Candidate Questionnaire: League of Women Voters

Go to https://vote411.org/plan-your-vote to see my responses along side the responses from any other candidates who may be appearing on your ballot.

I’ll cut right to the chase. I could only describe this first question as “obtuse”. It really hung me up and I spent a few days looking, searching for some legislation, or some piece of information that I had missed. It turns out Occam’s razor struck again.

Note: I initially thought I might do a side-by-side of my answers along with the responses from the other candidate, but that info is available over on vote411.org, and you really should be using that site. The side-by-side is kind of striking. If you want precision engineered politispeak that somehow says a whole lot without saying anything… well, you’ll have to go with the corporate-backed politician for that sort of stuff.

1. How would you reallocate funds or raise revenue to meet the new legally mandated educational spending along with other priorities important to county residents?

According to the Department of Legislative Services’ reporting1, Howard County’s estimated contribution requirements are expected to remain in step with projected county revenue growth. Howard County is considered to be unimpacted2 by Blueprint’s required spending increases because we already exceed program targets. I plan to work with budget advisors and the county council to ensure education spending catches up to meet our needs so our schools may become fully funded.

2. Do you believe that affordable housing is an issue that needs to be addressed in Howard County, and if so, how would you address it?

Affordability and the lack of affordable housing are easily amplified by the local economics of a county as wealthy as ours. First we need to create a legal definition of affordable housing tied to the minimum wage; if you can work full time, you should be able to afford rent. Today that’s $887/mo incl. utilities. Next we need rent stabilization that caps increases to 2.25% or CPI-U, whichever is lower. We also abolish the tipped and sub-minimum wage and raise the minimum wage to $30 by 2030.

3. Do you believe there is an issue with the availability and affordability of quality childcare and eldercare? If so, how would you address the issue?

I was fortunate enough to start school at 3, and though we offer pre-K, it’s limited to prioritizing Tier-1 households; pre-K needs to be available to all children, along with expansive full-day summer programs. Kids may get summers off, but working parents don’t. Living on a fixed income in HoCo isn’t tenable for a majority of our older neighbors. I plan to work with the Commission on Aging and our seniors to find creative ways to make it not just possible, but affordable to retire here.

4. What do you think of the goals and progress made under the Howard County Climate Forward plan? What strategies would you support to make sure Howard County attains these goals?

The goals are a bare minimum, and the progress a series of PR stunts. We have never even tried to make transit more convenient and cheaper than driving; let’s start there and build a real, reliable system. I want to close the sidewalk-to-nowhere loophole and create a real multi-modal network, not check boxes. Update building codes to require both single- and multi-family dwellings to achieve PHIUS3 certification. No new natural gas infrastructure, and end HOAs requiring grass lawns.

5. Please explain the role you believe the county government should play in protecting residents’ Constitutional rights.

Government’s purpose is to support and protect everyone. I don’t believe we should limit our role to protecting only the Constitutional rights of people in Howard County; those rights are incomplete and subject to interpretation. If any born person’s rights are violated within the county, I expect HCPD to intervene and protect that person. I support a HoCo Bill of Rights that protects all people from abuses not just by each other, but by corporations and by local and federal government as well.

6. How would you address concerns about crime while also building trust between public safety agencies and the residents of Howard County?

We start with community policing; officers need to spend time on foot to build relationships. No blacked-out slick-top cop cars; we need high-visibility public safety vehicles. Replace the cops who, in 2025, arrested children in our schools, 96% of whom were people of color, with appropriately trained staff and services that work; SRO is a propaganda term. We need to dismantle Calvin’s dystopian surveillance dragnet, and stop the automated ticketing programs that do nothing for safety.

And that’s it. Short, with short answers. This questionnaire required me to put together a new portrait. And though a few photographers have been interested in taking portraits for me since I started this campaign, I am reliant on donated time and talent, so things hadn’t come together.

Behold! A D.I.Y. portrait, taken on my 5-6 year old phone with a janky bluetooth fob remote. It only required minimal touch-up and I could have done worse.