

Valerie Ervin, Silver Spring

The writer represents District 5 on the Montgomery County Council.

Becky Wagner Announces First Fundraiser

2009-11-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

At-large County Council challenger Becky Wagner has selected a campaign manager and announced a fundraiser. These are the first steps in a widely anticipated run for public office.

Wagner has been the Executive Director of Interfaith Works, a non-profit providing services to the homeless, for more than ten years. She attracted rave reviews from most of our informants in our Whispers of the At-Large Race series last summer but has shown little activity since then. But then this email was blasted earlier this week:

From: Edward Cooper
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 8:39 PM
To: friendsofbeckywagner@gmail.com
Subject:

Dear Friends,

I’d like to invite you to join me at a fundraiser for Becky Wagner as she launches her candidacy for Montgomery County Council. The event will take place on Thursday, December 3rd at Imagination Stage – 4908 Auburn Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland – from 6:00pm until 8:00pm. Attached is an invitation (PDF) with all of the details.

Many of you may know Becky Wagner from her leading role in helping Montgomery County’s citizens for over 25 years. As a community leader she is authentic, pragmatic and decisive. In her role as executive director of Interfaith Works (formerly Community Ministries of Montgomery County), Becky has grown the organization into a professionally managed non-profit with strong ties to the faith, business and social service communities. She knows, first-hand, what it takes to operate a business and make payroll every two weeks. She served the residents of Montgomery County as a key staffer to Sen. Paul Sarbanes, helped to lead a large trade organization and advocated for the needy as the founding director of Rainbow Shelter, Montgomery County’s first shelter for homeless women. She’s what we need on the Montgomery County Council – a person of integrity and civility who uses her collaborative skills to pull people together and get things accomplished. And don’t just take my word for it, plenty of people are fans of Becky…Washingtonian knows of her great abilities and skills; the magazine named her Washingtonian of the Year in 2008.

I am such a fan of Becky’s that I have signed on to help her manage her campaign.

Please come out and join me on December 3rd in support of Becky Wagner. She is eager to hear about what matters to Montgomery County residents and find ways to make your county government work for you.

For more information about the fundraiser, or Becky’s campaign, please e-mail friendsofbeckywagner@gmail.com or call 301.654.9342. I encourage you to forward this e-mail message on to anyone you know who would like to see positive change come to Montgomery County.

Best Regards,
Edward Cooper

Friends of Becky Wagner
119 Forest Avenue
Rockville, Maryland 20850

The email was accompanied by this solicitation:

The Democratic primary is less than ten months away and the incumbents have been gearing up. George Leventhal and Nancy Floreen have each held several fundraisers this cycle. Marc Elrich has scheduled two in the last couple months. Duchy Trachtenberg has a new website. Challenger Jane De Winter also has a website and has been campaigning since last summer. Wagner has some catching up to do. But the gun has fired and she is off the blocks.

A Note on Maintenance of Effort

2009-11-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

One of the points made by Blair Lee in his must-read column on the state's Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law for school funding is that Montgomery County has been paying well in excess of the state's requirements for education funding for many years. Lee is right about this in a very big way and here is the evidence supporting his view.

The Maryland Legislative Information Services' website contains the following data on above-MOE expenditures since Fiscal Year 2003. Effectively, these are the amounts by which each county has exceeded its prior year's local funding for public schools.

Montgomery County has contributed $420 million more to its schools than has been required by the state's MOE law since FY 2003. That is more than double second-ranked Anne Arundel County ($177 million) and more than triple third-ranked Howard County ($133 million). The state gives no credit to Montgomery County for its historical generosity to its public schools. In fact, the law works in just the opposite way: each year's bountiful school budget becomes next year's floor. As Council Member Marc Elrich says, the clear incentive for each county is to spend as little as possible to meet MOE requirements so that the law does not handcuff its budget in a bad year.

The MOE law is full of perverse incentives and desperately needs to be reformed.

Follow the Money, Part Six (Updated)

2009-11-20T07:00:00.004-05:00

So you think that Maryland political candidates have to disclose all their donors? Well, they don’t. They can legally conceal their identities by reporting “lump sums.”

The State Board of Elections’ (SBE) Summary Guide lays out the circumstances under which lump sums can be used:

Certain contributions, including ticket sales, may be reported on Schedule 1 of the Campaign Finance Report as a lump sum, pursuant to the following guidelines:

Contributions under $51 from different contributors may be aggregated and characterized on the Campaign Finance Report as “lump sum contributions.”

Ticket purchases under $251 from different contributors (provided the purchase price of each individual ticket is $50.99 or less) may be aggregated and characterized on the report as “lump sum ticket purchases.”

Once a contributor exceeds $51 or $251 through a series of contributions or ticket purchases for that election cycle, the contributor must thereafter be reported by name and address.

If you choose the lump sum option, even though you may lump receipts as described above on the Campaign Finance Reports, the books and records required to be kept by the treasurer must identify all contributors, including ticket purchasers, by name, address, date of contribution, and amount, regardless of the amount.

SBE discourages the practice:

It is recommended that you not lump sum report contributions. First, it is difficult to keep track of the aggregate for each contributor. Second, if you are using ELECTrack, you will not be able to take advantage of the automatic aggregate feature. Finally, if you are using ELECTrack or any other software, you will not have the benefit of having that contributor's information as part of your database.

Seven of our sixty-one tracked candidates have reported lump sum contributions.

Total Receipts from Lump Sum Contributions

1. Jennie Forehand, Senator (D-17): $36,251
2. Kathleen Dumais, Delegate (D-15): $8,747
3. Henry Heller, Delegate (D-19): $8,340
4. Jamie Raskin, Senator (D-20): $1,310
5. Jean Cryor, Delegate (D-15): $930
6. Craig Rice, Delegate (D-15): $51
7. Nancy Navarro, School Board/County Council: $1

Jennie Forehand is on a different level than anyone else, with 21.4% of her total receipts since 1999 reported as lump sums. That exceeds Hank Heller (15.1%) and Kathleen Dumais (6.7%) and blows away everyone else in Montgomery County.

Lump sums are most commonly used by PACs, which often rely on countless small donations from members of organizations. When candidates report lump sums, they are often in small amounts – hundreds of dollars or less. Candidate-reported lump sums of $1,000 or more are uncommon.

Forehand has reported five of them:

$14,085 on 8/1/02, labeled “contribution by checks under $51”
$7,825 on 1/12/04, labeled “total of checks of $10 to $50 from individuals”
$5,621 on 1/10/06, no label
$4,925 on 11/25/00, labeled “contributions of $50 and under – from 11/25/00 to 11/1/01”
$1,305 on 11/20/00, no label

If each of Forehand’s lump sum contributions was comprised of $50.99 checks – the maximum allowed by law – that would equal 711 contributors, each of whom would have to be identified if they contributed any more money. Our database contains just 247 identified individual contributions to Forehand over the last ten years.

Forehand’s 8/1/02 lump sum of $14,085 is remarkable. Only seven lump sums reported by candidates have exceeded it over the last ten years. And to our knowledge, only two other candidates have raised more money through lump sums than Forehand: former Charles County Sheriff Fred Davis ($117,204) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Norman Conway ($83,377.60).

The use of lump sums might make sense in instances of large numbers of tiny contributions, as is the case with many PACs. But when a candidate employs them to shield one-tenth, one-fifth or more of his or her donor base from identification, that creates the possibility of abuse. And worst of all, nothing short of a forensic audit by SBE can detect whether a lump sum is legitimately used or not. It’s impossible for any member of the public to tell what is really going on. We will be looking for this practice in the future. Politicians, you have been warned.

Next year, elections for state and county offices will be held. We will repeat our analysis of campaign funding after the next batch of reports arrives in January and issue profiles for each reporting candidate in the county.

Update: One of our sources had this to say about one of Forehand’s lump sums:

How do you do a lump sum PROSPECTIVELY???

$4,925 on 11/25/00, labeled “contributions of $50 and under – from 11/25/00 to 11/1/01”

She deposited it on 11/25/00 and includes folks who gave like 10 months later…?

Perhaps the Senator will consider answering that question.

Inflationary Policies

2009-11-19T14:00:00.001-05:00

By Marc Korman.

Economists are afraid that the government’s fiscal and monetary policies will lead to an oversupply of money and runaway inflation. But out in Colorado, the opposite is taking place. Projected deflation in 2010 means the state’s minimum wage will actually decline.

Colorado’s Constitution (Article VIII, Section 15) was amended in 2006 to adjust the minimum wage based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Colorado. There actually is no statewide CPI, so the state uses the Denver-Boulder-Greeley urban area CPI. As reported by the New York Times and others, the CPI projection for 2010 will mean a four cent drop in the minimum wage from $7.28/hour to $7.24/hour. However, because the current federal limit is $7.25/hour, the drop will only be three cents. Ten other states tie their minimum wage to inflation, but Colorado is the first to face the possibility of a declining minimum wage.

In Maryland, the minimum wage was last increased in 2006 to $6.15/hour, overriding Governor Ehrlich’s veto (MD. Ann. Code Labor and Employment § 3-413). The dollar increase was made moot the next year when Congress, in one of the Democrats’ first victories after winning the majority, passed a federal increase. For the first time since 1997, the federal minimum wage was increased. In stages over three years, the wage went up to $7.25/hour.

Tying government policies to inflation is generally a good idea. Congress’ failure to tie the Alternative Minimum Tax brackets to inflation has led to annual scrambling to pay for a fix so more and more middle class taxpayers are not swept into the alternative system. Governor O’Malley was right to propose linking the gas tax to the construction cost index back in 2007 and his failure to continue advocating that policy has been a mistake. I have proposed connecting public university tuition to inflation to keep the schools funded and affordable, though the policy should be coupled with increases in financial assistance.

The minimum wage offers another policy that can be linked to inflation. Starting at $7.25/hour, Maryland should increase its minimum wage with an appropriate CPI for the state or region. However, one caveat should be that the minimum wage cannot decline. Based on further study, the state might also consider a ceiling to annual increases due to inflation.

Economists have argued back and forth over whether the minimum wage is good or bad for the economy and job growth. Indeed, I have no doubt that some will point to the 2006 and 2007 state and federal minimum wage increases and blame the economic collapse on them. I cannot settle the debate here, though I believe beneficial effects of having a minimum wage have been well documented since the 1930s. Further, I believe that the few cents increase that will occur with inflation will be absorbed by most companies and not lead to mass layoffs or large curtailments in future hires.

Legislators in the General Assembly should consider linking the minimum wage to inflation. It is good for Maryland’s workers, especially those most vulnerable, and has the benefit of not affecting the state budget.

Senator Jennie Forehand on "Political Pulse" on Channel 16 TV‏

2009-11-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

MD State Senator Jennie Forehand from District 17 will be on the "Political Pulse" political talk show on:

Thursday, November 19th at 9:00 p.m.

Friday-Sunday (November 20th-22nd) at 6 p.m. and

Tuesday, November 24th, at 9:30 p.m.

Senator Forehand will discuss some of the issues that she has worked on in the Senate (biotech, genetic testing, smoke free buildings), transportation issues, her 2010 Democratic primary challenge and other issues.

Political Pulse is on Channel 16 TV in Montgomery County.

Follow the Money, Part Five

2009-11-19T07:00:00.006-05:00

Who is financed by Maryland residents and who is backed by out-of-state money? We know the answers and now so do you.

Total Receipts from Maryland Contributors (Excludes Self and Family)

1. Steve Silverman, County Council/Executive Challenger: $2,427,826
2. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $1,165,525
3. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $495,469
4. George Leventhal, County Council: $478,014
5. Howard Denis, County Council: $447,130
6. Nancy Floreen, County Council: $420,955
7. Brian Frosh, Senator (D-16): $419,512
8. Ida Ruben, Senator (D-20): $346,492
9. Herman Taylor, Delegate (D-14): $321,484
10. Sheila Hixson, Delegate (D-20): $294,203

Total Receipts from Non-Maryland Contributors (Excludes Family)

1. Steve Silverman, County Council/Executive Challenger: $641,905
2. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $242,064
3. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: $236,671
4. Jamie Raskin, Senator (D-20): $130,346
5. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $127,464
6. Heather Mizeur, Delegate (D-20): $107,537
7. Howard Denis, County Council: $100,258
8. Sheila Hixson, Delegate (D-20): $97,711
9. Herman Taylor, Delegate (D-14): $87,605
10. Hans Riemer, County Council Challenger: $85,559

Percentage of Total Receipts from Maryland Contributors (Excludes Self and Family)

1. Cary Lamari, County Council Challenger: 100.0%
2. Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger: 99.1%
3. Steve Abrams, School Board/County Council Challenger: 98.8%
4. Sharon Dooley, County Council Challenger: 98.5%
5. Phil Andrews, County Council: 95.9%
6. Charles Barkley, Delegate (D-39): 94.6%
7. Jean Cryor, Delegate (D-15): 93.5%
8. Nancy King, Senator (D-39): 93.1%
9. Karen Montgomery, Delegate (D-14): 92.6%
10. Marc Elrich, County Council: 92.6%

61. Paul Griffin, Delegate Challenger: 24.5%
60. Hans Riemer, County Council Challenger: 25.6%
59. Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18): 29.3%
58. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: 33.5%
57. Guled Kassim, Delegate/County Council Challenger: 38.0%
56. Bill Frick, Delegate (D-16): 47.7%
55. Reggie Oldak, Delegate Challenger (D-16): 48.2%
54. Heather Mizeur, Delegate (D-20): 54.8%
53. Ryan Spiegel, Delegate Challenger (D-17): 62.5%
52. Jamie Raskin, Senator (D-20): 63.1%

Candidates with large percentages of their receipts from Marylanders generally fall into two categories: long-time politicians with lots of local friends, and challengers with little base outside the state. Some out-of-state-backed candidates, including Dana Beyer, Hans Riemer, Heather Mizeur and Jamie Raskin, have tapped into national networks to mount a challenge.

Duchy Trachtenberg may be the only County Council Member with an ability to raise money nationally. As the then-President of Maryland NOW, Trachtenberg received significant amounts of money from California ($63,600) and New York ($61,696) in her 2002 and 2006 races. Most of that money came from big checks of $2,000 or more. Trachtenberg has received 24 of those checks from individuals in California, 22 from individuals in New York and 17 from individuals in Maryland (three of which came from herself). Since her former Chief of Staff is the new National President of NOW, that capacity may continue into 2010.

Here are the percentages of in-state receipts for each County Council incumbent, excluding contributions from self and family.

Phil Andrews: 95.9%
Marc Elrich: 92.6%
George Leventhal: 87.5%
Nancy Floreen: 87.2%
Valerie Ervin: 84.0%
Mike Knapp: 81.8%
Nancy Navarro: 77.7%
Roger Berliner: 63.7%
Duchy Trachtenberg: 33.5%

Here is a final statistic: the percentage of receipts that came from self, family and out-of-state entities. The higher this percentage, the less reliant a candidate is on financing from third-party Marylanders.

Percentage of Total Receipts from Self, Family and Out-of-State

1. Ben Kramer, Delegate/County Council Challenger: 94.5%
2. Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger: 94.1%
3. Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18): 89.5%
4. Jeff Waldstreicher, Delegate (D-18): 82.9%
5. Paul Griffin, Delegate Challenger (D-19): 80.6%
6. Hans Riemer, County Council Challenger: 79.7%
7. Alec Stone, Delegate Challenger (D-19): 77.9%
8. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: 73.6%
9. Reggie Oldak, Delegate Challenger (D-16): 71.6%
10. Guled Kassim, Delegate/County Council Challenger: 68.3%

61. Phil Andrews, County Council: 4.5%
60. Sharon Dooley, Council Council Challenger: 5.8%
59. Jean Cryor, Delegate (D-15): 6.7%
58. Nancy King, Senator (D-39): 7.0%
57. Marc Elrich, County Council: 10.4%
56. Ida Ruben, Senator (D-20): 13.9%
55. Valerie Ervin, County Council: 16.0%
54. Kirill Reznik, Delegate (D-39): 16.1%
53. Cheryl Kagan, Delegate/Senate Challenger (D-17): 17.4%
52. Brian Frosh, Senator (D-16): 17.8%

Is Slots Job Fair Pressure, or Desperation?

2009-11-18T19:00:00.003-05:00

By Rob Annicelli.

Simon Corporation, Cordish Cos., and Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold are now engaging in a full scale public relations blitz to try and rescue their collective proposal to place a slots casino in a shopping center. With less than three weeks to go until what would appear to be the final hearing on zoning legislation which would permit a slots parlor in the county, these three amigos are making claims such as placing slots at Arundel Mills was the will of the voter during the 2008 slots referendum. But even worse, they are now looking to recruit prospective job seekers to come out to the Arundel Mills food court on Thursday, November 19th for a job fair they will host despite not have a slots license nor the county zoning approval in place.

Some of the more biased Baltimore and Annapolis based news outlets are claiming that this move will put pressure on the council to approve slots. I believe this is a cruel move that will attempt to use those down on their luck in the job market as pawns in a political argument over whether a self proclaimed ‘family friendly’ shopping mall is the best location for a giant slots parlor. This is among one of the most desperate and divisive political ploys attempted in recent memory, and I am sure it will backfire. Remember, Arundel Mills sits two miles away from Ft Meade which has already started to see an influx in BRAC jobs and will host an additional 22,000 jobs. By comparison, there are 18,000 unemployed persons in Anne Arundel County . While full employment should be our goal, low paying gambling jobs should not be used to replace higher paying technology careers.

If you voted against slots like I did you probably do not want to see them anywhere. But if you are among the 60% of Maryland voters who approved slots you probably never imagined that an outlet mall with a brand new Lego store would also one day be home to a casino with twice the number of slots machines as the MGM Grand in Las Vegas . (And, oh by the way, Zed Smith of the Cordish Cos. stated on November 10th before the Greater Severna Park Council that those shoppers at the Arundel Mills Lego store are among their target demographic for slots!) States around Maryland are in the process of expanding gambling types and sites in a race to the bottom, and if the Arundel Mills effort passes as a result of a well financed effort by multi-billion dollar companies, what is going to be there to stop the local shopping center near you from one day hosting slots? Once the precedent is set there will be no going back. Giving local zoning control over slots was intended to prevent this from happening, or so we thought.

On December 7th at 7 p.m. we will once again debate the merits of allowing a slots parlor at Arundel Mills. No matter what Don Fry and the State Video Lottery Location Commissioners say about the revenue potential for such a casino, or if they think it is in the State’s ‘interest,’ the final word on permitting gambling at a family friendly shopping plaza will rest with the Anne Arundel County Council – a body elected by the voters of Anne Arundel County. Slots in shopping centers near residental developmets are not in the interest of the residents and voters of Anne Arundel County, and the zoning legislation should fail.

Rob Annicelli
Stop Slots at Arundel Mills

County Employees at Risk

2009-11-18T14:00:00.003-05:00

The awful condition of the state budget has attracted a lot of attention in recent months. But the county budgets are not doing much better. And one constituency is going to pay the price as much or more than anyone: county employees.

Below are the salary increases granted by counties to general government employees and teachers for Fiscal Year 2009, which ended on 6/30/09:

Twenty of the twenty-four jurisdictions granted both cost of living adjustments (COLAs) and step increases to general employees, which are hikes for employees advancing within their grades. Teachers received COLAs from twenty-two jurisdictions and steps from twenty-one jurisdictions. The mean COLA increase was 2.63% for general employees and 3.42% for teachers.

Now here are the salary increases granted by counties for Fiscal Year 2010, which ends on 6/30/10:

Only six jurisdictions granted COLAs and eight granted step increases to general government employees. Ten granted COLAs and fourteen granted step increases to teachers. The mean COLA increase was 0.48% for general employees and 0.65% for teachers.

In addition, ten counties are planning furloughs and twelve counties are planning layoffs in FY 2010.

Here’s a question: what happens if the responsibility for funding teacher pensions is passed down from the state to the counties? And what happens when federal stimulus aid dries up? The answer is inevitably salary reductions, layoffs, furloughs or some combination thereof.

Follow the Money, Part Four

2009-11-18T07:00:00.004-05:00

It’s time to look at self-financing. Which MoCo candidates depend on themselves the most? Let’s find out.

Total Receipts from Self (Includes Loans)

1. Ben Kramer, Delegate/County Council Challenger: $220,450
2. Mike Lenett, Senator (D-19): $164,352
3. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $149,428
4. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $125,000
5. Jeff Waldstreicher, Delegate (D-18): $121,442
6. Rona Kramer, Senator (D-14): $105,000
7. Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger: $91,272
8. Howard Denis, County Council: $87,000
9. Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18): $83,203
10. Roger Manno, Delegate (D-19): $70,370

Percentage of Total Receipts from Self (Includes Loans)

1. Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger: 94.0%
2. Ben Kramer, Delegate/County Council Challenger: 93.9%
3. Mike Lenett, Senator (D-19): 67.6%
4. Jeff Waldstreicher, Delegate (D-18): 64.8%
5. Alec Stone, Delegate Challenger (D-19): 64.0%
6. Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18): 62.5%
7. Cary Lamari, County Council Challenger: 54.5%
8. Rona Kramer, Senator (D-14): 47.9%
9. Roger Manno, Delegate (D-19): 45.7%
10. Reggie Oldak, Delegate Challenger (D-16): 41.0%

61. Kumar Barve, House Majority Leader (D-17): 0.0%
61. Bill Bronrott, Delegate (D-16): 0.0%
61. Jean Cryor, Delegate (D-15): 0.0%
61. Valerie Ervin, County Council: 0.0%
61. Jennie Forehand, Senator (D-17): 0.0%
61. Henry Heller, Delegate (D-19): 0.0%
61. Cheryl Kagan, Delegate/Senate Challenger (D-17): 0.0%
61. Nancy King, Senator (D-39): 0.0%
53. Ida Ruben, Senator (D-20): 0.0%
52. Sheila Hixson, Delegate (D-20): 0.1%

Politicians do not spend vast sums of their personal money on their own races unless they have to. And most of our leaders were in very competitive races. Rob Garagiola beat incumbent Republican Senator Jean Roesser in his first race. All of the other top ten in total self-financing receipts ran for open seats. Howard Denis won an open seat in a 2000 special election, narrowly defeated Duchy Trachtenberg in 2002 and lost to Roger Berliner in 2006. First-time candidate Mike Lenett got 52% of the vote against two incumbent Delegates in the 2006 District 19 Senate primary. Ben Kramer, Robin Ficker and Dana Beyer share a common distinction: they are the only candidates in recent MoCo history to spend $70,000 or more of their own money on a losing race.

Here’s an estimate of receipts from family members. We included people who shared a surname or a residence with a candidate, or lived in the same residence with another person who did.

Total Receipts from Family (Includes Loans)

1. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $49,462
2. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: $36,650
3. Susan Lee, Delegate (D-16): $32,016
4. Jeff Waldstreicher, Delegate (D-18): $25,200
5. Nancy Navarro, School Board/County Council: $21,565
6. Anne Kaiser, Delegate (D-14): $20,001
7. Karen Montgomery, Delegate (D-14): $17,800
8. Rich Madaleno, Senator (D-18): $16,897
9. Howard Denis, County Council: $15,550
10. George Leventhal, County Council: $14,778

We question the result for Susan Lee, given the fact that “Lee” is a common surname in the Asian community.

Total Receipts from Self and Family (Includes Loans)

1. Ben Kramer, Delegate/County Council Challenger: $220,450
2. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $198,890
3. Mike Lenett, Senator (D-19): $164,952
4. Jeff Waldstreicher, Delegate (D-18): $146,642
5. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $130,365
6. Rona Kramer, Senator (D-14): $110,639
7. Howard Denis, County Council: $102,550
8. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: $94,650
9. Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger: $91,272
10. Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18): $85,303

We’ll look at geography in Part Five.

Worst Picture Ever of a Council Member?

2009-11-17T19:00:00.001-05:00

So a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Wait until you see this!

Last week, the Examiner excoriated the Montgomery County Executive and the County Council for not taking transit to work. What the article omitted is that most of them live nowhere near a Metro station. Can anyone identify the Metro stations in Burtonsville (where Ike Leggett lives), Potomac (Roger Berliner), Colesville (Nancy Navarro), Germantown (Mike Knapp), Gaithersburg (Phil Andrews) or Sligo Creek (Marc Elrich)? Here are the walking distances from the home addresses of the other Council Members to their nearest Metro stations:

Nancy Floreen to White Flint: 1.3 miles
Duchy Trachtenberg to White Flint: 1.2 miles
Valerie Ervin to Silver Spring: 1.0 miles
George Leventhal to Takoma: 0.5 miles

Don't forget that if Leventhal or Ervin took the Metro to Rockville, they would have to go through Downtown D.C. - a more than hour-long trip. As for using the bus, well... would you wait for a bus from Rockville after a council hearing ends at 11 PM? This article was nothing more than a petty cheap shot with no attempt at fact checking.

But it did have some entertainment value. Check out the photo and caption of one featured Council Member.

And so the primary accomplishment of this piece was to slime Duchy Trachtenberg, a die-hard supporter of a light-rail Purple Line, as someone who is too haughty for transit. Trachtenberg has been Deep Purple for years and this is how she is repaid.

Nice work, guys!

State of Maryland Blogdom: October 2009

2009-11-17T14:00:00.002-05:00

Blog readers of Maryland, it is time to review the condition of our realm. And as the Keepers of the Great Database of Blog Statistics, we pronounce that the State of Maryland Blogdom is:

Strong!

We have been tracking site visit and page view statistics for 41 Maryland blogs that publicly disclose them since June 2007. In that month, the blogs in our dataset received 60,075 visits and 94,390 page views. In October 2009, those blogs received 174,712 visits and 278,021 page views, representing increases of 191% and 195% respectively.

We divide the blogs in our dataset into three categories: liberal political blogs, conservative political blogs and local blogs that do not emphasize politics. All three categories have seen significant growth over the last two years.

Here are the top ten political blogs in terms of site visits from January through October 2009:

Political Blogs, Site Visits 1/09-10/09

1. Maryland Politics Watch: 180,672
2. Red Maryland: 105,552
3. Annapolis Capital Punishment: 81,158
4. Baltimore Reporter: 59,562
5. PG Politics: 39,258
6. Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: 39,088
7. Monoblogue: 27,830
8. Nailing Jello to the Wall: 24,052
9. Pillage Idiot: 23,116
10. Annapolis Politics: 20,333

Note that O’Malley Watch, Darkness Rising and the MSM “blogs” do not release their site stats. Some in the latter category may have good reason for keeping a lid on them.

Here are the top ten local blogs in terms of site visits from January through October 2009:

Local Blogs, Site Visits 1/09-10/09

1. Inside Charm City: 267,283
2. Rockville Central: 92,498
3. Just Up the Pike: 88,869
4. Tales of Two Cities: 65,690
5. Rethink College Park: 33,064
6. Oceanshaman: 31,721
7. Track Twenty Nine: 21,669
8. Silver Bee: 7,851
9. Baltimore John Watch: 7,791
10. The Greenbelt: 7,028

Note that Salisbury News, the Pocomoke Tattler and the Silver Spring Penguin do not release their site stats.

Who is growing the fastest? Let’s compare the percentage change in site visits from the first ten months of 2008 with the first ten months of 2009 for our top ten list of political blogs. We cannot make that comparison for Nailing Jello to the Wall or Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack, both of which started tracking their stats in late 2008.

Top Political Blogs, Percentage Change in Site Visits, 1/08-10/08 vs. 1/09-10/09

1. Annapolis Capital Punishment: +143%
2. Maryland Politics Watch: +128%
3. PG Politics: +124%
4. Baltimore Reporter: +24%
5. Annapolis Politics: -2%
6. Red Maryland: -8%
7. Monoblogue: -29%
8. Pillage Idiot: -50%

The bottom six blogs are all conservative. Red Maryland is the leading conservative blog and Baltimore Reporter is second. Pillage Idiot stopped publishing last winter. Aside from PG Politics, which has fallen off in recent months, this is not an encouraging performance for Maryland’s right wing.

Here’s the same comparison for the top local blogs.

Top Local Blogs, Percentage Change in Site Visits, 1/08-10/08 vs. 1/09-10/09

1. Inside Charm City: +194%
2. Tales of Two Cities: +185%
3. Rockville Central: +86%
4. Track Twenty Nine: +77%
5. Just Up the Pike: +53%
6. Oceanshaman: +17%
7. Rethink College Park: -25%
8. The Greenbelt: -25%
9. Silver Bee: -27%
10. Baltimore John Watch: -57%

Baltimore John Watch has stopped publishing.

Clearly, there are some blogs gaining mightily in traffic while others are on the wane. But the overall trend is up, WAY up. Another way to see that is to look at monthly site visit peaks. Thirteen of our 33 tracked blogs that are still published set their monthly visit records this summer or fall, including:

June: Howard County Blog, Scenic Wheaton
July: Maryland on my Mind, Rockville Central
August: Questing for Atlantis
September: Annapolis Capital Punishment, Annapolis Politics, Baltimore Reporter, Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack, Maryland Politics Watch
October: Just Up the Pike, Red Maryland, Tales of Two Cities

We’ll publish a 2009 review in a couple months!

Follow the Money, Part Three

2009-11-17T07:00:00.003-05:00

In our ten-year dataset of MoCo political contributions, business entities and PACs accounted for 27.1% of all receipts and labor PACs and political clubs accounted for 4.9%. Here are the leaders for each category.

Total Receipts from Business Entities (Including PACs but not Individuals)

1. Steve Silverman, County Council/Executive Challenger: $1,437,988
2. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $372,996
3. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $310,427
4. Sheila Hixson, Delegate (D-20): $206,779
5. Howard Denis, County Council: $187,102
6. Kumar Barve, House Majority Leader (D-17): $180,766
7. George Leventhal, County Council: $177,019
8. Herman Taylor, Delegate (D-14): $164,662
9. Nancy Floreen, County Council: $146,531
10. Brian Feldman, Delegate (D-15): $129,809

Percentage of Total Receipts from Business Entities (Including PACs but not Individuals)

1. Sheila Hixson, Delegate (D-20): 52.7%
2. Kumar Barve, House Majority Leader (D-17): 52.1%
3. Nancy King, Senator (D-39): 49.2%
4. Jennie Forehand, Senator (D-17): 46.6%
5. Luiz Simmons, Delegate (D-17): 46.4%
6. Steve Silverman, County Council/Executive Challenger: 45.8%
7. Brian Feldman, Delegate (D-15): 44.4%
8. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): 37.8%
9. Steve Abrams, School Board/County Council Challenger: 36.6%
10. Cheryl Kagan, Delegate/Senate Challenger (D-17): 35.8%

61. Tom DeGonia, Delegate Challenger (D-19): 0.0%
61. Reggie Oldak, Delegate Challenger (D-16): 0.0%
59. Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger: 0.1%
58. Alec Stone, Delegate Challenger (D-19): 0.2%
57. Phil Andrews, County Council: 0.3%
56. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: 0.3%
55. Bill Frick, Delegate (D-16): 0.8%
54. Al Carr, Delegate (D-18): 2.0%
53. Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18): 2.1%
52. Jamie Raskin, Senator (D-20): 2.7%

Many of the state legislators who lead in the business category have key positions in Annapolis. Sheila Hixson is the Chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which includes taxes and slots in its portfolio. Kumar Barve chairs the revenue subcommittee of Ways and Means and is the House Majority Leader. Brian Feldman chairs the banking subcommittee on the House Economic Matters Committee. Rob Garagiola is the only MoCo member of the Senate Finance Committee, which covers banking, insurance, slots and utility regulation, and is a possible future contender for the Senate Presidency. Howard Denis was the last Republican County Council Member and represented Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac.

Total Receipts from Labor

1. Tom Hucker, Delegate (D-20): $92,427
2. Nancy Navarro, School Board/County Council: $68,231
3. George Leventhal, County Council: $62,949
4. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $53,123
5. Valerie Ervin, County Council: $45,072
6. Howard Denis, County Council: $41,350
7. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $34,040
8. Herman Taylor, Delegate (D-14): $31,450
9. Sheila Hixson, Delegate (D-20): $28,550
10. Mike Knapp, County Council: $26,340

Percentage of Total Receipts from Labor

1. Tom Hucker, Delegate (D-20): 49.3%
2. Valerie Ervin, County Council: 32.5%
3. Nancy Navarro, School Board/County Council: 27.8%
4. Laura Berthiaume, Delegate/School Board: 17.3%
5. Charles Barkley, Delegate (D-39): 15.4%
6. Marc Elrich, County Council: 14.2%
7. Henry Heller, Delegate (D-19): 13.7%
8. Roger Manno, Delegate (D-19): 12.8%
9. Nancy King, Senator (D-39): 10.6%
10. George Leventhal, County Council: 10.6%

Tied at 0.0%

Phil Andrews, County Council
Dana Beyer, Delegate Challenger (D-18)
Sharon Dooley, County Council Challenger
Robin Ficker, County Executive/Council Challenger
Guled Kassim, Delegate/County Council Challenger
Ben Kramer, Delegate/County Council Challenger
Cary Lamari, County Council Challenger
Reggie Oldak, Delegate Challenger (D-16)
Ryan Spiegel, Delegate Challenger (D-17)
Alec Stone, Delegate Challenger (D-19)
Craig Zucker, Delegate Challenger (D-14)

Tom Hucker founded Progressive Maryland and was its first Executive Director. He later worked for the Laborers Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition. Valerie Ervin was a union member, organizer and educator for twenty-five years before becoming George Leventhal’s Chief of Staff. Nancy Navarro ran in two special elections in which the county’s public employee unions perceived that their contracts were endangered. Laura Berthiaume was MCEA’s choice to knock out former School Board member Steve Abrams. Elrich is an MCEA member and Elrich, Ervin and Leventhal were among the co-sponsors of the 2008 Prevailing Wage Law.

In most races, labor money has not been that significant. Labor’s strength comes from different sources, including MCEA’s powerful Apple Ballot, the unions’ ability to turn out volunteers and their efforts to communicate their endorsements to their own members.

We’ll look at self-funding tomorrow.

Montgomery College on New Agreement with SEIU Local 500

2009-11-16T20:00:00.002-05:00

Following is the press release from the college.

Media Contacts: Elizabeth Homan, 240-567-7970; Brett Eaton, 240-567-7952

Montgomery College and SEIU Reach Tentative Agreement on Contract for Part-time Faculty Members

SEIU Membership and College Board of Trustees to Vote on Contract

Montgomery College and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 500 reached tentative agreement Friday on the first contract for part-time faculty members teaching credit courses at the College. The College and SEIU began negotiating a collective bargaining agreement in September 2008 after part-time faculty members voted for representation. SEIU represents approximately 900 part-time faculty members. Montgomery College is the only public higher education institution in the state of Maryland with a union for its part-time faculty.

The tentative two-year agreement addresses working conditions and pay rates for the part-time faculty members. The agreement formalizes the procedures that the College will use when assigning classes to part-time faculty, establishes a grievance procedure, increases the maximum number of credit hours that part-time faculty can teach, and provides for a modest rate increase for this current fiscal year equivalent to what other employees at the College have already received.

Through Montgomery College’s collective bargaining process, the College and SEIU came to agreement with the assistance of a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Throughout the process, Montgomery College and SEIU worked productively toward an agreement, and the two look forward to building upon this collaborative working relationship in the future.

“I am pleased that the College and SEIU have reached a tentative agreement,” said Dr. Hercules Pinkney, interim president of Montgomery College. “Montgomery College greatly values the contributions of the part-time faculty members, and I look forward to strengthening this partnership. It takes the talent and dedication of the entire Montgomery College community—part-time and full-time faculty, staff, and administrators—to achieve our mission of changing students’ lives.”

The tentative agreement must now go before the College’s SEIU members for approval and ratification. Once ratified, the agreement will be presented to the Montgomery College Board of Trustees for vote. The College anticipates that the Board will take action at its meeting in December. At that time, the agreement would take effect.

In addition to SEIU, two additional unions represent employees at Montgomery College—the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) represents full-time faculty members and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) represents select staff members.

# # #

Montgomery College is a public, open admissions community college with campuses in Germantown, Rockville, and Takoma Park/Silver Spring, plus workforce development/continuing education centers and off-site programs throughout Montgomery County, Md. The College serves nearly 60,000 students a year, through both credit and noncredit programs, in more than 100 areas of study.

More on Marylandreporter.com

2009-11-16T14:00:00.001-05:00

In the wake of our revelations concerning the affiliations of Marylandreporter.com, publisher Len Lazarick has not responded to our story. But our investigation continues.

On November 2, the same day we wrote about Marylandreporter.com’s secret right-wing links, Maryland Morning’s Sheilah Kast interviewed Lazarick and asked him about his site’s backing. Following is a partial transcript.

Kast: You’re a non-profit, Len, but it’s a business, and you’ve put a lot of the last few months into getting it going. Has that been more difficult than you expected?

Lazarick: I can’t say it’s more difficult than I expected, but it’s really been nice in the last two weeks to actually get back to reporting and doing content and not worrying about incorporation and bank accounts and workers comp for [reporter] Andy [Rosen] and health insurance and libel insurance and…

Kast: Part of why we’re talking to you is we think, as I guess you do, that this could be the wave of the future in journalism. So, do journalists need to get used to putting time into those kinds of activities?

Lazarick: Well, obviously as you grow, those things take up less time of what you’re doing. There’s always administrative sort of stuff that you have to do. But those things will take less time. And we just found out, literally, that we’re going to be getting a couple of paid fellows for the session next year from the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. So we are likely to have four full-time reporters at the statehouse, which may wind up being the largest organization there.

Kast: The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity is where you got your start-up grant, $100,000 as I understand it?

Lazarick: Uh, yeah, they don’t… actually, they don’t like us to talk about how much money is on, but yeah, they gave start-up funding, but eventually we have to become self-sufficient like YPR.

Kast: Right. Tell me about the Franklin Center.

Lazarick: They’ve been starting up these things around the country. They had been already funding investigative reporters at state-level think tanks. They’re focused on openness, transparency, accountability, responsiveness and they were founded in order to keep a light on state government. The American Journalism Review did a survey five years ago. There were about 600 statehouse reporters for daily newspapers around the country. This year there are 350. We know that national news is going to be covered by a lot of people. We expect that local news is going to be covered by smaller local newspapers. But it’s the state level where a lot of federal money gets spent, and certainly all the state money gets spent, needs that level of scrutiny.

Kast: I’m not trying to play gotcha here, but I’m struck, as you pointed out, the Franklin Center says its mission has to do with supporting openness and accountability. And yet, just as they don’t like you talking about how much your grant is, they don’t disclose their donors. I’m wondering if it’s uncomfortable not to know, or maybe you do but the public doesn’t know, the ultimate source of your start-up money.

Lazarick: No, actually I don’t, and there… other than their funding the proposal, there are no strings attached as far as I know.

Kast: Judging from the biographies of some staff at the Franklin Center, there are people with strong conservative credentials. That’s great, but as a journalist you know your next step would be to say “and where do they get their money” and we can’t find that out.

Lazarick: When I was told that the people at the Franklin Center have to sign and endorse the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, then I largely stopped worrying about what is the ideological orientation of some of the people involved in this.

The Franklin Center does not mention Lazarick or Marylandreporter.com on its website, but Lazarick has claimed to receive funding from them in interviews with the Gazette and Howard County’s Business Monthly. Let’s take Lazarick at his word on that for a moment. The Franklin Center’s staff includes a person who vetted appointments for Virginia Republican Governor Jim Gilmore and raised money for a conservative legal foundation, a former reporter for the Washington Times and a former writer for National Review Online. There are no staffers with obvious liberal pedigrees. Jason Stverak, the organization’s President, “was Regional Field Director for the Sam Adams Alliance, where he worked with state groups and associations committed to promoting the free market policies. Jason also served as North Dakota Executive Director for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee and spent six years as the Executive Director of the North Dakota Republican Party.” As Kast said in her interview with Lazarick, the organization does not disclose its donors.

The Franklin Center does admit that it was founded in January 2009 with a start-up grant from “the Sam Adams Alliance,” an organization that says little on its home page. The group merely states, “We are expanding our mission to serve a broad need for strategic communications among individuals and organizations who support free enterprise.” The Alliance’s Wikipedia entry says that its Chairman is an official with the conservative Club for Growth and the Center for Competitive Politics, which fights campaign finance regulation. The Alliance’s President was formerly the Executive Director of the Illinois Republican Party.

Every affiliation we have turned up for Marylandreporter.com links to a right-wing group, including the Media Research Center, the Business and Media Institute, the Free State Foundation and now the Franklin Center and the Sam Adams Alliance. But Lazarick chooses not to disclose any of these ties, except for the Franklin Center, and ignores our reporting.

Lazarick wants Marylandreporter.com to be regarded as an equal to mainstream media (MSM) news sources like the Post, Gazette and Sun. Here’s the problem: those organizations disclose their affiliations. The Post is a publicly-traded company that files regular reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Gazette is owned by the Post. The Sun is part of the Tribune Company, which is owned by real estate billionaire Sam Zell. The Examiner is owned by conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz. The Washington Times is owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. All of the above is public record.

Disclosure is embraced even by many in Maryland’s blogger community. MPW founder David Lublin said he was an American University professor in this blog’s very first post. I disclosed my employment by the Carpenters Union even before I became a regular writer on MPW. Conservative blogger Brian Griffiths is up front about his relationships with the Maryland Republican Party. Monoblogue’s Michael Swartz discloses his membership on the Wicomico County Republican Party Central Committee on his home page. And Just Up the Pike’s Dan Reed wrote about his hire by Montgomery County Council Member George Leventhal.

So now the largest statehouse news operation may well belong to a website with unknown financing and murky links to right-wing groups that does not meet the minimal disclosure standards of many bloggers. Is this what the world will look like after the mainstream media is gone?

SEIU Local 500 Reaches First Contract with Montgomery College

2009-11-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

This concludes nearly two years of organizing and bargaining. Following is the press release from SEIU Local 500.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT

Anna Oman, Communications Director
(301) 740-7123
omana@seiu500.org

PART-TIME FACULTY SETTLES HISTORIC FIRST CONTRACT WITH MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Monday, November 16, 2009

ROCKVILLE (Nov 16) -- Late last week, part-time faculty leaders settled a historic first contract with Montgomery College. The contract, which must now be ratified by the part-time faculty and Board of Trustees, is the culmination of more than two years of organizing and negotiations by the part-timers, who teach nearly half of all classes at the College and who are represented by SEIU Local 500.

"We're pleased with the agreement," explains Victoria Baldassano, part-time professor of English at Montgomery College and member of the SEIU Local 500 bargaining committee. "We were able to reach agreement with the College on the major points of concern for our fellow part-time faculty – some improvement in compensation, job security and a new commitment to working together to address issues like pay inequity and lack of benefits. More than that, though, we're formalizing our role in the academic community here at Montgomery College. What began as a few part-time faculty members, who knew we deserved better, has grown into a movement. Together we're changing the status quo and standing up for ourselves and for the students who depend on us."

While its details are being withheld pending ratification, the contract allows for a modest salary improvement, higher course-load limits for part-time faculty, greater job security, and improved assurances of reappointment. The contract also creates committees to review, and formulate recommendations for addressing, pay inequity between full-time and part-time faculty for in-classroom instruction, as well as to explore health insurance options for part-time professors.

"This first contract is a strong signal that the College is beginning to recognize the value of the contribution that its part-time faculty to make to the excellence of the institution," said Dan Moskowitz, fellow part-time professor in the Math Department and bargaining committee member. "We have long known that our students can't receive first-class instruction when the people teaching half of all Montgomery College courses are treated as second-class citizens. There's much work to be done, but we believe this contract is a strong foundation to build upon."

Part-time faculty voted overwhelmingly to join together with SEIU Local 500 in June 2008.

Merle Cuttitta, President of SEIU Local 500, welcomed the news, saying, "I want to congratulate the Montgomery College part-time faculty members. Their dedication and hard work has paid off in a solid first contract. We are delighted that these hard working men and women are a part of the Local 500 family. The union's commitment to excellence in public service and life-long learning is exemplified in the part-time faculty of Montgomery College. We see their first contract as another important step in building a movement of part time faculty in our region."

Service Employees International Union Local 500 represents 18,000 women and men working in education, public services, community services and child care in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Local 500 members serve the public at the Montgomery County Public Schools, Montgomery College, Community Services for Autistic Adults and Children, The George Washington University, Head Start organizations, family child care centers across Maryland, National Children’s Center, Oxfam International, Public Citizen, and the United States Student Association.