Howard County must meet its legally mandated education obligations while maintaining fiscal stability and protecting core services. As County Executive, I would approach this challenge through disciplined budgeting, long-term revenue planning, and strategic economic growth. For our county to truly thrive, we must take a thoughtful and strategic approach to increasing revenue—one that is creative, responsible, and rooted in equitable economic growth that works for every Howard County Community.

Yes affordable housing is one of the most pressing challenges facing Howard County. Rising housing costs affect teachers, public safety officers, young professionals, seniors on fixed incomes, and families who want to remain in the community they call home. Addressing this requires a comprehensive strategy that balances stability, subsidy and supply while protecting existing residents through strong tenant protections and eviction prevention programs, expanding public and nonprofit partnerships

Supporting care infrastructure across generations is fundamental to workforce participation, family stability, and long-term fiscal sustainability, and proactive planning today will ensure Howard County remains a community where residents can thrive at every stage of life. I will champion financial programs that help seniors age with dignity—whether that means staying safely in their homes or accessing affordable, high-quality senior living options that meet their changing needs.

As County Executive, I would focus on accelerating implementation by electrifying county facilities and fleet vehicles, expanding energy efficiency retrofits across residential and commercial buildings, incentivizing distributed solar and battery storage, and aligning land use policy with transit-oriented development to reduce vehicle miles traveled. We must also integrate climate resilience into capital planning by investing in stormwater management, watershed protection, and flood mitigation.

The county government has an affirmative duty to protect and defend the constitutional rights of every resident, and that responsibility is not optional or selective. It includes safeguarding due process, equal protection under the law, freedom of speech and religion, and protection from unlawful government action. The rule of law must guide every decision we make, and public trust depends on knowing that the local government will defend the rights of all residents.

I support data-driven policing combined with transparent reporting, independent oversight, and continuous bias training to ensure equitable treatment across race, ethnicity, and neighborhood. We must invest in prevention strategies that address root causes of crime, including economic instability, housing insecurity, mental health needs, and youth opportunity gaps. Expanding crisis response partnerships, strengthening community engagement, and ensuring meaningful civilian input.

According to the Department of Legislative Services’ reporting, Howard County’s estimated contribution requirements are expected to remain in step with projected county revenue growth. Howard County is considered to be unimpacted by Blueprint’s required spending increases because we already exceed program targets. I plan to work with budget advisors and the county council to ensure education spending catches up to meet our needs so our schools may become fully funded.

Affordability and the lack of affordable housing are easily amplified by the local economics of a county as wealthy as ours. First we need to create a legal definition of affordable housing tied to the minimum wage; if you can work full time, you should be able to afford rent. Today that's $887/mo incl. utilities. Next we need rent stabilization that caps increases to 2.25% or CPI-U, whichever is lower. We also abolish the tipped and sub-minimum wage and raise the minimum wage to $30 by 2030.

I was fortunate enough to start school at 3, and though we offer pre-K, it's limited to prioritizing Tier-1 households; pre-K needs to be available to all children, along with expansive full-day summer programs. Kids may get summers off, but working parents don't. Living on a fixed income in HoCo isn't tenable for a majority of our older neighbors. I plan to work with the Commission on Aging and our seniors to find creative ways to make it not just possible, but affordable to retire here.

The goals are a bare minimum, and the progress a series of PR stunts. We have never even tried to make transit more convenient and cheaper than driving; let’s start there and build a real, reliable system. I want to close the sidewalk-to-nowhere loophole and create a real multimodal network, not check boxes. Update building codes to require both single- and multi-family dwellings to achieve PHIUS certification. No new natural gas infrastructure, and end HOAs requiring grass lawns.

Government’s purpose is to support and protect everyone. I don’t believe we should limit our role to protecting only the Constitutional rights of people in Howard County; those rights are incomplete and subject to interpretation. If any born person’s rights are violated within the county, I expect HCPD to intervene and protect that person. I support a HoCO Bill of Rights that protects all people from abuses not just by each other, but by corporations and by local and federal government as well.

We start with community policing; officers need to spend time on foot to build relationships. No blacked-out slick-top cop cars; we need high-visibility public safety vehicles. Replace the cops who, in 2025, arrested children in our schools, 96% of whom were people of color, with appropriately trained staff and services that work; SRO is a propaganda term. We need to dismantle Calvin’s dystopian surveillance dragnet, and stop the automated ticketing programs that do nothing for safety.