HoCo Legislative Record Tracker 2022 | Celebrating Three Years
Hiruy Hadgu
For the fourth consecutive year, the Howard County Legislative Record Tracker will evaluate and report the voting record of Howard County Council Members and the County Executive.
Every month, Howard County Council Members take votes on bills and resolutions that affect our quality of life. Local reporting on these issues is almost nonexistent. Gone are the days of scrutiny and follow-up by independent journalism.
The absence of independent journalism and an independent umpire has led to some of the most egregious land-use decisions in a county where the County Executive’s office is the most powerful office in county government. Because the County Council has very little oversight powers., the concept of “checks and balances” is nonexistent.
The Howard County Legislative Record Tracker fills this gap by tracking legislation deemed to impact our quality of life across four dimensions or issues: the budget, school quality, affordable housing, and accountability.
The County Council and County Executive sponsor hundreds of pieces of legislation and resolutions every year. Many are not substantive. For example, this year, the County Executive sponsored CB2-2022. The bill summary says it intends to “prohibit discrimination based on citizen or immigration status in the areas of employment, law enforcement practices, public accommodations, and financing;…”
For the bystander, CB2-2022 seems like a commonsense bill. Except, this bill is simply an election-year performative stunt because the County Executive has acted adversely against immigrant issues and this bill does absolutely nothing to address any concrete problems.
The 2022 Howard County Legislative Record Tracker includes the results of three bills on which the county took action. CB10, CB11, and CR17.
CB10-2022 would give employees laid off during the pandemic recall rights. This commonsense bill had several adverse amendments that weakened its impact. Councilmembers Liz Walsh and Christiana Rigby received a positive score for their support of the bill and opposition of the adverse amendments. Councilmembers Opel Jones, Deb Jung, and David Yungmann received negative scores for supporting the adverse amendments. While the County Executive signed the bill, his lack of leadership in advancing a strong argument to support worker rights earns him a negative score.
CB11-2022 is of course the bill to fix a technical language in the Citizens’ Election Fund. It was passed unanimously and all Councilmembers and the County Executive received positive scores.
CR17-2022 is the redesign of the county’s Design Manual. The manual embeds certain provisions that allows developers to circumvent adequate public facility ordinance (APFO) requirements. Councilmember Liz Walsh received a positive score for introducing an amendment to address one of those issues, while the remaining council members including the County Executive received a negative score for declining to support that amendment.
The 2021 tracker is updated with scores from CB83-2021 to create a Police Accountability Board.
The deciding amendment on this bill is amendment 9 to require entities to provide to Board members relevant materials upon written request by any member of the Board. It failed. Councilmembers Liz Walsh and Deb Jung received a positive score for supporting this amendment, while Councilmembers Opel Jones, Christiana Rigby, and David Yungmann received negative scores.
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