The Primary Election for Montgomery County is Tuesday, June 24.
If you want some choice in who will represent you on County Council, as County Executive, in the Maryland General Assembly, now is the time to engage. If you think it doesn’t matter much, these are the people who make land use decisions, decide what to do with county property, who set tax rates, who decide how much money will go to schools, who control services that affect traffic and many other things that affect quality of life more than anything that happens at a national level.
State Delegates and Senators
Potomac is split between District 15 and 16. (See map on page 2.) Each resident is represented by one state senator and three state delegates from their district. District 16 includes Bethesda, Chevy Chase and parts of Potomac. District 15 includes parts of Potomac and the upcounty.
Longtime Sen. Brian Frosh (D-16) is running for Attorney General, and Del. Susan Lee (D-16) is running against Hugh Hill and J'aime Drayton in the Democratic primary. (J'aime Drayton did not respond to multiple requests for information.)
There are seven candidates vying for the three delegate seats in District 16.
In District 15, former delegate now State Sen. Brian Feldman is unopposed in the primary and will face Robin Ficker (R) in November.
Four candidates are seeking the three seats for Delegate in District 15.
Important Dates
- June 12-19: early voting starts on the Thursday, June 12 and runs for eight days through the Thursday before the election. Montgomery County offers nine early voting centers. Voting hours each day at all locations will be from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The closest site to Potomac is at the Executive Office Building, 101 Monroe Street, Rockville, MD 20850.
- June 24, Election Day, voting places open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Candidates
Ariana Kelly (D-16)
Ariana Kelly was elected to the House of Delegates in 2010. A former nonprofit executive and PBS news producer, Kelly has received numerous awards for her effective advocacy on behalf of small businesses, public health, women’s health, the environment, people with disabilities and working families. She specializes in issues affecting small businesses and family economic security.
Kelly successfully passed legislation requiring insurance companies cover treatment for children with autism and other developmental disabilities, and was named “Legislator of the Year” in 2014 by the Mental Health Association of Maryland for her work improving access to mental health and substance abuse treatment. She has made childcare a priority, successfully increasing state support for low cost childcare for working families, and fighting to streamline the regulatory process for childcare centers. In 2014 she also passed legislation protecting the rights of sexual assault survivors, and expanding access to job protected family medical leave.
Kelly has a progressive vision for Maryland that includes supporting all families, investing in education, increasing school construction funding, and significantly improving our transportation infrastructure. She believes the progressive values of our community, including promoting social justice and equal opportunity, and protecting civil rights, the environment and a strong social safety net can be reflected and strengthened when we improve our business climate, particularly for small businesses.
Kelly serves on the Health & Government Operations Committee, the Insurance Subcommittee, the Bi-County Agencies Committee and the Disparities Subcommittee. She is co-chair of the Workgroup on Access to Habilitative Services, and a member of the Workgroup on Midwifery and the Commission on the Commemoration of the 19th Amendment.
Kelly is the former executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland. She also served as executive producer of PBS’ “To The Contrary,” and as national campaign director for MomsRising.org where she led the Environmental Health and Pay Equity campaigns.
Born and raised in Montgomery County, Delegate Kelly is a graduate of Walter Johnson High School. Her family lives in Fort Sumner, Bethesda, where her daughter Maeve attends Wood Acres Elementary, and her son Leo attends Washington Hebrew’s Bindeman Center Preschool.
C. William Frick (D-16)
Del. Bill Frick: Maryland House of Delegates, District 16
Biography:
Education: Bethesda Chevy-Chase H.S., 1993; Northwestern University, 1997; Harvard Law School, 2000
Experience: State Delegate, District 16, 2007-Present; Attorney at Law, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, 2000-Present
Del. Bill Frick is completing his second term in the Maryland General Assembly representing District 16. In this short time, Delegate Frick’s work has earned him seniority and leadership in the House, where he now serves as House Parliamentarian and chairman of the important Revenues Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.
Bill is determined to enhance transparency and accountability in state fiscal matters. Concerned that nearly $4B of annual tax expenditures are not carefully scrutinized or evaluated, Del. Frick authored the Tax Credit Evaluation Act, which called for cost-benefit reviews of the state’s key tax credit programs. Those reviews have already begun to identify necessary improvements in some economic incentive programs. Del. Frick won national attention in 2014 when he raised questions over the state’s subsidy of film and television productions.
Inspired by Harvard Law School Professor (and now U.S. Senator) Elizabeth Warren, Bill has been a leading advocate for consumer protection. He has worked to stop predatory lending, and introduced legislation to keep state resources in community banks to help facilitate local small business lending. Recognizing his work, the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition has named him “Most Promising Legislator of the Year” and one of their “Consumer Heroes.”
In his private life, Del. Frick practices law with a leading law firm in Washington, DC. He lives in Bethesda with his wife Bethany, a spirits industry executive, and his “Fricklets,” Katie (8) and Charlie (6).
Gareth E. Murray, M.Div., Ph.D.
What Potomac Voters need to know about Gareth E. Murray:
I would like the District 16 Potomac residents to know that although I am a new resident to District 16, I am not new to Montgomery County, the General Assembly or the legislative process. I have been a resident of Montgomery County since relocating from Los Angeles in 1988. I was very active in the east county community as a PTA officer, founding member of Action in Montgomery, board member of the Banneker Math and Science Honors Program (now AAFAE), catalyst for establishing The People’s Wellness Clinic (for under and uninsured east county residents), volunteer assistant coach at Springbrook HS, board member of the Mental Health Association of Montgomery County, National Center for Children and Families and Leadership Montgomery. While living in Colesville in the late 1990s, I reached out to District 16’s Pastor Prouty at the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation to join me in an activity during the Martin Luther King Holiday of service weekend. The goal was to have children from different backgrounds and races come together to paint a mural for the Good Hope Rec Center and in the process learn to appreciate our diversity and work cooperatively with others for the common good.
In 2002 I was elected to the House of Delegates from District 20 becoming the first of two African Americans in the history of Montgomery County to serve in such a capacity. During my time in office some of my accomplishments were legislation that strengthened the MBE program, reporting requirements to make the Small Business Reserve Program more accountable, creating a process for nursing homes to have a voice during state audits, addressing the impact of unattended men’s health, bringing attention to the importance of cultural competence in health care and instituting a process to empower nursing home residents and their families. Following one term I was appointed director of Legislative Affairs for the Maryland Higher Education Commission, where I coordinated the crafting and drafting of administration bills for higher education. I was also a co-chair on the State Plan for Higher Education writing teams for 2009 and 2013. The state plan is the document that guides all institutions of higher education for a four-year period.
Since moving to Potomac I have continued to serve my community through the board of the Potomac View Home Owner’s Association. A person of action, after listening to Potomac View residents complain about the danger in going across or turning right onto River Road because of the oncoming traffic from Piney Meetinghouse Road, I solicited assistance from my former colleague, the Hon. Del. Bill Bronrott, who ordered a traffic study. As a result of that study a yield to oncoming traffic sign was installed for drivers going west on Piney Meetinghouse Road and turning south onto River Road.
I have maintained a positive working relationship with my former colleagues and will be able to use that immediately upon my arrival in Annapolis. I have the necessary skill set, intellect and working relationships to get things done for all segments of our community. “For such a time as this,” I will be that effective voice for a new paradigm in education, transportation, the environment and our treasured senior adult population.
Bio:
The Hon. Gareth E. Murray, M.Div., Ph.D., has over 35 years combined experience in the fields of mental health, organization development, religion and public service.
Murray is now a government relations consultant in the private sector and an entrepreneur with ventures in telecommunications and real estate development through his company, Spirit Ventures, LLC. He is running for the House of Delegates from District 16 of Montgomery County.
During his 20-plus years in higher education, he served within the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park; University of Southern California, where he was the first African American hired by the Counseling Center and The University of the District of Columbia. In 1995, upon completion of seminary at Virginia Union University, he was called to serve as assistant pastor of The People’s Community Baptist Church in Silver Spring, and in January of 2006 was appointed associate pastor Senior Adult Ministry at The First Baptist Church in Silver Spring.
Murray served as clinical supervisor and regional clinical accounts manager for a national managed mental health and employee assistance provider. He then transitioned into the public sector as the director of the Office of Stress Management for the Montgomery County police department.
In November of 2002 Murray won the general election for District 20 and in January of 2003 became the first of two African American Delegates in the history of Montgomery County to serve in the Maryland General Assembly. In 2007, Murray was appointed the director of Legislative Affairs for the Maryland Higher Education Commission and served in that position until January of 2013.
A native Baltimorean and a firm believer in education, Murray has an earned Doctorate from Cornell University, a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from University of Maryland, College Park and a Master of Divinity from Virginia Union University. Son of the late John C. and Augusta M. Murray, he resides in Montgomery County, Md. with his wife and family.
Hrant Jamgochian
BIO:
LL.M. in Global Health Law from the Georgetown University Law Center
J.D. from Catholic University Columbus School of Law
B.S. in Government and Politics from University of Maryland University College
I bring nearly 20 years of public policy experience at the state and national levels, with the long track record of success, which I hope to take with me to Annapolis.
Currently, I serve as the executive director for Dialysis Patient Citizens, where I am responsible for directing and overseeing all day-to-day operations of the organization. I serve as the primary spokesperson for the organization and lead advocate, working closely with the Obama Administration to protect consumers during implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
I previously served as the director of Health Policy for United Way Worldwide, where I was the lead expert on federal and state health policy for the world’s largest charity. I also served as the director of Congressional and State Relations for the American Pharmacists Association, where I spearheaded advocacy efforts to improve patient access as well as protect patient safety. I also worked at the American Psychological Association, where I led our grassroots efforts to pass mental health parity legislation in more than a dozen states as well as at the federal level.
I began my professional career running grassroots advocacy campaigns for Environment America, working on-the-ground in six states on more than two dozen campaigns.
I am a firm believer that health, education and income are all interconnected. For example, children do not learn if they are hungry. That is why I serve on the board of Nourish Now, to help eliminate food waste and hunger in Montgomery County. It is also why I am running on a platform to improve the health, education and financial stability of our community.
I want to ensure that everyone has access to high quality, affordable health care; spending most of my professional career fighting to increase patient access. As your delegate, I want to close insurance loopholes in the Affordable Care Act and help fix our health exchange. We also need to do more to help our seniors “age-in-place” and provide high quality, long-term care to those who may need it. As a member of the “sandwich generation,” I currently care for my 98-year-old grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s, while also raising a beautiful 9-month-old baby boy.
I also want to make sure that all children receive a good education, along with the support they need to achieve their full potential. To help address our growing achievement gap, I will continue to advocate for universal early education to ensure that all of our children have a good start. I will also work hard to address our overcrowded classrooms, by making sure Montgomery County secures its fair share of school construction funding from the state. We also need to make it a priority to make higher education more affordable. I have heard from far too many friends and neighbors who have told their children that despite all of their hard work they cannot afford to go to the college of their choice.
Finally, I want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to earn a good living. Far too many families are now choosing between unemployment and underemployment. We need to get more people back to work and in good paying jobs. That means eliminating excessive red tape to make it easier to do business in Maryland. I also support the creation of a state bank, to help free up capital during the current credit crunch, while also helping to keep more money in Maryland instead of shipping bank profits out-of-state. At the same time, we must address our traffic gridlock and decaying infrastructure if we want to attract and retain good jobs in our community.
Our campaign has held several meet-and-greets over the past several months. The next meet & greet event is: June 11, 7:30 p.m. - 9 p.m., 8314 Meadowlark Lane, Bethesda.
More information about my campaign at http://gojamgo.org/
More information about my public policy experience is also available at:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=76976333
Jordan P. Cooper
Jordan P. Cooper is a Democratic candidate for delegate in District 16. He was born, raised, and educated in Montgomery County, and lives in North Bethesda. Cooper has extensive on-the-ground legislative experience in Annapolis and currently represents 2,000 District 16 constituents as the president of the Luxmanor Citizens Association. He is an appointed member of the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board and was formerly a policy advisor at the National Partnership for Women and Families. Cooper is a public health expert with academic, legislative and professional health policy experience. He received a MSPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a BA from Vassar College.
He attended Tilden Middle and Walter Johnson High School and is an active family member of B'nei Tzedek congregation.
Why you should vote for me
I represent 2,000 constituents in North Bethesda as the president of the Luxmanor Citizens Association. As a member of the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board, I join the board in advising the Montgomery County Executive and County Council on the county budget. I am an appointee of the Governor on the Selective Service Board of Rockville.
I'm the only challenger candidate in this race who was born, raised, and educated in District 16, having attended and graduated from Luxmanor ES, Tilden MS, and Walter Johnson High School. I am a graduate of Vassar College and have a master's degree in health policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I have worked on health policy in the Maryland House of Delegates, have written language that has subsequently been incorporated into final regulations on quality measurement pertaining to the Affordable Care Act, and I currently work on Health IT at Kaiser Permanente.
My top priorities upon being elected to represent Bethesda, Potomac, Friendship Heights, and Glen Echo in the Maryland House of Delegates are to:
Advance affordable, quality healthcare
Advocate for excellence in pre-K-12 and higher education
Invest in our infrastructure for a stronger economy
Every month individuals and small businesses face escalating health insurance premiums. My top priority in the House of Delegates will be to work to drive down the unnecessarily high cost of health care in Maryland. I will work to ensure that every Marylander has access to healthcare for every part of their body. I will work to negotiate down the price of prescription drugs through the Health Benefits Exchange and make sure that one doctor can no longer charge five times more than another doctor for the same procedure. This is a proven concept that has saved millions of dollars while reducing health disparities in Maryland hospitals since the 1970s. Finally, I will work on legislation that will usher in a transition from medical reimbursement structures that incentivize volume to models that create added value in healthcare.
With regard to education, as MCPS enrollment continues to grow at the rate of a new high school each year, I will work to bring more school construction dollars back to Montgomery County so that we have enough space in each school for every child. I will defend funding for the arts & music in education, because these programs foster creative problem solving skills, which are the skills that will distinguish our workforce in the new global economy. Finally, I will fight to expand foreign language immersion programs to all elementary students in Maryland. These programs would carry limited fiscal impact and have been proven to work in six separate instances in Montgomery County.
I believe that the state’s primary responsibility in ensuring that Maryland has a strong economy is to ensure that our public infrastructure functions reliably. Businesses cannot function well in an environment where power outages are frequent and of long duration, nor where water and sewer lines burst, nor where employees are unable to commute to work because mass transit options are consistently delayed. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on investing in the infrastructure that we already have to prevent deterioration of service.
That is why on June 24, when you vote in the Democratic Primary, I ask that you consider supporting me, Jordan P. Cooper, with your vote for state delegate.
Marc Korman
Address: Bethesda MD 20814
Campaign Phone: 240-447-1175
Campaign Website: www.marckorman.com
Campaign Email: marc@marckorman.com
Campaign Facebook: www.facebook.com/marc.korman.campaign
Campaign Twitter: @mkorman
Education: JD University of Maryland. 2010 (magna cum laude), MA in Government, Johns Hopkins. 2007, BA in history Univ. of Southern California, 1997.
Occupation: Associate, Sidley Austin LLP
Political Positions: District 16's elected representative on the Montgomery Country Democratic Central Committee
My name is Marc Korman and I am running to represent District 16 in the Maryland House of Delegates. In Annapolis, my main job will be to safeguard our region’s economic prosperity. In great places to live like Potomac, that means ensuring continued excellence in education, enhancing transportation options, and protecting the environment.
Montgomery County’s brand is education and we must maintain our excellent schools. One area the state can be helpful is school construction. Our countywide school system is growing by over 2,000 students per year. The Churchill High School Cluster is in better condition than some of the other clusters in the county, but Winston Churchill High School itself is overcrowded. Potomac Elementary is as well. Several of the surrounding high school clusters also have capacity issues, including Wootton High School and the Whitman cluster, where all but one of the schools is over capacity. In the House of Delegates, I will fight for the increased funding our area needs. Montgomery County must secure support from the state for a “catch-up” construction program and school construction funding formulas must factor in school system size and rate of growth (Montgomery County’s school system is the largest and fastest growing in the state) when allocating dollars. Our children deserve modern, clean, and appropriately sized facilities, not cramped hallways and portable trailers.
Another important issue to our community is transportation. Independent studies consistently rate our region’s traffic the worst in the country, with local drivers sitting in traffic twice as long as the national average. This hampers our economic success and degrades our quality of life. As a legislator, I’ll be heavily involved in the oversight of critical state roads like Bradley Road and River Road. But our county’s economic future also relies on Metro (Bus, MetroAccess for the disabled, and rail). We need to make sure Metro runs efficiently and effectively. In supporting transit, however, we cannot lose track of the fact that Maryland has neglected its entire transportation infrastructure for far too long, delaying structural bridge repairs and leaving potholes unfilled. The state and local projects backlog is in the tens of billions of dollars, and I will work to fix this. Maryland should restore highway user revenue, the local share of the state gas tax, to help fund these important efforts.
Finally, our economic prosperity must be sustainable. Protecting our environment and finding sustainable sources of energy are among the most important issues facing our region in the coming years. I have been endorsed by the Sierra Club because of my solutions-based approach to our environmental challenges. Maryland has ambitious renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals, but we need to be far more aggressive to actually meet them. We must invest in large-scale projects like Maryland’s offshore wind farm, as well as small-scale projects like solar panels and wind turbines for individual homes and businesses. By facilitating zoning processes and creating tax incentives for renewable sources of energy, we can make it easier to create these important projects and feed them into the electricity grid. I also strongly support efforts to clean the Chesapeake Bay. That starts with cleaning the Potomac River, a major tributary of the Bay. This means addressing our groundwater runoff and removing harmful chemicals, which is good for our environment and enhances our ability to enjoy the Potomac River and the Bay recreationally. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, cutting carbon emissions, and keeping our air and water clean will secure the environment for years to come and create a green economy for prosperity today.
Marc was born and raised in Montgomery County, and now lives in Bethesda with his wife and son. He represents District 16 on the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee and sits on the board of directors of the Bethesda Urban Partnership. For more information on Marc, please visit www.marckorman.com.
Peter Dennis
Bio: Peter Dennis is an attorney and entrepreneur from Potomac, Md. After graduating from Winston Churchill High School, he studied history at Boston College, then earned his law degree and a certificate in public policy from the Catholic University of America. His career in politics began as Chris Van Hollen's first campaign volunteer in 2001, after which he worked for Rep. Van Hollen in Congress as both a legislative correspondent and a systems administrator. Since then, he's worked on the campaigns of Ike Leggett and State Sen. Jamie Raskin, as well as Common Cause, the American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic Violence, the Law Firm of Murphy & Price, and the Millennial advocacy organization Our Time. He currently runs an internet startup called Perfect Republic, which is redeveloping a website called the American Awards, expected to launch in early June.
Why Peter?
I joined this race because I was disgusted by the obscene amount of money that's gone into the District 16 election, and as delegate I'll sponsor the legislation we need to address the problems exemplified by this very race, from public financing of state elections and a ban on partisan gerrymandering, to the creation of a state-run interactive sample ballot application to reduce the cost of communication between candidates and most voters to zero, and funding a study into the feasibility of eventually implementing secure online voting through the ballot app.
One of my other top priorities is passing intelligent and responsible legislation to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. Maryland recently decriminalized marijuana, which addresses the problem our state had with a racially-biased enforcement of our laws, but every year we delay regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana costs taxpayers over $130 million in potential tax revenues.
I will also sponsor legislation to provide for a massive expansion of our state's online learning tools, making higher education more affordable and accessible to all Marylanders.
More at http://www.peterdennis.org