A petition seeks to expand the Baltimore County Council to 11 members. Baltimore County Flickr photo.
With no votes left, the Baltimore County City Council on Monday introduced a proposed charter amendment that would allow voters to decide whether to expand the council’s membership from seven to nine.
As a proposed amendment to the county charter, the bill needed a supermajority of five votes to pass. Council President Izzy Patoka joined Councilmembers Todd Crandell, Mike Ertel, Wade Kach and David Marks in voting for the measure. Councilmember Pat Jong was the only one to vote against and councillor Julian Jones, who had previously expressed reservations about the measure, was not present.
“Tonight was a historic moment,” said Patoka, who sponsored the measure. “It will give the county council the opportunity to better reflect the demographics of Baltimore County.”
The current council is all-male, with six white members and one African American.
Young, a Democrat who represents southwest Baltimore County, argued that the council should be expanded from nine to 11 members, saying it would increase the likelihood of a more diverse council.
“There’s a recurring theme over time,” Young said. “We’ve historically, with a few painfully minor exceptions, been a very white, very male council.”
But Crandell, a Republican who represents the southeastern part of the county, called Young’s proposal little more than a Democratic power grab.
“We’ve got to cut through the bullshit here. This is about politics. This is about the Democratic Party doing what they do in Maryland, trying to get more power in the Baltimore County Council,” Crandell said of the 11-member council’s proposal.
Ertel, whose district includes parts of Towson, Parkville, Rosedale and Middle River, said an expansion of the council is long overdue.
“We’ve had seven council districts since 1956. Our needs are greater than ever, our infrastructure is challenging, and we believe that expanding the council would provide some breathing room in terms of council members being able to serve their districts a little better,” Ertel said.
Meanwhile, organizers of a voter-backed campaign are pushing for a separate initiative that would add four members to the council. The Vote4More campaign has until July 19 to submit at least 10,000 valid voter signatures to the county board of elections to get their proposal on the November ballot.
In a statement Monday, the County Executive said Johnny Olszewski Jr. applauded the council’s decision “to answer our call to empower voters and allow them to have their say on expanding the county council to provide more responsive and fair governance.”
The proposed council bylaw amendment also calls for reclassifying the council member position from part-time to full-time. The Personnel and Salary Board Commission is expected to review the council’s salaries next year to decide whether to increase the current $69,000 salary or leave it the same. The council can approve or decrease the commission’s recommendation, but cannot increase it.
In another action, the council overrode Olszewski’s veto of a measure that would have limited housing development in areas where public schools are already overcrowded. Supporters of that bill say the measure is needed to curb massive development in parts of the county where schools are overburdened.
Although they voted against the veto, council members also agreed to pass a companion bill to create a commission that would closely monitor major development projects.
After the vote, Olszewski issued a statement calling the measure “deeply flawed.”
“The introduction of a band-aid law is intended to address concerns that we, and countless others, have taken a peculiar and convoluted approach to addressing the shortcomings in the original legislation,” his statement said.
“Nevertheless, we encourage the Board to use this ‘second chance’ as another opportunity to work with BCPS (Baltimore County Public Schools) leadership and housing activists to responsibly address school overcrowding while meeting our moral and legal obligations to expand access to affordable housing,” Olszewski’s statement said.
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