Montgomery County Executive

A: What sets me apart is my consistent and uncompromising record on fiscal accountability. I am the only candidate in this race who has committed from the start to oppose both the proposed 6.3-cent property tax hike and the local income tax increase in the current budget. While my opponents have frequently supported broad-based tax increases as a first resort, I believe we must grow our tax base and not the tax rate. Our county budget has increased by 44 percent over the last eight years while household wages have stagnated. I am the only candidate running with government administration and fiscal and tax policy experience to manage our nearly $8 billion budget using a targeted approach to find efficiencies rather than reaching into the pockets of residents. My leadership is defined by measurable results like the $100 million Housing Production Fund, the largest climate investment in Montgomery County history, tax relief for low-income families and seniors on fixed incomes, and the first paid parental leave policy. I offer a clear alternative for those who believe Montgomery County must become more affordable and more economically competitive to thrive.

A: We must move away from the unsustainable cycle of requesting record-breaking tax hikes to cover budget gaps. My approach centers on fiscal accountability and ensuring that every dollar reaches the classroom to improve educational outcomes. I support providing record funding for our schools but believe that investment must be tied to clear accountability metrics. We must ensure that residents are receiving the quality educational services their tax dollars are funding. Furthermore, we must grow our tax base with a stronger economy, and not simply raise tax rates on residents to cover the bill. By fostering a growing economy that encourages private-sector investment rather than vilifying it, we can generate the recurring revenue necessary to support our schools without placing a crushing burden on middle-income families and seniors. Our focus must remain on equity and excellence by ensuring that school funding is tied to measurable results for our students and not just used as an annual justification for higher taxes.

A: We can and must protect renters from predatory rent increases. I am concerned that the current policy has focused instead on discouraging the housing production we need to address the affordability crisis and will ultimately do more harm than good. Since its implementation, we have seen a 97 percent drop in new housing production, while homelessness has skyrocketed and rent increases have remained similar. I support a targeted approach by protecting current tenants from egregious rent gouging while providing clear and permanent exemptions for new construction. You cannot solve a housing shortage by making it impossible to build homes. This only exacerbates the long-term affordability crisis.

A: Yes. Increasing the supply of all types of housing is the only way to lower costs in the long term. I have led on increasing housing options by establishing the nationally recognized $100 million Housing Production Fund which will produce thousands of new units. I also spearheaded the More Housing N.O.W. initiative to provide workforce housing opportunities near transit corridors. I have championed More Housing at Metro and facilitated mixed-income housing on county land and at our places of worship. Additionally, I led the passage of the Accelerate MoCo package to cut red tape and reduce approval timelines for mixed-income housing by more than 75 percent. By increasing density where infrastructure already exists and with access to jobs and transportation, we can create more attainable options for teachers and nurses and first responders. When we increase supply, we reduce the competition that currently drives prices out of reach for too many of our neighbors. My focus remains on using these proven tools and building on successful strategies to ensure that our workforce can actually afford to live in the community they serve.

A: While Montgomery County has long used small and localized special taxing districts for specific needs, I am skeptical of the current proposal to create a broad and countywide taxing layer that bypasses traditional budget oversight. You cannot make Montgomery County more affordable by making it more expensive to live and do business here. Residents in our county already face a significantly higher tax burden than those in Northern Virginia who do not pay a local income tax. Layering a new and expansive taxing district on top of our existing record-high property and income taxes is the wrong approach for our families. While I support innovative infrastructure funding, it must be paired with a commitment to living within our means. Instead of looking for new ways to collect revenue, we should focus on public-private partnerships and leveraging state aid. Our priority must be delivering high-quality transit like the Flash BRT network through smarter management of existing revenue before asking residents for more. We must grow our tax base and not the tax rate to fund our transportation needs.

A: Montgomery County has an opportunity to lead the region by setting a responsible and immediate framework for data center development that requires them to bring their own new clean energy. I do not believe punting this issue to yet another task force or avoiding decisions is responsible as residents continue to pay higher energy bills. Setting strong standards rather than kicking the can down the road ensures their massive electricity demand does not strain our power grid or shift costs onto residents and small businesses. We must treat these as industrial facilities by limiting them to appropriately zoned industrial areas away from residential neighborhoods and schools. By establishing clear environmental standards for water usage and other impacts now, we can balance the need for data in our modern lives without making our energy bills even more expensive or sacrificing our environment and the quality of life our residents deserve.

A: We must transition away from trash burning toward a more sustainable and data-driven waste disposal system. The Dickerson incinerator is an aging facility that has become a significant source of local pollution. I support an alternative path that prioritizes human health and the protection of the Seneca Creek watershed. This requires significantly scaling up our composting and recycling programs and ensuring our approach is environmentally just and fiscally responsible. We also must ensure this transition is handled responsibly to avoid energy poverty or sudden cost spikes for our residents.

A: My journey to elected office is different from anyone else in this race. I didn’t start in politics or the government — I started in my neighborhood. I co-founded a civic association, advocating for my neighbors at the ground level before I ever ran for anything. I’m an activist first. That’s still who I am.

I’m the only candidate in this race who has run on public financing in every election since I championed it into law. I don’t take corporate dollars or special interest money — I answer to residents, period. My background is genuinely different, too. Twelve years as a CNN journalist taught me how to hold institutions accountable and push for transparency — I brought that instinct to the county government. I was the only executive director of a nonprofit serving Montgomery County youth before entering public office. I’m the first openly gay Jewish person elected to the county council. And I’ve spent two terms building a real legislative record: the Pay Equity Act, the ICE Out Act, free RideOn buses for all riders, and the legislation monitoring the unchecked growth of data centers. I didn’t just talk about these issues. I’ve made real progress.

A: Many families choose Montgomery County because of MCPS. It’s a strong school system, but like many large districts, it has faced real challenges in recent years.

As I’ve worked to address those challenges — from meeting the diverse needs of our students to ensuring our hardworking teachers earn competitive wages — I’ve supported record levels of school funding. At the same time, I’ve demanded record levels of oversight and transparency in how those dollars are spent. As county executive, I won’t simply rubber-stamp the school board’s budget. I will review it in partnership with parents, educators and taxpayers to ensure our investments reflect both our community’s priorities and fiscal reality. I will also advocate for a more formal role in the school budget process. That includes pushing for a designated county executive appointee to the school board, helping ensure spending decisions are transparent and aligned with the county’s broader budget realities. The county executive must take a more deliberate role in making the process clear, accountable, and accessible to all residents.

A: In 2023, every member of the council supported stronger protections for renters facing steep increases, some as high as 25% to 45%. While council members differed on how much to cap annual increases — ranging from 3% to 15% — there was broad agreement that tenant protections must be accompanied with expanding our housing supply.

But we also have to be honest about the results. Since the law’s enactment, housing production has dropped sharply. Montgomery County issued just 84 multifamily permits in 2025, compared to more than 1,700 in Fairfax County. That gap makes clear that the policy is not fully achieving its dual goals of protecting renters while increasing housing availability. I also had concerns about vacancy control, which limits rent adjustments even after a tenant moves out. That provision was adopted in part because Montgomery County lacks Good Cause Eviction protections. I strongly support enacting Good Cause Eviction as a more effective, targeted safeguard against unjust removals. The goal is straightforward: protect renters while ensuring we build enough housing for future generations. Given current outcomes, we must reassess the law and make the necessary adjustments to meet both priorities.

A: If we want there to be more housing that is affordable, then we need to build more housing that is affordable. It seems like a simple concept, but we have to act on it.

We need to build more subsidized housing for residents who need help paying the rent while also building more housing for middle-class families who are priced out of the communities where they grew up. More than 26,000 middle-class young people have left Montgomery County because they couldn’t find affordable homes here. I’ve passed legislation that reduces the cost to build housing, promotes more transit-oriented development and streamlines the permitting process. We also need to ensure new development includes a meaningful share of affordable units so that the benefits of growth reach everyone, not just the market rate. We need to build housing that is affordable and accessible to as many residents as possible.

A: Special taxing districts are worth serious consideration. Northern Virginia has used them effectively to fund Metro extensions and transit infrastructure by tying costs to the businesses and property owners who benefit most directly. That is a fair and logical framework.

I am open to piloting this approach in targeted corridors, particularly where new transit investment directly drives economic growth and increased property values. It is a way to fund infrastructure that does not fall entirely on the general tax base. That said, the details will determine whether this works. I would want a careful design process involving businesses, residents, and fiscal experts to ensure any taxing district has a clear benefit nexus and does not burden small businesses or residents who would not see proportionate returns. As the chair of Transportation and Environment Committee, I know these tradeoffs well. I would move deliberately, but this is a tool I would put on the table.

A: Montgomery County should not follow Northern Virginia’s path toward data centers. I was the first council member to push back on data center development by introducing legislation calling for a Data Center Task Force. When that was rejected at the council, I introduced legislation calling for a pause on all data center approvals.

Data centers raise serious questions about land use, energy consumption, environmental impact, infrastructure and economic development. Before Montgomery County moves forward, we need to get this right. As county executive, I would ensure community input, science-based standards and full transparency before any major project moves forward. Montgomery County can attract technology and innovation on terms that protect residents and rate payers, not the AI industry.

A: I believe we should close the Dickerson trash incinerator and recently voted to terminate the incinerator contract. It is time to act.

As chair of the Transportation and Environment Committee, I have led the council’s work on environmental policy, renewable energy, and waste management for years. I know this issue inside and out. And I am done waiting. The Dickerson incinerator has been operating for 30 years. It is the single largest source of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in the county. And earlier this year it failed EPA emissions tests, releasing an average of about 83% more dioxins and furans than allowed under state law. Yes, there are real transition costs and logistical challenges. But continuing to pour money into an aging, polluting facility while we deliberate indefinitely is not fiscally or environmentally responsible. We need to commit to a firm closure timeline, accelerate our composting and waste diversion programs, and invest now in the long-term waste management infrastructure our county actually needs.

A: I’m the really smart one.

I’m the only candidate that is cognizant of and understands the triple threats to Montgomery County citizens from Trump’s dark enlightenment billionaires actively replacing democracy with a corporate dictatorship, the coming economic collapse caused by the commercial real estate debt crisis and the data center overbuild debt crisis, and finally the disruption to society and possible extinction of humanity caused by the emergence of super-intelligent godlike AI. I have real actionable solutions to virtually all of the county’s problems. Including ICE and authoritative citizen surveillance and mind control, social media-induced suicide and drug overdose epidemic, transportation and congestion, affordable housing, economic development, social equity, etc. I’m the only candidate that has designed management systems for multibillion-dollar operations, performed forensic accounting audits on large organizations, developed dozens of government operational systems and replaced multimillion-dollar systems with systems costing 1/20th the cost, that were better, faster and cheaper. I’m the only candidate that can generate tens of billions of dollars a year of revenue for the county from the sale of the replacement operating and transportation systems to other jurisdictions, that will eliminate the need for any taxes. I’m the only candidate that understands macroeconomics.

A: I will provide my robotic technology to the county to perform most maintenance, like grounds maintenance, trash and litter collection, floor sweeping and polishing. I will implement automated planning, design and construction systems and robotics to lower maintenance and construction costs. MCPS has a $1.2 billion CIP “planning” budget. This is double pork laden, the industry standard for planning. I will use safe AI and neuroevolutionary that lower school construction planning costs by orders of magnitudes. The human brain is not capable of managing the variables and cascading subsystems like transportation, utility carrying capacities, student enrollment trends, etc. The CIP planning budget is the low-hanging fruit and easiest to cut while getting much better schools.

This will free $1.1 billion back to the MCPS budget to hire teachers and reduce class sizes, procure better learning materials and technologies, provide needed maintenance, etc. The cost of this planning and design platform will be shared across the county. County improvement and transportation projects and my proposed citizen-controlled urban planning online 3D digital platform for the County. MCPS currently has several “center” buildings with no proposed use. I would encourage some or all of those to be converted to housing or be sold.

A: While well-meaning, I believe the bill’s sponsors (two of my opponents) did not understand the level of stress the commercial real estate debt market is under. With very little money to lend, banks and private equity choose the lowest-risk loans to pursue. Rent stabilization, even though it didn’t currently apply to new construction, was enough to scare off lenders to multi-family projects in Montgomery County. The issued permits for multi-family units went for a high of 1,200 pre-stabilization to a low of 7 post-rent stabilization.

The county provides $160 million for affordable housing bonds and subsidies for affordable housing. The lion’s share of those funds goes to rich developers and landlords to create rental units. This is what allows the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, making the economy to continue widening. I will direct that money to renters to become owners. A modest one-bedroom apartment costs $270,000 over 30 years to a renter and only $70,000 over that same 30 years to an owner. Using the same county funds, this will solve the affordable housing crisis within a few years with no additional cost to the taxpayer. I would also subsidize “equity share” leases.

A: It is not what I believe that matters. I will implement a high-fidelity 3D digital twin, Sim City-like, gamified online citizen-control urban planning system where citizens can design their own communities. Neuroevolutionary algorithms will help them optimize infrastructure capacity and inform them of infrastructure capacity constraints and related costs needed to add any additional infrastructure.

All proposed projects will be rendered in the system and all community members and stakeholders are automatically notified of any proposed changes. The community can see the visual impact and the infrastructure impacts of all proposed changes to their communities. The county council will be tasked with zoning decisions to assure communities provide social equity as they develop the standards for their communities. And yes, certainly increased development can be effective in addressing affordable housing. I want to provide the local decision-making to the citizens, not ivory tower planners, the plutocracy and appointed planning board members. New affordable housing can only be achieved by lowering the cost of land, material and labor. My autonomous guideway transportation system will reclaim 20% of the land area in the down county and Wheaton areas as it will eliminate most of the need for parking and roads.

A: No.

The revenues generated by the sale of my transportation systems and county IT software to other jurisdictions will cover the cost of county, MCPS and other agencies operating and capital budgets plus pay off Montgomery County’s debt. The elevated autonomous guideways are one-fourth the construction cost of dedicated bus rapid transit and half of a hybrid BRT system. Because the guideways are nonstop with three-second headways v. 15 minutes to 1 hour headways for BRT and buses, they will have one-fourth the transit times of existing transit options, as well as much higher ridership capacities. Factor in the fact that the eTrike vehicles drive themselves to your doorstep and return to the guideway from your final destination, they reduce the time and effort currently needed to get to a transit stop. All this can be done with off-the-shelf software and sensor technology. Because the guideways’ eTrikes will be accessible to everyone, will have half the transit time of automobiles and eliminate the need to find or pay for parking, residents will be ditching their cars (other than for out-of-area trips). Existing installed autonomous guideways have had zero deaths or serious injuries in over 50 years of operation.

A: Data centers are a public safety threat. Under existing executive powers to protect public safety, I will ban all new AI superscalar data centers (the ones with water-cooled GPUs) as that is where the super-intelligent AI resides. Over 1,000 top scientists have warned of the possibility of emergent super-intelligent AI extinguishing all human life.

If someone proposed to put a hydrogen bomb in the county that had a 20% chance of accidentally going off, I would be duty-bound to ban it. Short of extinction risks, AI is rapidly taking jobs, harming our mental health and being used for mind control of our residents. I consider AI data centers to constitute a “disorderly house” and will ban them for that reason.

A: No, I will shut it down. The incinerator’s waste stream is close to the minimum amount needed to keep it open. I proposed a robotic recycling system to Montgomery County’s waste management division a decade ago. The county passed on it. I will use a combination of robotic waste-stream separators, cyclone separators and neighborhood food waste digesters to drop total incinerator waste stream well below the statutory minimum needed to keep it operating.

Then I will develop waste reuse products and work with waste equity organizations and consultants to find the best out-of-county and/or in-county waste sites for the remainder of the waste stream, if any. I believe current technology exists to achieve zero waste in the county. To be safe, I will pilot technologies like basalt fiber polymers which is an anti-corrosion material that lasts over 100 years and can provide a superior barrier to current landfill barrier seal materials. Basalt fiber polymer are currently used to line pipes that carry corrosive and abrasive industrial slurries. Drones and mobile robots with low-cost hyper-spectral cameras can be used to continually monitor landfills and surrounding areas for any leaks of unwanted gases like methane.

A: I grew up in Montgomery County in affordable housing. My father came here from Nigeria. My mom came from Kansas. She ran a small business and worked hard to keep us housed. I know what it’s like to worry about making rent or having to move every year searching for affordability.Losing my best friend Kalfani to gun violence shaped my purpose. It drove me to public service, from founding the first NAACP chapter at Catholic University, to serving in the Obama White House, and then back home to the County Council, where I’ve spent seven years fighting for working families.What sets me apart is that combination. I’ve been in the rooms where decisions get made, but I’ve never forgotten where I came from or who I fight for. I’m a leader who listens, who shows up in communities, and who you can count on. On the Council, I authored our rent stabilization law, co-led the largest prevailing wage expansion in Maryland history, co-led Maryland’s first building decarbonization law, and championed the Racial Equity and Social Justice Act. I don’t just cast votes. I write the bills and do the work to get them across the finish line.I’m also proud that my campaign is publicly financed meaning I only answer to our residents. I don’t take corporate money or developer donations. I don’t believe our representatives can fight for working families while taking money from the speical interests working against them.

Great public schools are the crown jewel of Montgomery County. Families move here because of MCPS. If we want to keep attracting families, employers, and talent, we have to fund our schools like we mean it.As Chair of the Education and Culture Committee, I’ve pushed hard for both more funding and more accountability. We delivered a line-item budget from MCPS over the last two years so residents can actually see where the money goes. That’s a big step forward, and we have further to go.But with half our students in poverty, with special education needs growing, and with multilingual learners increasing, you are not going to get better results with less money. We need to invest at the scale of the challenge. That means making MCPS our top budget priority in every budget cycle, pursuing state funding aggressively, and working closely with the school system to find innovative solutions.And we need to make sure every dollar is put to good use. During this budget process, I laid out an alternative budget with over 80 specific line-item reductions to county government operations. If working families are tightening their belts, our county government should too. Every dollar we save through smarter operations is a dollar available for our schools.More funding and more accountability are not in conflict. We can and must do both.

A: I authored Montgomery County’s rent stabilization law because families needed protection. Before this law passed, renters were facing increases sometimes as high as 40% overnight. Forty percent of our residents rent. Sixty percent of our Black residents rent. Fifty percent of Latino residents rent, and most of them are rent-burdened. That is who this law protects.The law allows increases of 3% plus inflation, capped at 6%. The average rent increase over the last 30 years in Montgomery County was around 2 to 3%. So the law allows nearly double the historical average. New construction is exempt for 23 years. Landlords can bank unused increases from year to year. They can apply for hardship exceptions for major repairs like an HVAC replacement. This law is fair and reasonable. It is designed to prevent the kind of price gouging that forces families out of their homes and destabilizes our community.There was a period where building permits dipped, as research predicts happens when any jurisdiction passes rent stabilization. But the data tells the real story. In the last quarter of 2025, the county permitted 518 multifamily units, up from 92 units during the prior four quarters combined and roughly in line with pre-rent-stabilization averages. The market is adjusting. Montgomery County is a desirable place to live. New capital is entering the market, and developers are working within the law.As County Executive, I will defend rent stabilization, strengthen tenant protections, and continue producing new affordable housing through our Housing Production Fund and by using county-owned land near transit. Protecting the people who live here now and building for future residents are not in conflict. We do both.

A: Yes, but it depends entirely on what kind of development we’re talking about. We need thousands of affordable units for seniors, public-sector workers, teachers, nurses, working families, and young people trying to stay in the county where they grew up. We do not lack housing overall. We lack affordability.Subsidizing the building of more luxury apartments and hoping the benefits trickle down is not a housing strategy. That’s trickle-down economics applied to housing, and it doesn’t work. Developers have no incentive to oversupply the market. They’re sophisticated financial actors maximizing returns. The idea that more market-rate luxury construction will make housing affordable for a nurse or a teacher is not supported by the evidence.My approach is preserve, protect, and produce. Preserve existing affordable housing by fighting displacement and enforcing rent stabilization. Protect renters through stronger tenant rights. And produce new affordable housing through strategies such as expanding our Housing Production Fund, and using county-owned land near good schools and transit.

A: I’m open to the concept, but the details matter enormously. The idea behind special taxing districts is straightforward: tie the cost of transit infrastructure to the businesses and property owners who benefit most directly from it. Northern Virginia has used this approach to fund Metro extensions. That’s a fair framework in principle.But Montgomery County is not Northern Virginia. Our residents already carry a significant tax burden. Any new taxing mechanism would have to be designed carefully so it doesn’t pile costs onto small businesses, working families, or residents who wouldn’t see proportionate returns. The same principle I apply to our county budget applies here: the largest beneficiaries should carry the largest share.I’d want a careful design process involving businesses, residents, and fiscal experts before moving forward. Any pilot should be targeted to specific corridors where new transit investment directly drives economic growth and property values. And it should be paired with accountability to make sure the revenue actually goes to transit.My broader transportation priorities are accelerating the BRT network, especially the New Hampshire Avenue and Randolph Road corridors that connect underserved parts of East County to jobs. We need to expand Ride On service, complete the Purple Line, and invest in Vision Zero. The best way to fund transportation is by growing our tax base through smart economic development.

A: I introduced Expedited Bill 24-26, a two-year moratorium on data center building permits in Montgomery County. I did that because our zoning code has not kept pace with this industry, and we should not be approving projects under rules that weren’t designed for them.Data centers create jobs and tax revenue, but they also consume enormous amounts of water and electricity, strain our power grid, and generate significant heat. The Potomac River was just named the most endangered river in the country, in part because of unchecked data center expansion across the watershed. We have to take that seriously.A two-year pause gives us time to get the standards right. That means data center-specific zoning that addresses clean energy requirements, water use, wastewater discharge, noise, and community benefit agreements. It means requiring 100% renewable energy commitments and closed-loop water recycling. If a company won’t meet those standards, they can build somewhere else.Montgomery County is one of the most educated jurisdictions in America. We don’t race to the bottom for investment. If corporations want access to our workforce and infrastructure, they have to meet our standards. We set the terms, not them. A moratorium is not a ban. It’s a pause so we can write the rules and then welcome the companies willing to play by them.

A: I support closing the Dickerson trash incinerator and committing to a firm timeline to get it done. It has been operating for over 30 years. It is the single largest source of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in our county. Earlier this year it failed EPA emissions tests, releasing dioxins and furans well above what state law allows. That should tell us everything we need to know. This facility has run its course.That means dramatically scaling up our composting and recycling programs now, not waiting until the facility closes to start working on alternatives. I co-sponsored composting expansion in the Agricultural Reserve and support mandatory organics recycling for businesses and households. Diverting food waste from the waste stream is the fastest way to reduce what we send to the incinerator.As County Executive, I will set real targets with accountability along the way, accelerate investment in the necessary waste diversion and recycling infrastructure that we need, and do the hard work to achieve a responsible closure. We owe it to the residents of the Dickerson area who have borne the burden of this facility for three decades, and we owe it to our climate goals.