An Open Letter to the Howard County Community Activist

Who is a better candidate for County Executive? Calvin Ball or Allan Kittleman?

Most people would answer this question based on their political affiliation. A Democrat would say Calvin Ball is better and a Republican would say Allan Kittleman is better. Of course there are some who would pick neither, but they are few and far between.

It turns out that there is no meaningful or substantive difference between the two politicians.

As he geared up to run for County Executive in 2017, then Councilmember Calvin Ball introduced legislation to make Howard County a sanctuary county. Allan Kittleman, who was County Executive at the time vetoed the legislation. Just three years later, as County Executive, Calvin Ball vetoed legislation to close down the detention center contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

As Councilmember, Calvin Ball sponsored legislation to set up the Citizens Election Fund. A measure that would make available public money for county council and county executive elections. Allan Kittleman vetoed that legislation. Today, Allan Kittleman elected to use the public funds (which is a good thing), but Calvin Ball is almost exclusively funded by powerful developers.

Once elected, both politicians have worked to facilitate some of the most favorable and brazen zoning and land-use deals for their developer backers and in return, during their tenure in public office, both politicians have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from developers.

Yet, every four years, we as a community are led to fight and demonize one another on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status and so forth.

We are told by these politicians that our rights are under threat. Politicians of various political stripes prey on our fears and prejudices.

The Republicans tell us the "illegals" are taking all our resources, while the Democrats say "the racists" are preventing progress and taking away our rights. But when they get elected, both parties are adamant on maintaining the status quo to employ as an outrage machine for the next campaign.

Just look at what County Executive Calvin Ball has done. While the entire Howard County Democratic establishment laments the presence of School Resource Officers (SROs) and blames the Board of Education for inaction, he has done nothing. He could end the county's entire SRO program with the stroke of a pen. But, the political party needs this issue to help elect "progressives" to the BOE.

In reality what the Democratic Establishment wants is to employ the SRO debate as a wedge issue to help elect BOE members who will do as they are told by the power structure on issues that affect zoning and land-use issues.

Yes, BOE members impact zoning and land-use issues in adverse ways, especially if they are under strict control of the power structure. They can low-ball budget requests, they can steer certain procurement and land-acquisition decisions to favor a certain development decision, they can chose to purchase classroom trailers indefinitely, the list goes on.

Same with Allan Kittleman. In 2021, his campaign contributed $5,000 to the campaign to repeal the sanctuary legislation that was enacted by County Executive Ball in 2020 to placate the base after he vetoed the repeal of the ICE contract. The Republican candidate hopes his base will be riled up to vote in 2022.

Broadly speaking, we, as a community, have been fighting along artificially created lines. I am convinced that at the heart of almost every single community upheaval or debate is money.

The rhetoric coming out of the Democratic Establishment on the issue of ‘equity’ rings hollow since this same power structure has been at the center of some of the most controversial corporate giveaways and inequities for decades. When schools get overcrowded and the money is depleted due to terrible land-use and zoning decisions, class sizes go up and the children who will most likely get impacted are those who rely on the extra attention from teachers.

The Howard County GOP’s stance on county issues is not even clear as it is more focused on fighting mask mandates, some bogeyman critical race theory, or a conspiratorial gay agenda in school curricula.

The artificial divisions created by the political parties will not help us address our most pressing objective as a society - of ensuring equitable allocation of precious resources.

Yes, people are racists, people are prejudiced and bigoted. While these beliefs sadden and infuriate me, I do not think we can rhetoric anyone out of those beliefs, because those beliefs get hardened.

What I think we can effect is change how institutions allocate resources, i.e., systemic racism and other forms of government sanctioned inequities.

To the political left with concerns about the troubling views harbored by certain right-leaning or right-wing groups, I share the sentiments expressed regarding the various troubling stances of some of the groups regarding issues such as immigration and race. At the same time, I want to leave space for the possibility that there are external forces at play that prey on our fears and prejudices to create the perfect storm to distract us from the exploitation of resources.

To the political right with concerns that there are certain ‘radical’ forces who are trying to change our society into some socialist, marxists, communist hellhole, I got news for you. We live in a socialist country. The difference is that free money flows to wealthy corporate interests instead of our schools and roads.

Also, they are not some ‘radical’ forces riling up our community on social issues from the left. They are run-of-the-mill Centrist, Corporate Democrats. They employ the same playbook as the Republican Party to stoke the culture wars, while both parties enthusiastically give away our taxpayer dollars to corporations.

I share the concern that the word "racist" has been hurled at anything that resembles opposing school redistricting, which was egged on by external forces. The same people who accused parents opposed to redistricting of racism spent their entire political life supporting Democratic politicians who created those segregated communities.

So what should we do about it?

My mind can't even fathom what needs to happen at the state and national level to overcome these divisions. But, in Howard County, these divisions are artificial and they are set-pieces by the political establishment while they make terrible land-use and zoning decisions.

I have reviewed nearly 800 pieces of legislation that were passed by the Howard County Council, between 2010 and 2018. Almost 90-percent of the bills that help developers were passed on a bipartisan basis. We are talking 10s of millions of dollars every year in developer profit subsidies.

This trend has not changed with the new county council. Since 2019, I have reviewed nearly 150 pieces of legislation passed by the county council. On almost all the bills that help developers - Councilmembers Opel Jones (D), Christiana Rigby (D), and David Yungmann (R) vote lockstep with County Executive Ball.

The bottom line is this- I do not want to let the political establishment succeed in maintaining a close grip on our government by pitting us against each other along artificial lines. We as community residents have choices to congregate on several common interests, but the main issue that intersects ALL our interests is money. Specifically, the budget.

For the past few decades, our local taxpayer dollars have been disproportionately allocated to wealthy, corporate interests such as Howard Hughes Corporation. I firmly believe that, if we can ensure equitable allocation of our taxpayer dollars and an accountable government, I think most of our common interests are resolved.

Instead of picking candidates who rely on stoking culture wars to get elected, if we elect politicians who would treat the sacred issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status responsibly, we can begin to have responsible conversation that do not end with insults.

But we have to first focus on land-use and zoning AKA, THE MONEY.