Rockville’s $307,093 Question: What Led to City Manager DiSpirito’s Resignation?
The cause of former City Manager Rob DiSpirito’s resignation in August remains a mystery except that we now know that it cost the City of Rockville $307,093.21, including $229,630.98 representing nine months’ salary and benefits and $77,462.23 for unused vacation time. It’s an extraordinary expense for the City of Rockville which so far remains unmentioned by the Mayor and Council and would be equal to:
- Ten years of the Senior Nutrition Program ($30,070 per year according to the upcoming agreement to be approved by Mayor and Council at Monday’s meeting).
- Salaries for three to four police officers ($70,036.00 – $105,429.00 annually according to the latest job posting).
- All computer and communication equipment expenses for the City ($259,880 in the FY 2024 budget)
- Janitorial services for all City facilities for a year (almost! annual expenses are $364,840 in the FY 2024 budget)
- Annual property tax for 175 houses (if $600,000 is the average cost of a house in Rockville and tax rate is $0.292 per $100 of assessed value on real property = $1,752.00 per house)
Why would someone who has gone through a Performance Improvement Program and then resign be entitled to a severance package? According to his 2016 contract, “the City shall have no obligation to pay the one-time lump sum cash payment and shall have the right to immediately terminated this Agreement without payment of any further compensation to the City Manager” if he commits “any act which involves moral turpitude.” Obviously, no moral turpitude occurred or he wouldn’t have received a severance payment.
So under what circumstances could the City Manager receive a severance package? His 2016 contract states that the “City may terminate the City Manager at any time for any reason including, but not limited to, a conflict in management style or philosophy” and if the “City Manager is still willing and able to perform the duties under this agreement, then, in that event, the City agrees to pay the City Manager a one-time lump sum cash payment equal to nine (9) months’ aggregate salary.” Hmm. So there’s a reason for his resignation, or should we say termination, but no one has provided an adequate explanation.
Rob DiSpirito has refused to explain why he resigned, but that’s because his 2023 Settlement Agreement requires that he “shall keep the terms of this settlement completely confidential, and that confidentiality is an essential element of the settlement itself” nor can he “directly or indirectly, engage in communication or conduct that disparages the City, its elected officials, officers, employees or agents or make any negative statements about the employment practices of the City.”
The Mayor and Council is not required to keep this confidential, but unfortunately, they’ve insisted on secrecy. Indeed, obtaining copies of the City Manager’s 2016 Employment Agreement and 2023 Settlement Agreement required invoking the Maryland Public Information Act. What is the Mayor and Council hiding that’s worth $307,093? If there’s a “conflict in management style,” let’s discuss it and stop guessing. Mayor and Council, where are you leading the City? Right now you’re being sneaky and opaque—exactly the opposite of good governance. Mayoral candidates Ashton and Pierzchala, will you be able to bring better governance and transparency? What will you do better and differently than Mayor Newton? Or is just more of the same?
October 30, 2023: Response from Mark Pierzchala, Rockville City Councilmember and candidate for Rockville Mayor:
In your October 29 post about Mr. DiSpirito’s departure, I remind you that in May, it was I who wanted to end the drama at that time. The Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) was unwarranted for such a senior manager.
The date of the closed August 17 meeting, concerning Mr. DiSpirito’s status, was chosen because that was after the 3-month ending of the PIP. Note that the August 17 meeting was held during the Mayor and Council summer recess.
I was the one who took the August 17 closed-session minutes. These were typed up immediately after that meeting and sent confidentially to my colleagues before 8 pm on August 17. The length of time it took to officially approve them, over 2 months later, is not appropriate. Indeed, Mayor Newton pulled them off the October 9 consent agenda.
The August 17, 2023 closed-session minutes were approved at the October 23, 2023 meeting, as were the September 11 minutes. Since the August 17 minutes were from a closed session, they are to be included in the September 11 minutes when these are put on the City’s website (the September 11 meeting was the next public meeting of the Mayor and Council). In the August 17 minutes, you will see the motions and results that led to Mr. DiSpirito’s departure. These minutes should soon be posted.
There is no reason for Mayor and Council to hide actions and votes from a closed session. Some of the information presented therein should be kept confidential, but the resulting decisions should be made public in a timely manner. That is what I will achieve as Mayor.
Rockville Mayor and Council Set to Approve Tower Oaks Development in Final Meeting for Newton and Feinberg
At its Monday, October 30, 2023 meeting, the Rockville Mayor and Council will approve the Tower Oaks townhouse development, possibly adopt the pedestrian master plan, and discuss the City’s personnel manual and County’s development impact tax. On the Consent Calendar (items approved without discussion) are right-of-way agreements for Joseph Street, reclassifying a private road to a public street with waivers for the Tower Oaks townhouse development, contracts to perform stormwater cleanouts, asphalt-concrete improvements to city parks, for the Linkages-to-Learning program and Senior Nutrition Program, among others. The Mayor and Council will also receive reports on the police department deployment plan (which includes the most recent crime report for Rockville, see figure 1). Strangely, the recent issues with the election are not on the agenda (but I suspect they will be mentioned in Community Forum).
This will be the last Mayor and Council meeting attended by Mayor Bridget Newton and Councilmember Beryl Feinberg because they are not seeking re-election; a reception in their honor will be held at 5:00 pm.
The Mayor and Council are conducting hybrid meetings. If you wish to submit comments in writing for Community Forum or Public Hearings, please email the comments to MayorAndCouncil@RockvilleMD.gov by no later than 10:00 a.m. on the date of the meeting.
More details in the 320-page agenda packet are available at https://www.rockvillemd.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_10302023-7043.
Former Council Member Advocates for Lower Voting Age and Noncitizen Voting in Rockville
These opinions on Advisory Referenda Questions are provided by Tom Moore, a whom I first met when we both ran for Council years ago. Even though we don’t always agree, he’s informed, thoughtful, and may help you with your ballot choices. He served two terms on the Rockville City Council from 2011 to 2015, then served as counsel and chief of staff to Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the Federal Election Commmission. In June, he joined the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow on its Democracy team. He has lived in Rockville since 1997.
I care quite a bit about one of the advisory referenda questions on Rockville’s ballot this year, and wanted to let you know that I’m voting YES on whether to permit noncitizens to vote, and I ask that you consider doing so as well.
And I have thoughts about the other three ballot questions, which I’ll dispense quickly:
- Lower the voting age to 16: I’m voting YES; it has been shown to help build better lifetime voting behavior.
- Set term limits: I’m voting NO. Term limits are a bad idea in general, and I’ve fought hard against them before. I’ve learned that they almost always pass when put on the ballot, so I’m a little resigned to this one.
- Create representative districts: I’m voting YES. They’re more fair than at-large districts.
Now, to the one I care quite a bit about: whether to permit noncitizens to vote. I think this is a misnomer – it’s not about allowing “noncitizens” to vote, it’s about allowing Rockville citizens who are not U.S. citizens to vote in Rockville’s elections.
I could have pushed for this when I was on the Council, but I made a political calculation and chose against doing so. It is my single greatest regret from my four years on the Council. I testified before the Mayor and Council on this earlier this year. Here’s what I said about it then:
—–
The Declaration of Independence got it right: governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But the government of Rockville does not, at the moment, derive its just powers from the consent of all its governed: roughly ten thousand of Rockville’s 67,000 citizens are governed by the City without their consent.
These Rockville citizens are policed by the City. They are subject to City planning policies and ordinances. The City provides their water and sewer service, their parks, their recreation programs, and their trash pickups. The City paves their streets and plows the snow from them. The City takes their tax money.
These Rockville citizens have exactly the same relationship to their City government as every other Rockville citizen except for one thing: because they are not citizens of the United States, they cannot vote in City elections.
This was not always the case. At least 22 states and territories allowed non-U.S.-citizen voting in the 19th century; it was undone by ugly anti-immigrant bigotry in the wake of World War One.
I am recommending to the Mayor and Council that it amend the Rockville City Charter to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in Rockville elections, effective for the 2027 elections. That way, the Mayor and Council elected this fall will have plenty of time to consider, pass, and publicize an implementing ordinance that will handle the details.
Database Error Leaves nearly 1,000 Rockville Voters Without Ballots
Due to reporting errors, the City of Rockville has suspended the ballot tracking system for the imminent election. Several voters lodged complaints with the Board of Supervisors of Elections in Rockville, stating they were notified via email that their votes had been cast, despite physically holding their ballots. David Sklar, a board member of BOSE, relayed an incident where a voter received an email alert that his ballot was en route for delivery, and within five minutes, another email confirmed the receipt of his voted ballot at the election office, even though the ballot was still in the voter’s possession. This incident raised concerns about potential election fraud.
At the Board of Supervisors of Elections’ (BOSE) meeting on Thursday, October 26, 2023, Chair Robert Kurnick acknowledged the severity of the issue, “Rather than trying to ascertain what should have happened, I think what we have to tell people is that the system was flawed in several respects. We’re sorry but it’s Taylor’s system….The whole point of this is to confirm voter confidence and it’s doing the opposite….It’s really bad.” Officially on the City’s website it’s described as an “unexpected issue technology affecting the ballot tracking system,” but there’s more happening behind the scenes. Turns out nearly 1,000 voters in Rockville did not receive ballots for the upcoming Mayor and Council election due to an error in the voter database.
The Taylor Corporation (no relation to City Clerk Sara Taylor-Ferrell) is a private company that manages the packaging and mailing of Rockville’s ballots but is largely invisible to voters. Although the ballot voters received in the mail has the return address of the City Clerk’s Office, it was mailed from another address and Taylor’s name does not appear on the materials. The State of Maryland uses Taylor for processing other government documents and the City of Rockville hired Taylor to package and mail the ballots this year.
The process is confusing but according to BOSE Chair Robert Kurnick, the “State of Maryland Board of Elections provides names and addresses to the Taylor Corporation, and they send out the ballot. In the last election, Maryland permitted voters to get delivery of their ballots online, so when the State of Maryland provided the name and addresses to Taylor, it would have a name and an address but for some people, it had a name and a ‘web delivery.’ So Taylor did not have addresses for those people, who in the last election, asked to have their ballots delivered online…of which there are hundreds.” The City Clerk stated it was about 800-900 ballots that were not mailed due to missing addresses in the State’s voter database. The City Clerk discovered the error when she received a copy of the database earlier this week.
The City Clerk is in the process of mailing the missing ballots and BOSE has prepared a statement for the Mayor and Council and the candidates for the upcoming election (see below), along with a message on the City’s website that noted, “This technical issue has not affected the integrity of the city’s election process. This issue affected only the ability of voters to track their ballots through the United States Postal Service. The issue had no effect on the actual delivery of ballots.” No mention of the missing ballots, alas.
The City Clerk also mentioned that a couple of thousand ballots have already been received and will be sent to the Montgomery County Board of Elections for processing. Ballots received will be posted on the City website starting on November 1; ballots are not counted until the polls close on Election Day.
Please remember to vote early by mail. Ballots must be received by (NOT mailed to) the City of Rockville by 8 pm on November 7. If you’re running late, two outdoor drop boxes are located at City Hall and Montrose Community Center. Four indoor drop boxes are located at the Senior Center, Lincoln Park Community Center, Twinbrook Community Center, and Thomas Farm Community Center only during hours of operation.
Financial Reports Reveal Top Contenders in Rockville Mayor and Council Race
UPDATE: This post was corrected and expanded to reflect the following: revision of funds raised in the mayoral race, charts clarifying loans and mayoral vs council candidates, and a minor error in Danniel Belay’s financial report.
In the Rockville Mayor and Council race, the first round of financial reports, due on October 9, 2023, have begun to paint a picture of the candidates with the most substantial resources and support. As the race for the six council seats intensifies, the field appears to have narrowed from twelve to eight contenders: Kate Fulton, Barry Jackson, Ricky Mui, David Myles, Paul Scott, Izola Shaw, Marissa Valeri, and Adam Van Grack.
However, not all candidates are faring as well. Financial reports indicate that Danniel Belay, Anita Powell, and Richard Gottfried are trailing, each having raised less than $500, a sum considered insufficient to garner substantial voter support in Rockville. Harold Hodges, another candidate, appears to be even less active in the race, having not submitted a financial report.
The mayoral race in Rockville is shaping up to be a complex contest. Candidate Mark Pierzchala has raised an impressive $48,352, but with a self-loan of $33,160 this period, his effective fundraising total comes to $15,192 (ignoring funds and loans carried over from his 2019 campaign).
In contrast, Monique Ashton‘s fundraising efforts have yielded $19,836, a figure that not only falls short of her opponent’s total but also those of council candidates Kate Fulton, Barry Jackson, and Adam Van Grack. Ashton has loaned her campaign $8,224, leaving her with a net fundraising total of $11,612, (ignoring funds and loans carried over from her 2019 campaign). This places Ashton among the middle of all candidates in this election but an improvement compared to 2019, when she had raised nearly $8,000 by the end of September.
Contributors to campaigns offer revealing insights into financial influences and influencers, but it is different in smaller local races as in Rockville. Donor analysis typically shows many candidates receive support from family, such as Adam Van Grack. However, this election reveals an unusual trend: incumbents Monique Ashton, Mark Pierzchala, and David Myles have not garnered substantial support from local residents, which would be expected if they had significantly impacted residents’ lives. This raises questions about the perceived influence of the Mayor and Council. Are their actions going unnoticed, or are they not making a significant impact? Notably, current Mayor Bridget Newton and her husband are supporting Monique Ashton, Barry Jackson, and Paul Scott.
For your own analysis, here are the individuals who made contributions of $500 or more, all of whom are based in Rockville unless stated otherwise:
Ashton, Monique: Aaron Stallworth (DC, $500), Antonio Quirindongo (NY, $1,000), Joseph Song (CA, $500), Simon Francis (DC, $1,000), Bridget Newton ($750), Fred Newton ($750), Cyrus Allafi ($500)
Pierzchala, Mark: Norma Pierzchala ($1,000), Joel Martinez ($1,000), Paul O’Brien ($500), Janet Gallant ($1,000), Carl Pierzchala ($1,000), George and Barbara Felber ($500), Benjamin Ross (MD, $500), Ingrid Chua ($1,000), Eduardo Alueta ($1,000; returned)
Belay, Danniel: None over $500
Fulton, Kate: Joel Martinez ($1,000), Beverly McFarland (Delaware, $1,000), Bill Fulton (California, $500)
Gottfried, Richard: None over $500
Hodges, Harold: No report
Jackson, Barry: Elizabeth Bartz (Ohio, $500), James “Jack” Jackson (Washington, $1,000), Peter Fosselman ($750), John Killpack (California, $1,000), Bridget Newton ($750), Fred Newton ($750)
Mui, Ricky (DBA Communities Electing Ricky Mui & Supporters of Mui Ricky Fai): Jacob Miller (Washington, $500), Mark Pierzchala ($500), Michael O’Brien (Pennsylvania, $500)
Myles, David: Duncan Maru (NY, $1,000), Tommy Roberts (GA, $500)
Powell, Anita: None over $500
Scott, Paul: Christopher Cash ($1,000), Bridget Newton ($750), Fred Newton ($750)
Shaw, Izola: Steven Van Grack ($520.87), Michael Rubin (MD, $520.87), Kimberley Propeack (MD, $500), Quinton Zondervan (MA, $1,000)
Valeri, Marissa: None over $500
Van Grack, Adam: Steven Van Grack ($1,000), Brandon Van Grack ($1,000), Claire Bohenegel (DC, $1,000), Gail Van Grack-Aks ($1,000), Ryan Van Grack (MD, $1,000), Citizens for Brian Feldman (MD, $500), Terry Lierman (MD, $1,000).
The Board of Supervisors of Elections requires candidates to file their campaign financial statements on simple yet confusing forms (or are they simply confusing forms?) that always trip up candidates and require correction (to see how widespread this problem occurs, count the number of amended returns in 2019). For this round, there seem to be a couple errors that deserve closer scrutiny but do not seem to affect my overall conclusions:
- Rockville United lists an in-kind contribution of $200 to Paul Scott, which does not appear in Paul Scott’s report.
- Danniel Belay lists $100 as a balance forward, however, there is no previous campaign finance report. I suspect this was a self-contribution to open a bank account for the campaign and is recorded incorrectly.
- Anita Powell lists $283.95 in contributions as loans but they are actually campaign expenses.
Navigating Rockville’s Election: Tom Moore’s Endorsements for Mayor and Council
These endorsements for the current candidates for Mayor and Council are provided by Tom Moore, a whom I first met when we both ran for Council years ago. Even though we don’t always agree, he’s informed, thoughtful, and may help you with your ballot choices. He served two terms on the Rockville City Council from 2011 to 2015, then served as counsel and chief of staff to Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the Federal Election Commmission. In June, he joined the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow on its Democracy team. He has lived in Rockville since 1997.
No matter what happens this November, the City of Rockville will enter a new era of leadership. We’ll have our first new mayor since 2013. And we’ll have six councilmembers, up from four – and at least five of them will be newcomers.
Given the scarcity of information about the election, I wanted to share my thoughts about those who are running. With just two exceptions, I will be saying positive things about the people I’m supporting, and not much about those I am not supporting. I hope you find it helpful.
First up: I will be proudly voting for Mark Pierzchala for Mayor. I have a tremendous amount of respect for, loyalty to, and affection for Mark. He and I served together on the Council during my first term (2011-13). I learned a lot from him about the issues, but, more importantly, he modeled for me how to vote your conscience fearlessly. He took on tough issues when popular sentiment went the other way. He championed good development and housing policies when it would have been easier – sometimes, much easier – to vote the other way. He has a good heart, good common sense, and is admirably careful about the City’s budget. Mark has been a terrific councilmember who has served his City well, and he will be a terrific Mayor.
As to the Council: I will be voting for (in alphabetical order by last name): Kate Fulton, Barry Jackson, Anita Neal Powell, Izola Shaw, Marissa Valeri, and Adam Van Grack.
Kate Fulton impressed me when she and I sat down so she could pick my brain on how to run and serve. I was just about to talk about how the City budget was intimidating to me when I was first elected (but that the City’s budget staff were very kind and patient in explaining it) when Kate mentioned that she’s COO of the Federal Reserve. Yeah, she gets budgets. She’ll be a good councilmember.
Similarly, Barry Jackson and I sat down for a marathon coffee session months ago when he was first thinking about running. He’s a solid guy with great experience running the King Farm Citizens Assembly. He and I clicked on a lot of issues, and he immediately erased my concern that a candidate who runs KFCA would only represent King Farm if elected. He’ll be a good councilmember.
Anita Neal Powell has served the City for many years. She has been an effective and tireless advocate for Lincoln Park, and I’m delighted that she’s offering to serve on the City Council. On a City Council that will be made up of newcomers, Anita will bring a badly needed breadth and depth of experience. She’ll be a good councilmember.
I met Izola Shaw when we were both advocating for the city-citizen ballot initiative (which I’m going to be writing about separately!). She served the City well on the most recent Charter Review Commission. I like her, I like her values, and I think she’ll be a terrific voice on the Council.
I met Marissa Valeri when she was on the national staff of Common Cause and I was serving on the board of Common Cause Maryland. Marissa devoted years as a fierce advocate for the Twinbrook neighborhood as head of the Twinbrook Community Association. I think she’ll be the kind of councilmember I strived to be – energetic, attuned to her constituents’ needs, forever unsatisfied with the status quo, and eager to stick her neck out to do the right thing. She’ll be a good councilmember.
I had not met Adam Van Grack before this election season, but I’ve known his dad (Steve) and one of this brothers (Brandon) for many years. Adam sat down with me and we chewed over some of the stickiest issues facing the City – among them development, crime, and the fate of the King Farm farmstead and the former Redgate golf course. What impressed me most about Adam was not how much he agreed with me, but how much he disagreed with me – and how he did so. He was well-prepared to address the issues (important) and respectful in how he addressed our differences (less important, but shows he was raised well). But even when we came to opposite conclusions on different issues, the core values Adam used to analyze the issues were similar to mine, which is the most important. He’ll be a good councilmember.
Those are the six I’m voting for, and I recommend them to you.
As to the rest of the field: I haven’t met four of the candidates – Danniel Belay, Harold Hodges, Ricky Mui, and Paul Scott – and I can’t say much about their candidacies. I will note, however, that Mui supported Dan Cox for governor in 2022, which I think puts him well outside Rockville’s political mainstream.
I am actively deciding to vote against the two remaining candidates – Rich Gottfried and David Myles – and would like to provide some context for this. I know both of them, and I like both of them personally, but I do not believe the City would be well-served with either of them on the Council for the next four years.
Rich Gottfried has run for Council several times over the past few cycles, sometimes dropping an eye-popping amount of money into his campaign coffers, without success so far. He’s used that money to run very unpleasant campaigns, attacking the good will of those who confronted the City’s growth issues. Does he have a right to do that? Sure. But it doesn’t speak well of his grasp of the issues and doesn’t speak well of his ability to work on the Council.
Incumbent councilmember David Myles, who was elected in 2019 as a member of the Team Rockville organization I helped start in 2013, was involved in a domestic incident this summer in which the police were called and he was arrested. I am not judging David’s candidacy on the incident itself, because I just don’t know enough about it. It appears to be a sad and complicated situation.
But David’s response, in the form of a lengthy e-mail he sent to members of the community immediately after the incident, gave me great cause for concern. It was all over the map, kind of claiming victimhood in one section and kind of trying to be a public-service announcement in another, and weirdly dodgy throughout. The only thing I got out of it for sure was that David’s personal life needs to take priority over his public service.
City Clerk Ensures Election Integrity Amid Questions on Adam Van Grack’s Voting Record
In response to my previous blog post about the potential errors in the database of “returned ballots” for Rockville in 2019 (in other words, who voted in the 2019 Rockville election), the Rockville City Clerk provided the explanation below. Let’s be clear this is a database for the 2019 election, not 2023. I’ve worked with many City Clerks over the years and Rockville’s City Clerk/Director of Council Operations Sara Taylor-Ferrell is among the best I know. She points out Council candidate Adam Van Grack could have voted in 2019 (and he told me he’s a regular voter and that he voted in 2019, so I’m accepting his word) but not in Rockville because “his residential address on his voter registration was in Gaithersburg from 2015-2021.” She also points out that Montgomery County accidentally left out a portion of Rockville when they provided the City of Rockville a copy of the database. It was immediately corrected and we should be in good shape for the November 2023 election—but I’m guessing the City Clerk will doublecheck the database from now on.
I want to clarify information provided to you from Mr. Van Grack and posted on your blog of his voting record.
The Clerk’s office receives the voter database from the State of Maryland via the Montgomery County Board of Elections, as no local municipality has control of the State of Maryland registration database.
Candidates and interested parties can request a copy of the voter database that is provided to the City by Montgomery County Board of Elections. In early June we received a copy of the voter database with voters’ history, however at that time it was brought to my attention by Mr. Van Grack that one Rockville City voter district was omitted.
District 10 was omitted due to redistricting last year, part of Rockville’s District 10 area was split between Gaithersburg and the City of Rockville. When updating the street file tables in the Maryland State of Maryland registration system (the street file indicates the county and municipal district voting locations of a voter) Rockville’s District 10 was inadvertently omitted from some the data. This was corrected by Montgomery County within 24 hours and the updated voter database was sent to all the candidates and interested parties notifying them of the missing data.
According to the voted 2019 City of Rockville election database provided by the State of Maryland, Mr. Van Grack could not have voted in the 2019 City of Rockville municipal election because his residential address on his voter registration was in Gaithersburg from 2015-2021.
Mr. Van Grack requested an update to his current address in Rockville on April 29, 2021. Mr. Van Grack also requested an Absentee Ballot for the 2020 Gubernatorial election using his Gaithersburg address.
I appreciate that Mr. Van Grack noticed that District 10 was omitted in the June requested data, however Mr. Van Grack is in District 8 and not 10 for voting in the 2023 Rockville municipal election.
The City Clerk takes the election process seriously and ensures the voters receive accurate information, as we do not want misinformation circulated out to the voters that would question the integrity of the election process.
Per the previous email from Judy [in the City Clerk’s office], this information is public, and you can request additional information on what has been provided to you from the State of Maryland at sbe@maryland.gov.
Candidates Share Their Vision for Rockville at October 5, 2023 Forum
Community Reach of Montgomery County, in partnership with Rainbow Place Shelter, hosted a Rockville Election 2023 Candidate Forum at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre on October 5, 2023. The Forum, which was a significant event in the lead-up to the November election, saw candidates take to the stage to present their qualifications, experiences, and key policy positions. It’s important to note that the candidates’ statements were not independently verified, or as Ronald Reagan loved to say, “trust but verify.”
Candidate forums are a valuable opportunity for voters to hear directly from the candidates on a range of important issues but if you didn’t attend or don’t have time to watch the 90-minute replay on YouTube, I’m offering ChatGPT-generated summaries (with some light editing) to the candidates’ responses to the major questions in the attached six-page handout (thanks TM!). This will enable you to swiftly share your preferred candidate’s stance on issues with friends and family, strategize on the optimal choices for Mayor and Council seats, or potentially identify which candidates may be unclear, evasive, or inconsistent in their responses.
If you’re a candidate, these summaries could serve as a tool for reviewing your positions and assessing how effectively you stand out from others. Do the summaries accurately capture your ideas? Did any crucial points get overlooked? How do your views align or differ from other candidates? Are your statements well-rounded, or do they lean towards being too abstract or too specific? Do any of your opponents exhibit a significant lack in knowledge or critical thinking?
A Week of Surprises on Rockville’s Campaign Trail
It’s been a very strange week on Rockville’s campaign trail, starting on Monday at the Mayor and Council meeting and ending with a conversation in the parking lot after the Candidate Forum on Thursday night.
The Mayor and Council meetings often start with a half hour of proclamations highlighting a particular person, anniversary, or community issue, each read out by a council member without any drama. The October 2, 2023 meeting followed this tradition with the 45th Anniversary Art in Public Places Program, Arts and Humanities Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and Walktober but things went strangely awry. In the agenda, David Myles was assigned to Domestic Violence Awareness Month, an ironic choice give his recent arrest for an assault on his wife. That must have caught someone else’s attention in City Hall because Myles was reassigned to Breast Cancer Awareness Month at the last minute. Council Member Myles, who participated in the meeting remotely, didn’t agree with the change and voiced his concerns during his presentation, and then proceeded to discuss domestic violence instead of reading the proclamation on breast cancer awareness. Mayor Newton attempted to interrupt him but they merely wound up talking over each other, making an uncomfortable mess, leaving it to the Mayor to read the proclamation on Breast Cancer Awareness Month. You can watch this unfold online at “Proclamation Declaring October 2023, at Breast Cancer Awareness Month (CM Myles).”
The Candidate Forum on Thursday, October 5 hosted by Community Reach of Montgomery County with Rainbow Place Shelter at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre demonstrated the extraordinary challenge that voters will have when faced with a dozen council candidates. Although we’re mid-season, most candidates haven’t managed to distinguish themselves and are relying far too much on platitudes and vague statements about leadership, neighborhoods, vacancies, residents, funding, taxes, transparency, experience, city services, safety, housing, green space, diversity, partnerships, and sustainability, so they all seem to offer the same ideas and solutions. Here are some potential distinctions among them, but can you identify who they are (and more importantly, does it matter?):
- “I’m the only candidate that lives in Town Center.”
- “I led the effort to tie funding for our needs-based organizations to the cost of inflation.”
- “There’s a need for more live music in Town Center and throughout the city of Rockville.”
- “While on the Charter Review Commission…[I] routinely brought up the issues of justice and equity.”
- “I am disappointed in the vacancies in Town Center.”
Confusing matters, many talked out of two sides of their mouth: “we’re doing well on diversity but need to do more” or “we are a safe community but must hire more police” or “we need more live music and parks but we have to reduce expenses.” Part of it is due to the pressure to avoid alienating potential voters, but it’s also due to the nature of Candidate Forums: demanding simple answers to complex questions. At the Forum, a couple candidates had 90 seconds to answer:
- What are the problems you currently see facing Town Center and how do you intend to address them?
- Nonprofit organizations cover many services for city residents that Rockville helps to fund through grants. Is there too much funding going to nonprofits or not enough? Is the city funding the most important services? Does the city get the best bang for its buck through the nonprofits that provide those services or would you recommend increasing city staff to provide such services?
Complex, compound questions can be tricky for both seasoned politicians and newcomers. Experienced politicians will sidestep parts of the question, while new candidates may struggle to provide clear answers due to lack of knowledge or experience, resorting to vague statements to avoid embarrassment. Neither helps voters make informed decisions. For clearer answers, forums should pose simple, open-ended questions. Providing questions in advance could also lead to better responses. While spontaneous answers can reveal a candidate’s values and superficial knowledge (gotcha!), they don’t necessarily reflect their critical thinking on specific topics like Town Center, Red Gate Park, or the city budget.
But even if questions are provided in advance, some candidates will be unprepared. The October 5 Candidate Forum addressed the referenda questions on the November ballot, which have been discussed by Mayor and Council for the last year (see Board of Supervisors of Elections Recommends Lowering Voting Age to 16 and Mayor and Council to Choose Earmarks and Decide Upcoming Election Changes), so every candidate should be prepared with an answer. The issues of lowering the voting age to 16, permitting noncitizens to vote, setting term limits, and creating representative districts are quite familiar to Council Members David Myles and Monique Ashton, yet were strangely unwilling to state their conclusions. In his closing remarks, Myles stated that “voting is private matter” and provided an “outline of his philosophy” so that voters might guess at his answers (perhaps he prefers that the City Council vote in secret?). Mayoral candidate Monique Ashton held up an illegible handwritten sign that elicited groans from the audience, who eventually was asked to read it out: “I will listen, convene, and do what I think is best for Rockville.” It’s a non-answer that anyone running for office can spout, but certainly not appropriate for a current council member running for mayor. Voters “hire” the Mayor and Council to lead the city; we need to know what you think and where you’re taking us.
Finally, the strangest event of the week occurred after the October 5 Forum in the parking lot. I ran into a candidate for the Rockville council who pointed out an error in my post about their voting record. They told me they had voted in the 2019 election and thought I had used an incorrect 2019 voter list provided by the City of Rockville. They also mentioned that they had notified the City Clerk about this mistake. So, on October 6, I contacted the City Clerk’s office to request an updated voter list, as the one they gave me in September 2023 seemed to be incorrect. They responded quickly, but instead of giving me a corrected list, they directed me to the State of Maryland. This was very strange. The City Clerk’s Office didn’t show any concern about the potential error in the 2019 voter list—it could suggest there are errors in the voter list for the upcoming election. Hmm. There are several ways to get at this without the City’s cooperation. It’s slow and costly, but I’ll keep at it. Hopefully, I’ll have answers before the election.
Rockville’s Neighborhoods: A Key Factor in Local Elections?
If you want to run for a spot on the Mayor and Council, you need to be at least 18, registered to vote, and have lived in Rockville for at least a year before the election (for this race, that means living here since November 7, 2022). But when people vote, they often pick candidates who they feel are like them and will represent what they care about. So, where a candidate lives can be really important, especially if they live in a neighborhood that’s similar to the voter’s.
Looking at the map, you can see Rockville is split into three parts by major highways. To the west of I-270 is the “wealthy west,” where the average house costs more than $600,000. Adam Van Grack is the only candidate from this part of Rockville. To the east of #355 (Rockville Pike/Hungerford Drive/Frederick Road—actually, the dividing line is Metro) are the “middleburbs,” where houses typically cost between $300,000 and $600,000 and is home to Anita Neal Powell, Izola Shaw, Marissa Valeri, and Richard Gottfried.
Right in the center of the city is the “mixing bowl,” where house prices vary the most and has the greatest number of candidates: Paul Scott, Barry Jackson, Mark Pierzchala, Harold Hodges, Kate Fulton, Monique Ashton, Ricky Mui, Danniel Belay, and David Myles.
In past elections, the richest neighborhoods usually had the most people voting. If we think they’ll vote for people who are like them or share their interests, we will likely see Barry Jackson, Adam Van Grack, Kate Fulton, Ricky Mui, and David Myles take five seats on the next city council. If we continue this logic, there is one more seat available on council so it will be a tight race between Paul Scott, Anita Neal Powell, Izola Shaw, Marissa Valeri, and Richard Gottfried. The contest for Mayor between Mark Pierzchala and Monique Ashton, who both live in wealthy neighborhoods, will be more complicated. Voters will likely consider additional factors like experience, background, personality, and age.
As for age, once again this council election attracted candidates that span at least three generations. The Millennial generation (born 1981-1996) is solely represented by Danniel Belay; Gen Xers (1965-1980) by David Myles, Monique Ashton, Ricky Mui, Izola Shaw, Kate Fulton, Barry Jackson, Marissa Valeri, Adam Van Grack, and Harold Hodges; and Boomers (1946-1964) by Paul Scott, Richard Gottfried, Mark Pierzchala, and Anita Neal Powell. Most people who vote in Rockville are from Generation X. If they vote for people who are like them, we might see a lot of candidates like David Myles, Monique Ashton, Ricky Mui, Izola Shaw, Kate Fulton, Barry Jackson, Marissa Valeri, Adam Van Grack, and Harold Hodges on the city council. But the people who vote the most are Baby Boomers, so Paul Scott, Richard Gottfried, Mark Pierzchala, and Anita Neal Powell could also have a good shot at winning.
The Rockville United campaign committee, which includes Monique Ashton, Kate Fulton, Paul Scott, Izola Shaw, and Marissa Valeri, could really shake things up in the city council if voters decide they want a big change. However, it’s hard to find information about this team online, and usually, people prefer to pick their candidates one by one. But remember, teams like Rockville United can be a great way to make the most out of limited resources.
Max for Rockville 
