REVOLT!

In a moment that defined their political careers, Montgomery County Council Members Duchy Trachtenberg, Phil Andrews and Valerie Ervin put the fate of the public employees’ cost of living adjustments on the table last Friday. Present to greet them were over 300 chanting, stomping, clapping and occasionally yelling union members.


Council Members Trachtenberg, Andrews and Ervin are members of the council’s Management and Fiscal Policy (MFP) Committee. The committee’s charge on Friday was to discuss the extent to which savings on the county’s labor costs should be applied to fix its $297 million budget deficit. “Labor savings” ultimately means funding less for personnel costs than is called for in the county’s collective bargaining agreements: a practice derisively labeled by the unions as “contract busting.”

A word about the union members in the pictures. Assembled by pugnacious MCGEO President Gino Renne in the nearby County Executive Office Building, they were in no mood for “contract busting” and marched across a rain-soaked street to confront their council overseers. Their radioactive yellow battle color is not intended to please the eye and it certainly does not. It is designed to attract attention. They certainly received plenty of it on Friday.

Council Member Trachtenberg, chairwoman of the MFP Committee, opened the meeting with new transfer and recordation tax receipt numbers for April. Transfer and recordation taxes depend on property sales and they have been devastated by the recent collapse in the county’s real estate and construction market. According to Ms. Trachtenberg, the county received $13 million in transfer and recordation taxes in April 2008, down from $18 million in April 2007. For the year to date, transfer and recordation taxes totaled $138 million, down from $180 million the year prior. “Taxpayers are reaching a breaking point,” declared Ms. Trachtenberg and that justified a 2% reduction in the unions’ negotiated COLAs.


Council Member Andrews agreed. Citing the fact that personnel costs accounted for 80% of the county’s budget, he told the ornery union members, “What’s fair is to ask everyone to help.” As he has for months, he criticized the unions’ agreements as “unaffordable” and stated flatly, “I would not have negotiated the contracts that came over to us.” Supporting Ms. Trachtenberg, he said, “I believe that the 2% COLA reduction is a fair way to go.”

Pictures cannot do justice to the unholy din created by the roaring public employees. Hundreds of police officers, bus drivers, librarians, deputy sheriffs, correctional officers and park and planning workers rose to their feet to challenge Council Members Trachtenberg and Andrews. “What are you giving back?” one cried. “We are the taxpayers!” another yelled. “You’re hitting us twice!” pointed out one employee who was also a county resident. Worker after worker decried simultaneous increases in fuel and food costs, cuts in county services and proposed cuts in COLAs as a squeeze on their standard of living from multiple sides.

And then Ms. Ervin took the mike. She is a 25-year veteran organizer and trainer in the labor movement and everyone knew what she would say. “I was a proud member of the UFCW union,” she announced to the crowd. “We do not have to balance this budget on the backs of working people.” She recounted a bookful of statistics on poverty and income inequality to the groans of the audience (some of which we will examine on this blog) and concluded with, “Montgomery County is affluent for only some people.” “I believe that cutting salaries will hurt our local economy,” she said, “and I will not support a 2% COLA reduction.” We present the crowd’s reaction below.


In the end, the MFP Committee did not recommend a 2% COLA reduction. Instead, Ms. Trachtenberg introduced a motion calling for $40 million in “labor savings” with the exact mechanism to be decided later by the rest of the County Council. Mr. Andrews concurred and Ms. Ervin ferociously dissented. Neither the council members nor the staff justified this particular number against a lesser or greater amount. No mention was made by anyone of the unions’ identification of $67 million in additional revenues and savings as reported on this blog. The Post and the Gazette also omitted that fact from their coverage.

So what will become of the committee’s proposal for “labor savings,” a euphemism for underfunding the contracts? There do not appear to be any other votes on the council for the MFP Committee’s proposal, especially considering the fact that the union contracts are affordable in the next fiscal year. Instead, a rough consensus is forming in favor of a slightly lower property tax increase than that proposed by the County Executive along with a carbon tax proposed by Council Member Nancy Floreen.


But even that plan involves breaking the county’s charter limit on property tax increases, which generally holds tax receipt gains to a level equaling the increase in the consumer price index. Seven of the eight County Council Members must vote to exceed that limit. Both Council Members Trachtenberg and Andrews oppose breaking the charter limit, enough to kill any property tax hike. Will either of them budge on that position, thus enabling the union contracts to be preserved? That is the big question. We will have an answer by Thursday.

Valerie Ervin Issues "Call to Action" on Economic Justice

Montgomery County Council Member Valerie Ervin, who represents Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Wheaton and Kensington, wrote the following op-ed in the Gazette today. We reproduce it here for our readers.

The Gazette
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Economic justice: A call to action
by Valerie Ervin

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was assassinated while in Memphis supporting sanitation workers who were on strike to improve working conditions and low wages. For Dr. King economic inequality was an important tenet of the civil rights movement. This new focus was the convergence of racial and economic concerns and had the potential to change the course of the movement.

Forty years later many things have changed in Montgomery County, but much remains the same. In 1975, the county’s minority population was 8 percent. In 2005, census data shows the minority population had grown to 41 percent countywide and was 79 percent in some areas. However, a comprehensive discourse about race and poverty is absent.

In Montgomery County, one of the most affluent counties in Maryland, policy makers often ignore the plight of those who are struggling to make ends meet. I believe that a new conversation about poverty and race must take place.

County government officials explain that growth in the county was less than 1 percent last year. However, what does this mean for an average working family? Without a growing tax base, our roads will continue to experience gridlock and our schools will remain overcrowded. More than 5,000 public school employees must travel from as far away as West Virginia each day to teach our children.

Police officers and firefighters go to great lengths to serve our communities, yet many call other jurisdictions home. Commute times are getting longer because, for so many, the cost of living in Montgomery County is a dream that is out of reach. Montgomery County has the second highest foreclosure rate in Maryland, and we have yet to see the worst of this trend.

Each year our public school system must teach more children who arrive at our doors unable to speak English. Poverty is also an issue for our county’s children with nearly 25 percent of school children eligible for free and reduced meals.

So where do we go from here? I have traveled throughout the county and visited the homes of people who dream of simple achievements that many of us take for granted. Their voices are silent in our most critical public policy debates. What I have found is that there is a disconnect between what preoccupies policy makers and what truly troubles the majority of working people who are struggling to care for children, pay for housing and cover the ever increasing costs of utilities, fuel and groceries. The current economic downturn impacts working families disproportionately, but they are too busy trying to make a living to spend time lobbying lawmakers.

As a call to action, I propose a summit for state and local policymakers to begin a new debate — a conversation about how to achieve economic justice for all of our residents. We must focus on opportunities for the future, not artificial limitations imposed by the past.

Valerie Ervin, a Democrat from Silver Spring, represents District 5 on the Montgomery County Council.

A note from Adam Pagnucco.

Council Member Ervin is touching on a theme that was explored in the recent County Council District 4 special election. In the candidate debates in that short campaign, Nancy Navarro repeatedly mentioned the plight of the people "not in the room." In contrast, my blog-brother Kevin Gillogly offered this characterization of the election in a blog post comment: "That is this race in a nutshell: Growth and Land Use Policy. Everything else is smoke screen." The debate on growth policy, poverty, jobs and pay is heating up as this county teeters on the edge of a recession and Valerie Ervin is calling that question.

If another elected leader has a different view, we will carry it for our readers in the interest of encouraging open debate.

More Wobbling on the Property Tax

While the great debate between David Lublin and myself over the property tax is now over, the great tumult over the issue on the County Council is just getting started.

The Gazette reveals that Council President Mike Knapp is now uncertain about his vote on the County Executive's property tax proposal. This follows votes against the tax in the Management and Fiscal Policy Committee by Council Members Duchy Trachtenberg and Phil Andrews and an abstention by Valerie Ervin. Council Member Nancy Floreen has also expressed doubts about the tax.

Because the District 4 council seat will not be filled until after the budget is decided, seven of the remaining eight Council Members must vote to break the charter limit to pass the property tax hike. So far, we count two votes against, two votes not committed and four votes with no expressed position. That's a bad sign for passage of the tax hike.

Do any of our readers know if it's possible for the County Council to turn down the property tax hike and not re-open the public employee contracts?

County Council District 4 Round-Up

OK everybody, with less than two weeks to go, here’s the latest.

1. The Prince George’s County Council District 5 special election has MoCo campaign operatives’ tongues wagging. In that seven-candidate election, Theresa Dudley defeated Adam Ortiz by 171 votes at last count with a turnout of 8.2% of registered voters. If that turnout holds in MoCo District 4, roughly 8,400 voters will show up. So a competitive D4 candidate will have 3,000 votes and a sure winner will cross the 4,000 mark. These are small, small numbers folks, and anything could happen.

2. The Post and the Gazette have churned out quite a few articles in the last week. Among them are reports of County Council staffers getting cozy with Don Praisner’s campaign manager, a recounting of last Saturday’s candidate forum and a discussion of the challenges of time and name recognition. Additionally, this blog has made MCDCC Vice-Chairman Alan Banov a multi-media star as he has been interviewed by the Gazette about the illegal robo-calls first reported here. Hopefully Mr. Banov will remember who launched his ride to fame when one of us runs for a state legislative appointment!

But the biggest story of the week is the Gazette’s report on two meetings at the home of MoCo Superintendent of Schools Jerry Weast attended by education union leaders a month ago. The Gazette reports, “At the first meeting, Weast said that the unions should endorse Navarro for the County Council, according to a person who talked about what happened on the condition of not being identified.” The Gazette quoted Merle Cuttita, President of SEIU Local 500, as saying that the meeting was primarily about budget issues but she added, “He let us know that she would be a good candidate for county council ... that Nancy Navarro would be a good candidate for the council.” Nancy Navarro and County Council Member Valerie Ervin attended the second meeting, but Navarro denied that any endorsement was discussed there.

My father was a special education teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, an Assistant Superintendent of Schools and a school system controller in upstate New York. He never endorsed politicians or asked his unions to support any of them. He had a sound reason for that policy. In my rural county, voters directly approved school budgets. If my father had ever gotten too close to a politician, it would have made the local paper and his budget would have been killed. So he never, ever went there.

It is perfectly natural for the Superintendent to meet with the President of the Board of Education (Navarro), a County Council Member on the Education Committee (Ervin) and the leaders of the unions to discuss the schools budget. But Jerry Weast is playing with fire if he indeed asked the unions to support Navarro. First, he will run afoul of the County Executive, who is supporting Don Praisner. Second, Navarro’s opponents will be sure to remember Weast’s political apostasy if one of them wins. Third, he is giving Navarro’s rivals a good issue and Steve Kanstoroom raised it at Wednesday night’s debate. (And check out my blog-brother Kevin Gillogly's searing rant about this, which is forthcoming.) Mr. Weast, take it from the son of a career public school administrator: stay out of politics.

3. District 4 resident Dan Reed of Just Up the Pike is the best interviewer in MoCo blogdom. He has a talent for picking up on the little things that tell you a lot about a person. Check out Rockville mayoral candidate Drew Powell’s relentless hunt for a security guard, Steve Kanstoroom’s making change for a homeless guy and former County Council candidate Hans Riemer’s pho-drenched denunciations of limousine liberals. Dan has posted interviews with Navarro, Kanstoroom and Republicans Mark Fennel and Thomas Hardman with more on the way. Do yourself a favor and bookmark Just Up the Pike.

4. Nancy Navarro and Don Praisner are getting most of the attention but Steve Kanstoroom and Pat Ryan deserve mention. Both are strong and attractive candidates. Kanstoroom is crazy-earnest and combines green eye-shades with a warm heart. He is a beloved figure among the Sandy Spring activists he is helping. Would he really wring greater efficiencies from MoCo government as he claims? I don’t know, but speaking as a fellow dirt-digging researcher, it would be fun to watch him try.

As for Ryan, he may be the true heir to Marilyn Praisner from a policy perspective. I have seen him at two debates and he espouses the Praisner position package: fiscal restraint and caution on growth. After picking up the Gazette’s endorsement, Ryan glowed with confidence at Wednesday night’s debate. If you are a District 4 voter who agreed with Marilyn Praisner’s agenda and would like to see an advocate carry it out for the long run, you should seriously consider Pat Ryan.

5. Don Praisner did not show up at Wednesday night’s debate. County Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg told the audience that he was sick and had gone to the hospital. The Gazette is reporting that Mr. Praisner will not be attending tonight’s taped debate.

6. And if you guys really need more of this, here’s the schedule for the remaining debates:

FRI 4/4: 6:00 Montgomery Community Television/LWV Televised Forum @ MCT Studios, 7548 Standish Place, Rockville, MD 20855

SUN 4/6: 3:00 Sandy Spring Forum, Sherwood Elemenatary School, 1401 Olney-Sandy Spring Road (Rte 108), Sandy Spring, MD

TUE 4/8: 7:00 LWV Debate @ Sandy Spring Friends School 16923 Norwood Rd, Sandy Spring, MD 20860

WED 4/9: 7:00 Burtonsville Debate @ Paint Branch High School, 14121 Old Columbia Pike, Burtonsville, MD 20866

WED 4/9: 7:00 Northwood-Four Corners Forum @ North Four Corners Park Recreation Center, 211 Southwood Ave, Silver Spring, MD

THU 4/10: 2:00 Riderwood Debate @ Performance Hall of Lakeside Commons at Riderwood Village, 3150 Gracefield Rd, Silver Spring, MD

THU 4/10: 7:30 Leisureworld Debate @ Club House 1, 14901 Pennfield Circle, Silver Spring, MD

Disclosure: I am the Assistant to the General President of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. Our local affiliate, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, endorsed Nancy Navarro.

Nancy Navarro's Show of Force

One week after Don Praisner announced his candidacy for the District 4 County Council seat backed by the County Executive and four council members, Nancy Navarro responded with an announcement of her own.

Navarro’s campaign kicked off at the Good Hope Community Center at 11 this morning. Supporters in attendance included Council Member Valerie Ervin, Casa de Maryland leader Gustavo Torres, District 20 Delegate Tom Hucker, several members of the school board, representatives from MCEA and SEIU Local 500 and scores of district residents. Navarro read this statement:

My name is Nancy Navarro. I am the President of the Montgomery County Board of Education, a wife and a parent of two amazing daughters who could not be with us because they are in school. Earlier today, I filed as a candidate for the District 4 Council seat.

This candidacy was not in my plans. It came about after a sad and unexpected death of a woman who dedicated her life to service. I have learned that many honorable endeavors usually are not planned and that is why it is so important to be ready. And I can say with absolute resolve that I am ready for this seat and I am willing to represent all the residents of District 4 and this County.

Yesterday, I visited with over 100 residents of this neighborhood at the Good Hope United Methodist Church. They came together to demand a renovation of this center and other centers located in mostly low-income communities of color. This community came out to be heard, to be supported and to indicate their presence in this District.

In the last three weeks, I have heard that the only issues that people in this District care about are land use, the ICC, traffic and the environment. Indeed these are very important issues to all of us, but let’s not forget all the other issues that we all face everyday: the need for quality education, jobs, affordable housing, access to affordable child care, access to affordable health care, business development, enhanced transportation services and many more.

These are the issues that we must grapple with as a District and as a County. In these difficult economic times, we will not be able to solve everything. But it sure helps to have someone who has been in elected office, who has presided over an elected body and who is not afraid to exercise her independence while making very difficult decisions. I do believe in the politics of possibilities. I do believe that Montgomery County with its ever-changing face can and will continue to preserve its quality of life.

I pledge to seek consensus whenever possible, to promote civil discourse and to always make decisions based on what is in the best interest of District 4 and the County. Please come out to vote on April 15. District 4 deserves a leader that is here for the long haul, one that has been tried and tested, one that reflects the hopes and dreams of all its residents.

Three things stood out about this announcement to your blogger:

1. The campaign showed off an extremely diverse group of supporters for the event. Just look at the picture below:


Blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, seniors, kids, union people, community activists and many others were present in abundance. As Council Member Valerie Ervin said, “When we talk about the new Montgomery County, this is what it looks like.” More importantly, the gathering resembled a district in which no one demographic group commands a majority.

2. Special elections depend on turnout and this one will be no exception. The fact that MCEA, SEIU and Casa de Maryland activists have all pledged to support Navarro gives her a ground game that her opponents must match. They should all beware of the fist-pumping declaration delivered by Gustavo Torres: “We are going to fight to make sure immigrants vote in this election!”

3. Mr. Praisner is effectively the incumbent in the race. Nevertheless, there was immense confidence among Navarro’s supporters. (Perhaps the Good Hope Community Center was aptly named for today’s event.) They truly believe that they will outwork the Praisner campaign and bring change to the district.

This race is compelling because District 4 has not seen a truly competitive contest since it was created in 1990. That year Marilyn Praisner, coming off service on the school board, ran as the candidate of change and defeated three-term council incumbent Mike Gudis. Is Nancy Navarro the 2008 model of Mrs. Praisner? We’ll find out in less than five weeks.

Disclosure: The author is the Assistant to the General President of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. The union’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Council has endorsed Navarro.

Navarro Announces Kickoff

The Navarro campaign sent out the following announcement.

You Are Invited:
Nancy Navarro Campaign Kickoff

Where: Good Hope Community Center at 14715 Good Hope Rd, Silver Spring, MD
When: Monday, March 10th @ 11:00 AM
RSVP or to Volunteer: Mike Hamby jmhx9c@gmail.com

Please join Nancy Navarro and her supporters for a County Council campaign kickoff rally. Nancy's belief in the politics of possibilities and her inclusive vision of governance will be reflected by the diverse lineup of speakers who will announce their support for her candidacy:

Congresswoman-elect Donna Edwards
State Senator Jamie Raskin
State Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez
County Councilmember Valerie Ervin
and more!

We hope you can make it! In the meantime, please visit NancyNavarro.org for campaign updates and to donate.

By authority: Friends of Nancy Navarro, Laura Barnitz, Treasurer.