have been very unhappy with how the new charter government has been going. Frankly, it’s hard to know if it is the failings in how the charter is written or the cast of characters that are currently elected to county office. The County Executive and Council positions are modeled similarly to the governor and legislature of Maryland. The County Executive is given substantial power. Your next County Executive should have a head for business and a heart for service. I believe I am that person.

The elephant in the room is overdevelopment. The former board wanted us to look like Montgomery County (apparently, they never saw a high-density housing development or developer they didn’t love), and Jan Gardner wants us to be like MoCo with bureaucratic red tape and high property taxes to seal the deal. I hope people will go to my website, KathyAfzali.com, where I give more detail about how state policy and poor local leadership have propelled us into our current situation, i.e. thousands of new townhomes and apartments without the road infrastructure and school capacity to support it.