Ilaya Hopkins
How would you characterize the quality of civic engagement in Montgomery County, and what do you think should be done to improve it?
Montgomery County is rightly known for its high level of civic engagement. We benefit today from the work past activists have done to improve the county, and I am confident the work of today's civic activists will benefit future residents in the decades to come. In my ten years of experience in the community, I have noticed two troublesome trends in the tone of some civic activists. First is the polarization into strong 'pro' and 'anti' groups, as if our policy choices must come from one extreme end or the other, rather than a mutually agreed on, balanced choice among interests. Second, some groups tend to focus on extremely local issues to the exclusion of a more holistic approach. I encountered this when first grappling with the Walter Reed relocation to Bethesda Naval Hospital, as advocates for each surrounding neighborhood advocated for their own concerns, heedless of how those choices would impact other neighborhoods. It became clear to me that the County Council would not take leadership on the issue, and so I worked with other neighborhoods to form the Coalition of Military Medical Center Neighbors, which acted as an advocate for all communities to ensure the success of the overall project. As a councilmember, I will work with civic activists from all neighborhoods and on all sides of the issue, encouraging groups to cooperate and find compromise positions which benefit all.
What role do you think the Council and County Executive should play in setting education policy and providing oversight of the Montgomery County Public Schools?
The current council has pursued a hands-off approach to the school system, typified by my opponent's statement, quoted in the Washington Post, that “We give them the money, we can't control what they do with it.” It is not the job of the council to micro-manage the Board of Education, but the council must have a healthy, collaborative working relationship with the board. Two areas are of particular concern. First, as the council has final budget authority, it is incumbent on the council to work with the board to find greater efficiencies in the school system budget. In this era of tight budgets, we cannot afford to let any part of county expenses go unexamined. Second, the council must better include the board when planning for growth and development. Failure to make this connection led to overcrowding in BCC cluster schools, as the county brought more families and students into the Bethesda area without an adequate increase in school capacity.
What steps should the county take to maintain or improve public safety at a time when budget pressures are forcing cuts to spending on police and social services?
The budget problem is not merely a problem of revenue. The County faced significant budget shortfalls before the economic downturn and solved them through furloughs, one-time cuts and spending from the reserves. This is not sustainable.
We must use this budget crisis as an opportunity to address the structural deficit of our budget. Failure to do so will guarantee another crisis down the road. Over 80% of the budget is spent on compensation. If we do not work with the many unions to find ways to manage this expenditure over time, we will simply not be able to offer the full range of programs and services our county’s residents and businesses have come to expect. Everyone should be committed to starting work now on how to reorganize and restructure people and programs so that the recommendations become part of the FY12 budget.
The County Council and its staff together with the Executive branch have the information and the ability to make substantive changes to the way we operate. The recommendation to have a group of citizen volunteers review and recommend ways to restructure and reorganize is asking a tremendous amount of those appointed to the commission and I believe is an abdication of responsibility on the part of our elected leaders. Talk of restructuring government is not a new concept. This council missed an opportunity to act decisively this year to put us on a more sustainable path moving forward.
What, if any, changes to the structure of the county's tax system should we be considering?
A bulk of county revenues come from income and property taxes. This is true for most counties in the county and I do not see this changing in Montgomery County. As our property and income tax revenues have declined, this council has raised taxes and fees and created entirely new taxes to cover the budget gap. This approach is fundamentally unsustainable as it avoids dealing with the core structural budget deficit – it merely delays the reckoning another year. In assessing the county tax system, I will seek every possible efficiency in county operations before asking taxpayers to contribute more.
What should we expect Montgomery County's transportation network to look like in 30 years, and how will that affect where and how we live and work?
Expanding access to transit and concentrating growth in areas close to transit are smart ways to manage growth. Because of Montgomery County lies between Washington, D.C. and growing communities further north, there will always be commuter traffic and the congestion that comes with living in a major metropolitan region. My focus is on building a better, more reliable, more usable and integrated transit system comprised of bus routes, bike ways and pedestrian options rather than expanding road capacity, especially in the short term. By pursuing these interim measures we will buy time to implement larger, more ambitious projects.
If we aggressively pursue transit oriented development, Montgomery County can absorb its predicted 200,000 resident growth without needing to build over every acre of our land. To support this we will need a far more robust transportation network. By 2040, I expect to see both the Purple Line and the Capital Crescent Trail fully completed and working in tandem, providing both transit and recreation. The Corridor Cities Transitway will provide the vital transit infrastructure needed to support the Great Seneca Science City. We will see a full overhaul of the Red Line, improving reliability and capacity, as well as a county wide bus rapid transit system, bringing transit access to a larger portion of the county. The Ride-On system will be integrated with the BRT plan so that communities that are not readily accessible to major route ways will also have access to utilizing transit as a viable option to travel. I also expect that, with state support, we will see improved MARC service, providing commuters an alternative to I-270 and our congested arterial roads.
How will Montgomery County be different four years from now if you are elected?
The top priority of the next Council must be solving the structural budget deficit. Putting the County on a clear path of sustainable growth comes in a close second, and will benefit from solving the deficit problem. All candidates for the Council agree on these points. The current Council – including my opponent – does not have the focus and determination necessary to achieve these goals.
I do.
I bring the strong leadership we need to build the future we want to see. I have worked in the community, in our schools and at the nexus of county, state and federal collaboration on issues like the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) decision that will relocate Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the Bethesda Naval Hospital campus with significant impacts to the surrounding area. I am in touch with the concerns of my neighbors and the broader community trying to survive in this economic downturn. Because I can work constructively with all parties, I will be able to advance the processes towards the ultimate goals – a sustainable budget and a vibrant community.
Ilaya Hopkins
District 1
Democrat
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