Montgomery County, please give Elrich a chance. Don't let Floreen fool you.

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08/07/2018 22:05

Subject: Montgomery County, please give Elrich a chance. Don't let Floreen fool you.

quote

Anonymous

I understand the argument of people who signed Ms. Floreen's petition and/or intend to vote for her. Voters would like a choice from the "center," independent voices should be heard, there was no mandate in the primary. All of this is true. But what is troubling is the lazy thinking and strawman characterization attribute to Elrich and the failure to think as critically about Floreen.

First, the smear campaign against Elrich has been utterly laughable. If you read his economic development, it sounds much more like honest pragmatism, and in fact it looks like he's trying as hard as he can to avoid raising your property taxes again. There is literally nothing in their to indicate he is trying to bring socialism to Montgomery County.
https://www.marcelrich.org/economic-development
One of these strategies is indeed, "encouraging entrepreneurship"!
He also wrote to Jeff Bezos and indicated he would not rescind Ike Legget's Amazon incentive package - which indeed goes against what some of his DSA/union base would like to hear. And on that note, he has also said he's negotiated with public sector unions to help restructure county government, of all things. I think a lot of us would like to see a more efficient county government, and it would take someone like Marc who the unions would trust in order to get them on board for something like that. Were he one to simply "kowtow to the unions," there would be no talk of restructuring.

Perhaps Marc's most distinguishing feature is his proposal to make real estate developers pay for impact fees necessary to fund infrastructure. This doesn't sound like NIMBYism - it sounds like he wants a place for people of diverse income ranges to live and not have to be stuck in traffic with overcrowded schools as a result. What's so wrong with that? And no, this won't cause developers to stop providing housing altogether - the demand is still there, and it would be a foolish business move to exit the housing market altogether.

Nancy Floreen, on the other hand, seems to want to pave over everything, and is ready to rubber stamp any development plan under the sun, regardless how poorly thought out.
She voted for the same tax increases as everyone else, and then goes namecalling to the Washington Post, calling Elrich "a Marxist and a Socialist."

While Nancy is for sure in her right to gather signatures (even with an army of paid canvassers) and get on the ballot, it doesn't make this move by her any less ugly. She sat out the primary, claiming to take the term limits vote to heart, and then suddenly threw her hat in the ring when she didn't like the result. She did say that "friends" or someone came along and begged her to run, but who would be naive enough to think that these "friends" were not mostly developers.
What makes Nancy's entry particularly unethical is the lopsided financial advantage she will have. She will have virtually unlimited funding from the development community, whereas Marc will be severely limited by having already exhausted his donor base due to the ceiling of the public financing system. Not to mention, he had just endured a grueling primary, while Nancy sat it out. Legal? Yes. Ethical? Absolutely not.

I know Marc has an edgy, leftist reputation that might not sit well with some of you. And I know some would love to see a woman take the helm in an election cycle that desperately needs more women - but is this the way you want to see it happen? As for the moderate vote - the County Council elections for the most part gave us moderate, pro-development candidates like Andrew Friedson and Evan Glass. Progressives like Chris Wilhelm and Brandy Brooks trailed them closely. Since they will arguably have more voice on business development-friendly legislation, Elrich as executive would give an adequate balance, a decent compromise between the more pro-business constituency and the progressive, left wing constituency which would otherwise be shut out.

Furthermore, since 70% of us voted for term limits, both Floreen and Elrich come from the term-limited council - but Floreen has served even longer, is even more entrenched, even less of a "change" a lot of us would like to see. Elrich was often the dissenting vote on the more unpopular Council decisions. I'd wager that the term limits vote was more about ousting the likes of Nancy Floreen, not Marc Elrich.

Lastly, I know it doesn't sound like there's that much of a risk that Floreen and Elrich could evenly split the vote and let us end up with Robin Ficker - but stranger things have happened. Given how much of a lunatic Ficker is, and how much Montgomery County prides itself in being the solidly blue "resistance," wouldn't you want to avoid even the five percent chance of letting this happen?

Please think your decisions about this election thoroughly. Don't let the McCarthyists scare you about Elrich - he is not going to turn the place into Venezuela. What Nancy is doing is cynical, egotistical, and ugly. Let's give Marc a chance!