Reply to MoCo term limits- convince me

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am for it. The current political environment has become stale and entrenched with many council members becoming unaccountable. The only way to get rid of a bad council member now is through a primary, but no person who wants a political future as a Democrat in this county would primary any ther Democrats. Therefore, we get the farce that we had last time Berliner ran where he was only opposed by a developer backed candidate as retaliation for his ten mile creek vote. Now Berliner has not seen a since development he has saw fit to oppose, like a Chevy Chase Lake, Westbard and downtown Bethesda. Despite significant opposition from communities.

So you see that as the political alliances become more entrenched, it becomes harder to get them out. While at the same time they become less accountable to residents. If someone had to form a coalition and raise campaign money today in District 1, I can guarantee you the outcome would not be a Roger Berliner and our District would not continue to be represented by someone living in Potomac while making life miserable for everyone else in the District.

So if that doesn't convince let me put it another way. Do you want more great public policy like 10% increases in property tax while continuing developer impact tax exemptions for roads and schools? Because if you want more of that, then vote no.

I myself will be voting yes. [/quote]

This.  In an ideal democracy, all good candidates should be able to get traction to run.  But the party machine in MoCo and the flow of money to incumbents makes it impossible to get new blood to replace the incumbents in the pockets of the machine.   I am very tired of an electorate that only knows the issues superficially and buys the wink and nod from people like Berliner, who "fought" Westbard (and other development) in name only, voted to tax the crap out of us, and doesn't give a damn about those of us that need to live in the county.

Who says we need BRT on Old Georgetown?  Isn't it parallel to the Red line?  can't we just have sufficient public transit to the metro stations?  Why do we have to narrow Old Georgetown Road at Rockville Pike?  Oh, to make it safer for pedestrians since we are bringing thousands of more cars because of the development.   Why do all of our neighborhoods have "drive like your kid lives here" signs?  Because no one on the council wants to deal with all the development pushing traffic off of main roads onto residential streets because we won't invest in infrastructure or have developers invest in it at the time they are developing.

Seriously, the current crew on council doesn't care.  there is no ability to support a run to oppose.  term limits make sense in this environment, although I have heard developers are standing ready to field their own set of candidates to replace the dead wood that'll be leaving.[/quote]

+1000.

The only thing that concerns me about voting in favor, is the risk that half of the council we be lame ducks, rejected by voters, therefore further unaccountable while positioning themselves for their next jobs. While that prospect does scare me, along with the risk that there are developer supported candidates out there that could gain traction, something has to be done to change the status quo and I am willing to give this a shot. I am so irate about how this county is run that I would even donate a significant amount of money to any candidate for District 1 that actually supports communities.[/quote]

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