If I believe as follows - who should I vote for between Floreen/Elrich/Ficker

[Anonymous]

I live in Bethesda and feel that way too many big buildings are going up in the Bethesda row / Wisconsin Ave area. I'm worried about traffic congestion, school capacity, etc.

Let's just say it's my pref that development takes a big pause for a while. I understand many may disagree with me! That said, which of the three listed above best aligns with my preferences. Guess Elrich, but not really sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in Bethesda and feel that way too many big buildings are going up in the Bethesda row / Wisconsin Ave area. I'm worried about traffic congestion, school capacity, etc.

Let's just say it's my pref that development takes a big pause for a while. I understand many may disagree with me! That said, which of the three listed above best aligns with my preferences. Guess Elrich, but not really sure.

If you think too many big buildings are going up then I think you should move. Even Elrich isn't going to reverse that trend in Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Elrich. Definitely Elrich.

[Anonymous]

You should just move, clearly.

I don’t think most of Bethesda is going to vote for Marc Elrich, tbh.

[Anonymous]

Ficker

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in Bethesda and feel that way too many big buildings are going up in the Bethesda row / Wisconsin Ave area. I'm worried about traffic congestion, school capacity, etc.

Let's just say it's my pref that development takes a big pause for a while. I understand many may disagree with me! That said, which of the three listed above best aligns with my preferences. Guess Elrich, but not really sure.

Vote for Elrich.

The vast majority of this forum is going to tell you to vote for Floreen because its target audience is also her target audience: Upper-middle class married white women over 40. (This will probably be followed with anonymous posters claiming not to be of that demographic, but I have much reason to believe that this IS the demographic that posts here.) This is a completely neutral hypothesis. Gauging by all the posts about the local elections here, the political slant on this site runs surface-level socially liberal, mainstream liberal on federal issues, and fiscally conservative.

To be completely honest, none of the candidates are going to put development to a halt. This is simply impossible. We live in a bustling and expanding metro area, for better or for worse.
Elrich is very explicit, but wonky, on the nuts-and-bolts of things, which in this election cycle is more of a curse on him than a blessing because people tend not to follow and to simplify things into him being anti-housing. He isn't. He wants housing to keep pace with infrastructure. The valid counter-argument will be that the costs and restrictions on developers will be instead pushed onto new residents, in the form of higher costs and/or lower supply, but I see this as the problem with developers, not Elrich. Ultimately, development will still happen, but hopefully at a more sustainable pace (and likely along with a lot of whining over lower profits for Nulsen and Lee).

Floreen will let developers build basically anywhere, anyplace, anytime.

Ficker, honestly, is a complete wildcard. To call him a far-right Trumper is incorrect. He's said quite lefty things like pushing to a $15 minimum wage faster than everyone else, and then he's said the solution to homelessness is Amazon. He makes things up as he goes along. On development, he'll listen to the last person in the room, and then return to his talking point on property taxes. To his credit, he might not be ideological. Who knows if he means well; he is not qualified.

Ficker would be better than Floreen. As this isn't the White House, four years of complete buffoonery and incompetence might be the right level of embarrassment we need to get our priorities and our electoral system in place while we let the council be the adults in the room and handle what they can. His damage could be fixed or controlled. Floreen's could not.

Elrich would be the top choice for your values, or for someone who values environmental issues, labor, racial equity, limiting the influence of corporate money in politics, developing small and local businesses, and alleviating income inequality He is not the top choice for someone who prioritizes rapid urbanization, subsidizing large corporations, enabling corporate influence in elections, encouraging highways and roads, emulating Tysons Corner, etc. Again, please read this assessment with a neutral tone. There are some people who do prioritize the latter and that's fine. Floreen is the choice for them. We'll see by November 6th which choice wins.

[Anonymous]

Elrich.

No question

[Anonymous]

Theoretically Elrich. However, Elrich has no love for Bethesda. His priorities are Silver Spring and Takoma Park. He pretty much hates Bethesda and Potomac. Considers them to be the "takers" of the County.

So, . . . I guess I'm saying it doesn't really matter who you vote for. You're screwed either way.

(Don't vote for Ficker. He's an absolute nut - bigger ego and attention seeker than Trump).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Theoretically Elrich. However, Elrich has no love for Bethesda. His priorities are Silver Spring and Takoma Park. He pretty much hates Bethesda and Potomac. Considers them to be the "takers" of the County.

So, . . . I guess I'm saying it doesn't really matter who you vote for. You're screwed either way.

(Don't vote for Ficker. He's an absolute nut - bigger ego and attention seeker than Trump).

I agree with this. Elrich is the most hostile to building, but I have a very hard time seeing him being good for Bethesda overall. And Ficker is a nut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Theoretically Elrich. However, Elrich has no love for Bethesda. His priorities are Silver Spring and Takoma Park. He pretty much hates Bethesda and Potomac. Considers them to be the "takers" of the County.

So, . . . I guess I'm saying it doesn't really matter who you vote for. You're screwed either way.

(Don't vote for Ficker. He's an absolute nut - bigger ego and attention seeker than Trump).

I held my nose when I voted for Floreen. Elrich is too far left for my tastes and like you said Ficker is a nut.

[Anonymous]

Vote for Ficker

[Anonymous]

I said Ficker because Floreen wants MORE development. I don’t live in Bethesda, but the overdevelopment is affecting all parts of the county, and MCPS.

And Elrich is waaaay too far left for me.

[Anonymous]

Adding density around a Metro stop and transit hub is smart growth, right? So environmentalists should support it. I certainly do. And before you say that it puts strain on libraries and parks, let me just point out that many people who live in apartments in downtown Bethesda probably don’t have kids and don’t use the library is and parks all that much. But even if they do, would you rather those people live and pay taxes in DC or Northern Virginia instead?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I said Ficker because Floreen wants MORE development. I don’t live in Bethesda, but the overdevelopment is affecting all parts of the county, and MCPS.

And Elrich is waaaay too far left for me.

+1. I was really torn but went for Ficker

[Anonymous]

I am shocked posters are voting for Ficker. He is an absolute nut and if you had asked me 10 years ago I would have said I admired the guy for his tenacity (still do) but never thought he had a snowball’s chance of being elected - now, not so sure ...

Btw, and this is not why I think he is a nut, but he was a big proponent of the term limit proposition that caused the cluster F that was this most recent Dem primary for County Executive - not sure even he saw this potentially being his path to finally garnering enough support to be elected County Executive but if so he is craftier than I gave him credit for.

I don’t love any of the candidates but think Elrich and Ficker are way too outer edge (in different ways) to be effective. Sad that whoever gets elected won’t really have the support of the majority of MoCo constituents.