One Year Later, #MoCo Misses Real Leadership

In elections just over a year ago, MoCo had a chance to elect new county leadership in the form of Jim Shalleck - a dedicated community leader and safety advocate. But as they've done for many years, coordinated special interests and a lazy local media kept the citizenry in the dark about the real chioces at stake and the result was status quo governance and our current poor crop of elected officals. But one year later, it is crystal clear that Montgomery County could've used a brave, bold leader like Jim Shalleck. Consider the policy agenda Jim Shalleck wanted to accomplish in year one, and what the current county electorate is clamoring for right now:

1. Making our schools safer: Jim Shalleck campaigned on school safety and having a police officer at or nearby every public school in the county to ensure quick reaction to any incident. The policy can be debated on efficacy but thirteen months later, events overseas in Paris and in California make it clear that our schools need to have a plan of action and the right level of security. Instead of focusing on ensuring county schools are prepped for any emergency with the right people / resources, the School Board has instead debated holidays and eliminated some final exams - against the wishes of parents and teachers.

2. Ensuring our school construction happened on schedule and under budget: Jim Shalleck hit our current county leadership on the absolute dismal contruction state of our schools, school trailers and existing facilities. The issue has not been resolved. Despite spending $150 million on a failed "Transit Center" by the county and record monies coming in, the school system facilities continue to underperform. Meanwhile there are recent issues with Radon testing, poor facilities at up-county high schools and more. New school construction is rarely under budget either and very needlessly expensive - witness the construction costs of Gaithersburg Highschool, which topped $170 million.

3. Privatizing the MCDLC (Dept of Liquor Control) and returning liquor sales to the private market: We are the only county in America - in AMERICA - where the politicians think they can manage liquor sales better then the private sector. Instead of spreading wealth and small business opportunity, the County Council uses liquor sales to fill its own coffers and further crony interests. Now, thirteen months later, the issue has become a major rallying cry and Jim Shalleck predicted such. Despite the outcry by big spending politicians the momentum is behind the privitization effort. Multiple bills will be introduced at the state level to address this tremendously outdated MoCo monopoly on liquor sales.