By Adam Pagnucco.
Now that a voter petition reducing term limits for the county executive from three to two has been certified for the ballot, County Executive Marc Elrich is in real danger of being ejected from office. Documents I obtained in a Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) request show efforts by his taxpayer-paid staff to save him. Some of those efforts occurred using the county’s email system on county time.
Is that ethical or legal?
It took me a while to get these documents. I first submitted an MPIA request for them on June 20. My original request asked for “All correspondence sent or received by the following individuals about term limits and/or the charter review commission in calendar year 2024” and specified Elrich and a number of his staff members. On July 22, I was told that this request generated “several hundreds of correspondences that have resulted.” Two days later, the county requested a fee of $1,323.58 for the records.
I then narrowed my request to “just correspondence sent about term limits.” On August 30, I was sent a 26-page file in response.
This series summarizes the documents and contains many screenshots of responsive emails. In order to understand the events they describe, let’s start with a cast of characters who are relevant to these records. They include:
County Executive Marc Elrich – The current county executive who is now serving his second term. If term limits are reduced from three to two, he will not be eligible to run for reelection in 2026.
Reardon Sullivan – The lead organizer of the term limits petition. Sullivan ran against Elrich as the GOP nominee in 2022 and lost by 51 points.
Dale Tibbitts and Debbie Spielberg – Two of Elrich’s special assistants, who are at-will employees in his office. Both have worked for Elrich for his entire tenure as executive and both were on his staff when he was at the county council. Additionally, Tibbitts has served in Elrich’s campaigns at various times as chair and treasurer.
Rich Madaleno – A former state senator who is Elrich’s chief administrative officer, the senior manager in county government. He was Elrich’s budget director early in the latter’s first term.
Jim Michaels – The chair of the county’s charter review commission, which provides recommendations on charter amendments to the county council.
Sam Statland – A former member of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee and a 2002 candidate for delegate, he is a long-time player in county politics.
So what is contained in these documents? We will have more in Part Two.