By Adam Pagnucco.
It’s a brand new year and you know what that means – a political awards column for the year that was. Here are Montgomery Perspective’s political awards for 2023!
Biggest Winner: County Executive Marc Elrich
It may have been understandable for County Executive Marc Elrich to govern tentatively after winning the 2022 Democratic primary by just 32 votes, but that is not his way. He came out swinging and won almost half of the 10% property tax hike he proposed, got big union contracts approved, helped pass a new rent control law (which he had wanted for decades) and negotiated an expansion of United Therapeutics which has drawn wide praise. He even acquired increases in recordation and impact taxes that he did not propose. Best of all, the county council declined to appoint his old enemy, former Council Member Hans Riemer, as chair of the planning board and chose mild-mannered Artie Harris instead.
One of Elrich’s few missteps was seeing former Council Member Craig Rice withdraw from a new job that he created for him, but it was still a good year for the executive. We shall see if the General Assembly gives him the authority to levy higher taxes on commercial property that he wants to fund transportation projects this coming spring.
Runners Up: Council Members Will Jawando and Andrew Friedson
Council Member Will Jawando is the father of rent control and he will run on that issue for the rest of his political career. Council Member Andrew Friedson cast the sole vote against a tax hike that in retrospect was proven to be unnecessary and also established his primacy as the county Jewish community’s principal defender. At the moment, Jawando and Friedson are the two poles around which MoCo politics revolves.
Biggest Loser: CASA
Going into the fall, the immigrant rights group CASA had it made. Once providing services to immigrants out of a church basement, CASA had expanded into a national political powerhouse. And then BOOOOOM, its incredibly gratuitous statements on Israel’s war on Hamas – which had nothing to do with its mission – produced a deluge of condemnations and provoked one of its largest private funders to cut ties. This was one of the biggest displays of Icarus complex that has been seen in recent Maryland politics. One wonders if the fallout has ended.
Runner Up: MCPS
A bruising budget battle. Conflicts with Muslims and religious parents over curriculum. Off and on feuding with the teachers union. The Joel Beidleman scandal. A lack of trust with the county council. And now backlash over employing a former council member at the rate of $96.62 per hour. This has been a bad year for MCPS. Will it get better in 2024?
Biggest Loss of Local Knowledge: The Washington Post
Over the last year or so, the Post’s local coverage has lost transportation and development reporter Katie Shaver, columnist John Kelly, state politics reporter Ovetta Wiggins, transportation reporter Luz Lazo and Maryland editorial writer Lee Hockstader (who now writes from Europe). This is a massive loss of local knowledge that will damage the Post’s MoCo coverage for a long time, especially because its new reporters tend not to stay as long as their predecessors once did.
Reporter of the Year: Nicole Asbury, Washington Post
Yes, the Post’s local coverage is receding as related above. But when the Post wants to engage, it can still pack a punch as proven by its August 11 investigative story of sexual harassment by MCPS Principal Joel Beidleman. Post education reporter Nicole Asbury co-wrote that story with Alexandra Robbins and went on to do a series of must-read follow-up articles over the next few weeks. MCPS parents (I’m one of them) hope that Asbury sticks around as long as we can keep her.
Most Ignored Series: Ranked Choice Voting
A year ago, I wrote a four-part series about ranked choice voting (RCV). This was no mere set of opinions as I worked for dozens of hours to assemble a data set of 1,120 RCV elections from around the country and found that they produced a different outcome than traditional elections only 2% of the time. Why then should anyone either strongly favor them or strongly oppose them? All that data wound up making exactly ZERO difference in how people feel about RCV. Everyone who loved them still loves them. Everyone who hated them still hates them. Who needs data when you know you’re right??
Biggest Crisis: Maryland Transportation Funding
Maryland’s transportation funding crisis is so serious that without new revenue, the state may get out of the transportation construction business. That’s right – no Red Line in Baltimore, no fix for I-270 or the American Legion Bridge, no MARC expansion, not even a cheap pair of sneakers. This five-part series lays out how the crisis came to be and what can be done about it.
Runner Up: Police Staffing
An exploding police vacancy rate, rising call response times and increasing rates of retirement and resignation coincide with notable spikes in some crimes, especially carjackings. The county police are already reducing their presence in Rockville and Gaithersburg. What’s next?
Runner Up: Office Building Collapse
Rising office vacancy rates, depressed leasing and weak building sales have office building owners crying out for help and even defaulting. But wait, we can convert office buildings to apartments, right? Good luck doing that with our new rent control law.
Epochal Event: Rent Control
Last summer, I surveyed my oldest and wisest sources for their listing of landmark events in MoCo history. The only event in the top ten that happened in the last five years was the council’s passage of rent control in July. The transfer of authority over rental housing prices from the market to government is a fundamental shift that will affect the county for generations. It will take years to understand its true impact here, but the massive body of evidence on rent control does not bode well for us.
Eyeballs Award: Kristin Mink
You may love her. You may hate her. But I know you’re going to read about her! Every time I write about Council Member Kristin Mink, it’s guaranteed eyeballs. It doesn’t matter if she is deleting thousands of tweets, offending Muslims, offending “Zionist Jews” or trying to limit police traffic stops, Mink easily outpaces all other freshman politicians in site traffic. And she’s not just sizzle, you get some steak too as she passed a large recordation tax increase to fund school construction and rent assistance. What will Mink do for Montgomery Perspective this year?
County Government Employee of the Year: Inspector General Megan Davey Limarzi
How lucky are we to have an aggressive inspector general? Just look back on the reports by Inspector General (IG) Megan Davey Limarzi in 2023. The most memorable ones include:
April: MCPS Payment of Traffic Citations. MCPS employees ran up almost $150,000 in traffic citations over the last eight years and taxpayers covered some of the costs.
June: Carryout Bag Tax. The county’s enforcement of the bag tax is shoddy at best.
August: Enterprise System Procurement. The Department of Permitting Services walked away from a new enterprise IT system after spending more than $2 million on it.
September: Misconduct by County Council Employee. A county council employee inappropriately charged more than $11,000 for athletic reservations to the council “for the benefit of their spouse.”
November: Investigation of Misconduct Allegations Against Dr. Joel Beidleman. The IG verified some of the allegations against a former principal that has caused a firestorm at MCPS.
With a bigger budget and staff, we look forward to what Limarzi produces in 2024.
Most Missed Award: Jake Weissmann
Regardless of how folks feel about Elrich or his administration, almost everyone – at least among my sources who offered comment – has had something good to say about former Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Jake Weissmann. Jake had a long history in Annapolis, notably serving as chief of staff to Senate Presidents Mike Miller and Bill Ferguson, before coming to MoCo as Chief Administrative Officer Rich Madaleno’s right hand. Politically astute, a quick learner and a fellow who knows how to not take things personally, Jake made his bosses look good. He will serve the University of Maryland Baltimore County well.
Jamie Raskin Politician of the Year Award: Delegate Marc Korman
Last year, I named my annual Politician of the Year Award after Congressman Jamie Raskin, recognizing that he could very well win this award every single year. Instead, by naming it after him, I could fairly give it to other politicians.
This year’s winner is Delegate Marc Korman, who became chair of the House Environment and Transportation Committee after the retirement of the former chair, Delegate Kumar Barve. Korman combines expertise on budget and transportation issues like few state legislators not named Rich Madaleno. In addition, he is famous for off-year door-knocking; prolific book, movie and TV reviews; encyclopedic knowledge of political history and lightning-fast response times. Korman is a good guy and a great delegate whom MoCo is lucky to have.
That’s it for 2023. On to the new year!
Prior political awards columns: