{"id":12291,"date":"2020-02-25T12:49:04","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T17:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12291"},"modified":"2020-02-25T12:49:12","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T17:49:12","slug":"who-are-these-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12291","title":{"rendered":"Who Are These People?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They look like the folks who were elected in 2018.\u00a0 Their names match the names listed on the county website.\u00a0 There is no evidence of alien abductions or replacement by clones.\u00a0 And yet, they don\u2019t sound<\/em> like members of the Montgomery County Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are these people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a scene seemingly lifted from a strange dream, a majority of the county council convened yesterday to oppose two state bills<\/a> giving them additional taxing authority.\u00a0 One bill would let them raise the maximum income tax rate and establish brackets instead of the current flat structure.\u00a0 Another bill would let them raise property taxes on different categories of property, including homes with more than 5,000 square feet.\u00a0 Council staff recommended that the council support the legislation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six council members said no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are these people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The six individuals (assuming they are not cloned replacements) who said no are Council Members Gabe Albornoz, Sidney Katz, Nancy Navarro, Craig Rice, Hans Riemer and Andrew \u201cReal Deal\u201d Friedson.\u00a0 The vote of Friedson, who has emerged as the council\u2019s leading voice of fiscal sanity, is no surprise.\u00a0 But Katz, Navarro, Rice and Riemer all voted for the 8.7% property tax increase of four years ago, an event that contributed to the passage of term limits.\u00a0 The increase was supposed to close MCPS\u2019s achievement gap, but a recent Office of Legislative Oversight report<\/a> showed little if any progress on that issue despite the large tax hike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some members of past councils might have jumped up and down to be awarded more taxing authority by the state.\u00a0 The constraints on both property and income taxes are real.\u00a0 State law requires that counties charge one tax rate for almost all real property (although offsetting credits can be awarded and multiple taxes might be levied).\u00a0 State law also requires that counties may charge a maximum income tax rate of 3.2% using a flat structure with no brackets.\u00a0 The state bills advocated by Council Member Will Jawando and Delegate Julie Palakovich Carr do not mandate county tax hikes, but they do grant enabling authority to the council to devise them.\u00a0 Certain options, like establishing a new top income tax bracket, could raise millions for county government.\u00a0 And yet six council members said no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are these people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s let them tell us.\u00a0 Here are a few quotes from the council meeting<\/a> at which the state bills were considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friedson: \u201cWe need to demonstrate as a county, as a\ncounty council, as political leadership at this really important time for where\nwe move forward that we are focused relentlessly on growing the tax base and\nnot only focused on raising the tax rates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albornoz: \u201cWe all read the report recently that our\ncolleagues in Prince George\u2019s County have surpassed us with regards to economic\ndevelopment here locally and so we are now not just competing with our\ncolleagues and friends across the river and the District of Columbia, but we\u2019re\ncompeting with local jurisdictions right here within the State of Maryland to\nactively and aggressively expand economic development opportunities here within\nthe county.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riemer: \u201cMy concern at the moment is there is a really\nsignificant tax proposal that is already on the table, and that is to tax\nservices.  And that is going to have a\nhuge impact on our county\u2019s economy.  I\nfeel like we ought to not confuse the conversation about that issue with\nadditional proposals.  I think we ought\nto let the state leadership kind of drive the train\u2026 We ought to just hang back\nat this time and let the state process do its work and not complicate that\nmatter with trying to drive funding proposals from the county level that are\nreally reaching to the same goal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice: \u201cI don\u2019t think that we should be continuously going\nto the well locally and asking our residents individually to be paying more\nwhen we realize that as a state we know we can do it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riemer: \u201cI don\u2019t quite understand the timing of this idea\nand really why we\u2019re talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friedson: \u201cIt is the wrong message to be sending at the\nworst time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left unsaid but no doubt on the minds of the council was the menacing specter of political heckler Robin Ficker, who was on that very day delivering 16,000 signatures<\/a> on behalf of his latest charter amendment to limit tax hikes.\u00a0 Past tax hikes helped Ficker pass two charter amendments<\/a> in 2008 and 2016, but his newest one, which would prohibit growth in property tax collections from exceeding the rate of inflation, is the most draconian of them all.\u00a0 Ficker cites a long history of county tax hikes<\/a> in justifying his quest to bring them to an end.\u00a0 They were, of course, passed by prior county councils.\u00a0 This time, six council members declined to throw more red meat to Ficker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are these people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could it be that they recall the harsh lesson of four\nyears ago and are now more careful in considering the issue of taxes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If not, let\u2019s call the aliens and ask what they did with\nour council members!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. They look like the folks who were elected in 2018.\u00a0 Their names match the names listed on the county website.\u00a0 There is no evidence of alien abductions or replacement by clones.\u00a0 And yet, they don\u2019t sound like members of the Montgomery County Council. Who are these people? In a scene seemingly lifted … Continue reading Who Are These People?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,286,134],"tags":[1545,1596,1539],"class_list":["post-12291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-robin-ficker","category-taxes","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-robin-ficker","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-3cf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12291"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12294,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12291\/revisions\/12294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}