Some Baltimore County Council candidates are angry that Izzy Patoka used their photos on a flyer for his county executive campaign, saying that he didn’t have permission and the photos could be perceived as an endorsement.
The mailer highlights the council expansion that Patoka championed, crediting it for more diverse candidates running for office. It says, “Izzy Patoka led the charge to add two seats to the council and expand diverse representation in county government. And it worked.” Below that are the faces of all 24 council candidates.
The council is all male and all white except for Woodstock Democrat Julian Jones. The photos on Patoka’s flyer include women of color, Black men, a Hispanic man, and at least one candidate under age 30.
Patoka needed five votes, including at least one Republican, for the expansion to pass.
Initially, the Republicans did not support the idea, but came around when Patoka gave them input on the maps. Eventually, all three Republicans voted to expand the council from seven members to nine along with Patoka and Towson’s Mike Ertel. Catonsville Councilman Pat Young voted no; Jones was absent.
Both Jones and Young are running for county executive.
Patoka has campaigned on the historic nature of the first meaningful change to the council since 1956. But several Black political leaders complained that the way the districts were drawn on the West Side diluted the Black population.
Instead of one minority-Black district, the new maps create three minority-heavy West Side districts. One includes a Black voting population of 57%, and the other of 56%. The third includes 44% Black voters along with enough Latino and Asian voters to make it a majority-minority district.
On the East side, activists who pushed for a minority district did not get one.
Danita Tolson, a former county NAACP president and nursing professor running for a District 2 council seat, was among those who testified for more Black representation. In a campaign ad for Jones, Tolson said she was shocked to find herself in one of Patoka’s ads.
“Izzy Patoka should be ashamed. He used my face and my race in his campaign ad,” Tolson said, in the ad. “The truth is, Izzy’s map rigged the maps to help Republicans, and diluted Black representation.”
At a news conference in front of Jones’s headquarters Monday, Tolson, who supports Jones, added: “They made these maps by splitting our communities apart, which means we will not, or possibly not, get our county council seated by minorities.”
Tyrod Haynes, who is also running as a Democrat in District 3, said he wanted his public comments at the press conference to be considered a “cease and desist” order for Patoka to stop using his image. If that didn’t work, he said, he would look into legal avenues.
Patoka said he was surprised at the pushback.
“It’s not intended to say it’s an endorsement. It’s not even pretending to be an endorsement,” he said, noting their names are not on the photos.
Patoka hastily scheduled his own news conference Monday to denounce Jones for not showing up to vote on the map. Jones has said he was returning from vacation and his flight was delayed.
Patoka also said he would comply with Haynes’s request, though it was unclear how. The mailer went out more than a week ago. There are eight days until the primary.
Among the most vocal against the maps over the past two years were a group of residents led by Linda Dorsey-Walker and her brother, Keith Dorsey. They fought for four more seats, then called for the two seats to reflect the county’s large Black population, which is about a third of its residents.
The East Side, Dorsey-Walker said, was “sold out” in favor of a Republican-approved map that diluted the influence of a growing Black population in the Essex, White Marsh and Middle River areas.
Dorsey-Walker is running for her own seat, also representing District 3, which includes Owings Mills and the Greenspring Valley.
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