On the County Executive race

Probably the most important race in Wicomico County is the three-way battle for the County Executive seat. On September 12, Rick Pollitt overwhelmed his opponent Tom Taylor to win the Democratic nomination, while it took almost two weeks to finally figure out the Republican nominee was Ron Alessi, who bested runner-up B.J. Corbin by less than 100 votes. With the victory by Alessi, a new hat was thrown into the ring as fellow Republican Charles Jannace entered the fray as a write-in candidate – basically saying the local GOP had made a mistake by selecting Alessi over Corbin.

One thing that I particularly like about the Jannace campaign is that he has set the agenda. He has six easy to understand platform planks that make up the basis of his campaign. With that, I’m going to use a few of these planks to compare and contrast the three candidates as best I can, focusing as Jannace does on growth, education, public safety, and jobs. (He also writes about hiring Corbin as his Director of Administration and not doing interviews with the Daily Times.) Also, at the tail end of this I’ll repost some of my observations that I’ve made from forums I’ve attended.

Growth

Alessi: A lot of Ron’s focus for growth is simply getting Wicomico County to follow its own comprehensive plan. By doing this, growth moves into its proper places and farmland is preserved. Alessi also seeks better long-term planning for roads and other infrastructure. Paying for this would be the task of “developers and owners of new dwellings to pay for their fair share of the cost of any expansion of County infrastructure and schools.”

Jannace: Until the infrastructure has an opportunity to catch up to what is here now, Jannace proposes a complete moratorium on residential growth. As he states, “Once the infrastructure is upgraded so that we can drive safely, be safe in our homes, offices, and babysitting service centers, and flush the toilet with confidence even when it rains hard, then we can start talking about building more homes. Yes, this will take years because the County Council will not have a blank check.” Coinciding with this would be a focus on preserving farmland and wildlife conservation.

Pollitt: Rick points to his experience as Somerset County’s department of planning and zoning and his work in Fruitland, saying in part, “We (in Fruitland) have shown that it is possible to achieve good growth that provides for the infrastructure to support it, requiring those who profit most from the growth to pay their way. Where the street system is not adequate to support new volumes of traffic, we require the developers to build new streets. We imposed water and sewer impact fees to offset the cost of expensive expansion of our water and wastewater services. We direct specific uses of land to those areas of the City best able to accommodate it. Yes, Fruitland’s growth has been responsible and it has been good for our community. Most importantly, our success can be the county’s success. The principles that have proven effective in our City can be applied county-wide.”

Education

Jannace: Charles finds a lot of fault with what he terms the “Wicomico County Babysitting Service.” While he admits that the County Executive can’t do a whole lot about the problems, he’s got a few simple steps to start. One would be to require school uniforms because “(w)ay too much time is spent by students being concerned that they are wearing clothing that is acceptable to their peers. Uniforms bring discipline.” The second is expulsion of unruly kids as “(t)eachers shouldn’t have to be exposed to students who aren’t interested in what they have to say and other students should be able to find that the classroom is conducive to learning, not cutting up.” And finally is a housecleaning of administrative posts. I found an interesting statistic from a book called “Maryland: A Guide to the Issues”. (This was part of the forum I attended last Wednesday, I’ll write more in depth about it after the election.) In Wicomico County, while funding increased for pupil instuction by 21.6% between the 1996-97 school year and the 2003-2004 school session, administrative spending jumped 53% in the same period (the third highest rate in the state.) So I think Jannace has a point there.

Pollitt: As a member of the Wicomico County Board of Education, Rick Pollitt claims to have a “unique perspective” on the education issue. He also states that, because of state and federal mandates, some of the budget and curriculum is dictated to the county and not subject to change. Pollitt’s main contribution would be to get the Board of Education involved earlier in the budget process. Other goals of his are to recruit better teachers and engaging the community into the educational system more.

Alessi: Ron speaks of a “goal…to transform our public school system into a model, within Maryland, that excels at preparing its students to compete in the world’s job market.” He also calls on the community to get more involved in the schools.

Public Safety

Pollitt: A goal of Rick’s is to reestablish trust between local law enforcement and citizens. Says Pollitt, “I have found that community policing, bicycle patrols and strong Neighborhood Watch programs achieve tremendous success when implemented and promoted by Law Enforcement in partnership with community.” Pollitt has a dual-point plan if elected that involves increasing the resources to local law enforcement (including better salaries and benefits), and more efforts to identify and work with “at-risk” youth, including expanding the D.A.R.E. program currently in Fruitland countywide.

Alessi: Ron would initiate meetings of all law enforcement agencies and have them create an annual strategic plan. This way jurisdictions could share personnel and resources where needs arise.

Jannace: Charles states this plainly: “Criminals have the advantage when the average police officer comes to work worrying about paying the bills, whether or not he or she should buy that house, not knowing how to provide for retirement, and speculating about who is going to take care of their children if they are incapaciated or killed in the performance of the job.” So improving the pay and pension of local law enforcement is a high priority to Jannace. He also has the vision of a countywide police force which would absorb the three municpal police departments. With these two goals in hand, Jannace feels that better community policing would be achieved, particularly if we “(l)et them do their jobs and if they can’t do their jobs, if you don’t have enough confidence that they will do their jobs, get rid of them.”

Jobs

Alessi: Despite a “diverse” local economy, Ron wants to seek ways to accommodate growth and advancement in those industries we have while at the same time attracting the key industries of tomorrow. Parts of that programming vision include upgrading infrastructure; working with our colleges, local economic development agencies, and the nearby aerospace industry to create new jobs, diversify the agricultural industry insofar as possible, lobby the state of Maryland to relocate research to Salisbury University, and realign the courses at Wor-Wic Community College to meet local employment demands.

Jannace: At one time, claims Charles, the Wicomico County area was a bountiful agricultural and logging region – but the logging industry is gone, peaches aren’t a cash crop here anymore, and whatever agricultural land is left is being permanently plowed under for development’s sake. Now most jobs are service industry jobs and those are buffeted by the twin winds of the economy and the out-of-state employers who have no issue with eating the rent on a money-losing store and pull the plug (think of the North Pointe Giant as an example.) His first order of business would be to set into motion “whatever mechanism would be necessary to create a tax free enterprise zone.” Charles points to a successful industrial park in Talbot County as an example of what he’d like to bring. He also sees this issue tied to crime and education, those planks are above.

Pollitt: Rick cites his experience with “help(ing to) shape our town’s transformation from a bedroom community to Salisbury to a well-balanced economy based on homes, businesses and industry. We organized a Chamber of Commerce and an Economic Development Commission, established an Enterprise Zone with tax incentives for new industry and we established a Revolving Loan Fund to support expansion of existing businesses and attraction of new.” He feels that he can carry out the success his city has had on a countywide basis, and feels a bit of a need to boast, “I’ve made it work in Fruitland and that’s why the street into Wal*Mart carries my name and my image joins others on the wall of the Texas Roadhouse.”

Forums

NAACP Forum (July 13)

Ron Alessi actually was the first of the CE candidates to speak. He stumbled a bit in my eyes by conceding that “the county (employees) will represent the diversity of the community”. Alessi did say, though, that his “first priority” (accompanied by his finger thumping the podium for emphasis) would be to solve problems with the educational structure that he claimed hadn’t been addressed in the eight years since he previously ran for a County Council seat. Overall, he wanted not to clean house, which would be “foolish”, but to present a vision and set a course for the county to follow.

Rick Pollitt asserted that he’s already got relevant experience for the County Executive’s post because of his longtime position as Fruitland’s city manager. “Government exists to serve people” he claimed, but it also “needs to reflect the face of the county.” He also noted that Fruitland currently has the county’s only DARE program, as schools are helping to raise kids. To further outreach to county children, Pollitt advocated youth alternative programs, like a recreation program, and saw community policing as a tool to influence youngsters. One idea I liked was an employee incentive program for county employees. But I thought Pollitt’s overall theme of “Building Bridges, Building Communities” seemed a bit trite.

(Note: This was prior to Jannace entering the race.)

Pittsville Forum (October 12)

(T)he questions…dealt with what each candidate knew about the local fire services (similar to County Council’s question), funding EMS personnel, employee retention, sprinkler systems in new homes, growth, reducing property taxes for fixed income folks, and what each would do in their first 100 days.

Drawing first blood was Rick Pollitt, who touted his family’s 300 year history in the area but sought to make the county the home of “stay-heres.” In a bow to the hosts, he also used part of his opening statement to note that the fire department in Fruitland has a seat on their planning and zoning board, which gave them input on egress issues, among others. He continued by saying that he “would do better by fire companies” in the budget but the budget had to be prioritized. In fact, Pollitt claimed that each year he started the Fruitland city budget from scratch and built it as a whole (rather than the federal style of baseline budgeting.) Pollitt advocated a “climate of thrift and economy” with incentives for department heads to save money.

I saw Rick’s answer on the sprinkler question as telling – it was “unfortunately” up to the individuals whether or not to install sprinklers in new single-family dwellings. (Rick later commented on this statement I made.) Where growth was concerned, Pollitt claimed to be running on his record of making “growth pay for growth” with impact fees and other measures like making developers build out the “paper streets” found in most developments (these are stub streets that would connect to future subdivisions.) Rick also claimed that the trouble with reducing property taxes for seasoned citizens lay in the assessments.

In his first 100 days in office, Pollitt vowed to start by “building bridges and establishing relationships” and would immediately begin working on the education portion of the budget instead of waiting until the spring as has been the usual case.

Pollitt closed by pleading guilty to the charge brought by his opponents of being a bureaucrat and said he did so “with a lot of pride.” He “knows the limits of government” and agreed with the residents cited by Jannace in his remarks that water and sewer bills in Fruitland were too high – Rick promised to establish a “blue-ribbon panel” to study putting together a countywide water and sewer authority. If you control the water and sewer, Pollitt claimed, you can control growth. He finished by stating that he was “motivated by his children” and hoped there would be another 300 years of Pollitts in the area.

The newcomer in the field, Charles Jannace introduced himself as a “refugee” from New York City and a “true conservative.” No matter how much you take out, Jannace continued, you can always find waste in government. He had just enough time to state his number one priority was public safety.

But Charles did sneak into the fire service question a mention of establishing a countywide police department, which he stated was endorsed by Sheriff hopeful Mike Lewis. Jannace also complemented the way the county fire department is run – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He particularly admired the spirit inherent in the fire service and wished it was present in other areas of county government.

Jannace correctly stated on the sprinkler question that the cost would be passed on to the buyer unless the developer was made to be held responsible for it. But more controversial was his call for a moratorium on growth in Wicomico County, with APFO’s as needed until the infrastructure caught up. His highest priority, he claimed, was the agricultural industry and land preservation and he’d give farmers “a seat at the table” come budget time.

CJ also stated that he as County Executive couldn’t reduce property taxes under the county charter. But when he started to talk about how Fruitland’s taxes and fees were “higher than they should be” Jannace ran out of time, which drew an audible “thank you!” from Pollitt and a laugh from the audience.

In his first 100 days, Charles said that his first task would be to hire “the Republican who should be sitting up here”, B.J. Corbin, as Director of Administration. He continued by saying that if you wanted a bureaucrat, you should vote for Rick Pollitt. But people were tired of high taxes and fees. (This is what led Pollitt to say in his response that “I’m a people” but that he was proud to be a bureaucrat.)

(In his closing remarks) Charles continued and used (them) to talk about the county’s school system.

First of all, he showed the audience a copy of the Board of Education budget, which is a thick volume as downloaded. Jannace told the group that the budget needed to be scrutinized. He also had what I thought was an interesting concept, citing a 2004 federal law which allowed honorably retired law enforcement officers to carry a concealed weapon. Why not use these retired officers to supplement the deputies in the schools? This way the county could be proactive when it comes to situations like those encountered recently in Pennsylvania and Colorado.

Jannace then blasted the “obsolete” school (the new Bennett HS) that was planned and noted measures used in other places that could be integrated into the design to make kids safer, such as isolation zones and smart cards that can track a child’s whereabouts.

(Note: Ron Alessi did not attend the Pittsville forum.)

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Now I know that two of the three candidates are at least semi-regular readers of monoblogue, and people who work closely with the third also read it. (I’ve been told I’m not one of the “cancerous” blogs – perhaps I’m not trying hard enough?)

Regardless, I’m encouraging those who are connected with the campaigns to comment. I’ve touched on just a few issues, and one issue in particular I didn’t cover much is the revenue cap. Ron Alessi has made a statement out of his position:

I do believe that Alessi and Jannace would keep the cap, while Pollitt begrudingly will live with it for now. But as I said, campaign folks feel free to comment. This is an important vote we’ll have in six days, and for all the talk about absentee ballots I think there were only about 150,000 applied for statewide – so most of the votes will come on Election Day.