Meet the immigrant single mom who wants to run Montgomery County government

Esther Wells wants to break the Democrat party’s hold on Montgomery County by beating Will Jawando next month in the race for county executive.

Wells, a 39-year-old Republican, said she had long been a Democrat but switched parties in 2018 after becoming disenchanted with what she sees as a Democratic propensity to overtax.

The certified public accountant, president of the County Taxpayers League and former school board candidate said she is also disappointed with Democratic oversight of the county’s schools. She credits Montgomery County Public Schools in great part with her own success since she and her family immigrated from Trinidad in 1995.

“Unfortunately, a lot of voters have bought into the slogan of ‘vote blue, no matter who,’ and I think that has gotten us in a really tough spot,” said Wells, of Montgomery Village. “It’s going to bring us to financial bankruptcy. It’s caused a demoralized police department. It has failed students and the outcomes that we’re seeing.”

In Montgomery County, 58% of registered voters are Democrats, according to the state board of elections’ latest voter registration activity report.

Wells, a single mother of two boys, one with special needs, said she decided to run because Jawando, an at-large member of the County Council, holds “extreme” views.

A representative for Jawando’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month in a press briefing, Jawando said of Wells’ run for county executive, “It’s not a viable campaign.” Jawando has refused to debate Wells before November’s general election.

In a recent interview with The Banner, Wells talked about what she wants to change about county government.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you decide to run for county executive?

I did not think I was going to run for anything. I wanted to lend my support to one of the Democratic council members running for the seat. It wasn’t until I saw Will Jawando enter the race, and I was like, I don’t think he has a real shot. His policies are so awful and extreme. But then when I saw the traction building, I was like, wait a minute, why don’t I go ahead and put my hat in the ring?

I just wanted to give community members a second chance in November of a viable candidate that is well informed and engaged and willing to do the hard work if, God forbid, we got someone that is just very extreme.

What are the top three issues that you plan to tackle if elected?

Taxes have to be number one. How can we ensure that next year we’re not going to face another tax hike? I’ve already started going through the budget saying, here are some areas where we can lower it. So to me, it’s lowering taxes and being able to find savings in the budget without cutting services. It’s not about services. There’s waste, there’s mismanagement.

The second thing for me is our schools. As a single mom of two kids, two Black boys, one special needs, I need them to be literate. I need them to have a great chance at a bright future because that’s what got me to where I am today. Education is the greatest equalizer. MCPS propelled me out of poverty into the middle class, and so that I’m now able to live here and make a living on accountability over the last 15 years as a CPA. I want that future for my children. Our school system needs to be better, improve outcomes so that children at least can read at grade level, and do math at grade level.

The third priority is public safety. We need to restore our police department. We have almost 180 vacancies. Even if we wanted to bring [school resource officers] back into the schools, the police chief has said we don’t have enough staffing. So we are really in a critical place right now.

Why did you decide to run as a Republican as opposed to running as an independent in such a deep blue county?

I was a lifelong Democrat. I converted to being a Republican, just being an informed community member and seeing a lot of the direction of where the Democratic Party has been going. In terms of running as an unaffiliated candidate, it’s just so hard to do in Montgomery County because we have closed primaries, and if you don’t have a central committee, you have no support. Both parties have their strengths and their weaknesses.

You cannot be a bleeding heart and bleed out to death, which is kind of where I think we are with the one-party rule in Montgomery County. But also, you cannot be so fiscally closefisted that you’re just like, I’m going to help no one, and I’m just going to save money. Right now, we have no balance. I think as county executive, I’ll be able to restore a bipartisan government.

How would you handle the county’s spending plan and growing structural deficits?

I think that the superintendent and the Board of Education are closer to the root of the problem. I think the Board of Education needs to do more to right-size the budget before sending it over to the county executive. The superintendent’s job is to say, “Here’s what I need.” The board of education’s job, as his boss, is to say, “Okay, tell me what you need, but also give me a reconciliation list.”

The county executive has done a disservice to the process because he gets nine months to create this budget, and then the county council gets about two months. So even though they can scrap the budget and start over, they don’t have as much time as he did. So he squanders a lot of the time by proposing these budgets that always require a property tax hike or an income tax hike or some type of hike in order to balance it out. Why would you propose a budget that is outside of what we told you we can’t do? It’s dead on arrival.

I will ensure that I’m proposing budgets that don’t ask the taxpayers to do more right now, because they can’t.

Your first run for office was for the Board of Education in 2022. Why did you run?

During the pandemic, one of my sons was in elementary school. He has a developmental delay. All of his teachers were on the Chromebook. He didn’t understand, and so every single day he kept asking the same questions. Eventually, we got to the point where we just sat there and cried. I still had to work. I had a younger son that was in daycare and daycare closed, and so having no resources, it took a very big toll on our family.

I found out there were equity hubs — programs where essentially kids were able to learn in school, but it was only for low-income families. Why is that? Some kids can go to school and some can’t. My son has rights that are protected by the federal government. Why aren’t accommodations being made? Our school board member got us a special spot, but it was an exception.

It opened my eyes to see that we need more representation on the board. At the time, none of the board members had kids in elementary school. I felt like I had the identity of a voice that was missing.

If elected, you would be the first Black woman to hold the county executive job in Montgomery County. What does that mean to you?

I have been very intentional in first demonstrating that I am qualified on paper. And then I am a big believer that once you have qualified candidates, then yes, it’s important to have diversity because it’s important for leadership to reflect and look like the community it wants to serve. No one wants to go into a room and see no one that looks like them.