{"id":7636,"date":"2017-02-23T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7636"},"modified":"2017-02-22T23:20:14","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T04:20:14","slug":"awkward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7636","title":{"rendered":"Awkward!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

On Tuesday, the County Council learned that their own spokesperson is planning on running for one of their seats.\u00a0 Um, OK.\u00a0 And\u2026 they learned about it like everyone else did by reading it on MCM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Um\u2026 Awkward!<\/em><\/p>\n

Neil Greenberger, who has been the council\u2019s Legislative Information Officer since 2006, announced his potential candidacy by telling MCM, \u201cI would chance to say I know as much about county government as anybody in the county.\u201d\u00a0 Including his bosses?\u00a0 Um\u2026 well, you get the point.\u00a0 Greenberger could run in District 2 if incumbent Craig Rice vacates his seat.\u00a0 Otherwise, he would run at-large.\u00a0 Greenberger said he would stay in his job while he runs for office and give it up only if elected.<\/p>\n

To appreciate how strange this is, let\u2019s understand that the two most sensitive staff positions for most elected officials are their Chief of Staff and spokesperson.\u00a0 The former person is privy to the official\u2019s most confidential discussions and decision-making.\u00a0 The latter is the official\u2019s conduit to the public.\u00a0 Both individuals have to mirror the boss\u2019s priorities exactly and can never diverge positions from them outside of closed doors.\u00a0 That\u2019s part of the deal when you work for an elected official.<\/p>\n

Patrick Lacefield, Greenberger\u2019s counterpart in the Executive Branch, works for one boss.\u00a0 And Ike Leggett, by all accounts, is a good boss to have.\u00a0 Greenberger has NINE bosses and not all of them are as gentlemanly as Leggett.\u00a0 Imagine having nine ropes around your neck pulling in nine different directions and you have some idea of what it\u2019s like to be Greenberger.\u00a0 It is not an easy job.<\/p>\n

Now imagine what happens if Greenberger actually runs.\u00a0 During the day, he would continue to be the council spokesperson, working with the members and their staff to get out information to the public.\u00a0 And then at night and on weekends, he would be a fellow candidate.\u00a0 Let\u2019s remember that open seat candidates are frequently asked what they would do differently than the incumbents.\u00a0 So part of the time, Greenberger would be working for the Council Members and the rest of the time he would be critiquing them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It gets even weirder.\u00a0 If Greenberger runs at-large, he will be running against current at-large incumbent Hans Riemer, who is sure to seek a third term.\u00a0 It\u2019s also possible that he could run against District 5 Council Member Tom Hucker, who could run at-large.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the matter of all the other at-large candidates (and there will be a lot of them).\u00a0 Suppose Greenberger loses.\u00a0 Will his victorious opponents then be required to retain him as their spokesperson?<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t recall another occasion when the council\u2019s own spokesperson ran for one of their seats.\u00a0 The closest recent analog to this situation happened in 2006, when George Leventhal\u2019s Chief of Staff, Valerie Ervin, decided to run for the District 5 seat.\u00a0 Since Leventhal was an at-large member, Ervin was not running against him.\u00a0 But she still left her Chief of Staff position<\/a> as the campaign started.<\/p>\n

Greenberger has as much right to run for office as any other county resident.\u00a0 But if he stays in his current job while he runs against one or more of his employers, he will be creating immense conflicts.\u00a0 Council Members need to trust that their communications are written for their benefit and for the benefit of the institution \u2013 not for the personal political benefit of the individual writing them.\u00a0 The fact that they were blindsided by the MCM article is not a good sign for future trust.<\/p>\n

Unless adult supervision steps in \u2013 and we are talking about the council\u2019s staff director, Steve Farber \u2013 this could be a wild ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. On Tuesday, the County Council learned that their own spokesperson is planning on running for one of their seats.\u00a0 Um, OK.\u00a0 And\u2026 they learned about it like everyone else did by reading it on MCM. Um\u2026 Awkward! Neil Greenberger, who has been the council\u2019s Legislative Information Officer since 2006, announced his potential … Continue reading Awkward!<\/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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"categories":[151,15],"tags":[1545,1463,1907],"class_list":["post-7636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-montgomery-county-council","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-montgomery-county-council","tag-neil-greenberger"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4mKJE-awkward","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7636","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=7636"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7638,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7636\/revisions\/7638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}