Competing plans to expand Baltimore County Council get first test Monday

Vote4More is a citizen-backed campaign that wants to increase the size of the Baltimore County Coucil from seven to 11 members. Photo by John Rydell

The first of two competing proposals to expand the size of the Baltimore County Council gets its first test Monday, when the council is scheduled to vote on a plan that would add two members to the current seven-member body.

Supporters of the second proposal, a voter-backed plan that would add four members to the council, are still collecting the 10,000 signatures they will need by July 19 to put the question on the November ballot.

The nine- and 11-member council proposals differ only in the final number: Backers of both plans say the county has grown too large to still be represented by seven people. Increasing the size of the council will not only make members more responsive to a smaller number of constituents, they say, but it can help improve council diversity in the increasingly diverse county,

The nine-member proposal to be voted on Monday has sharply divided the council. Because it would require a change to the county charter, the measure needs approval by a supermajority to pass, but Council Chairman Izzy Patoka said recently that he believes he has the five votes needed for passage.

“I’ve always supported growing the council to nine members,” said Patoka, who introduced the bill. “This is a goal I’m committed to, but in order to do that, I need to have five affirmative votes, not four, not three.

“In order to gain five votes, I need a coalition of Democrats and Republicans, and I believe that right now, we have that coalition in place,” he said.

Democratic Councilmen Pat Young, represents the southwestern county, and Mike Ertel, whose district includes parts of Towson, Parkville, Rosedale and Middle River, both said they support Patoka’s bill.

Young said smaller districts will result in better representation and may result in a more diverse council.

“You might assume there would be more African-American representation and there isn’t, and that has to be taken into consideration,” he said.

For Ertel, the issue is district size.

“When you look at the current districts, they’re very big,” Ertel said. “If we go to nine, it’s a little more manageable, putting communities that have a lot of commonalities back together.”

After them, however, support gets a little shaky.

Councilman David Marks said in a Baltimore Sun opinion piece nine years ago that a nine-member council would mean “more compact districts, with members focusing their time and energy on more selective priorities.” But he said recently that things have changed since then.

“Baltimore County’s population is shrinking for the first time in its post-war history. That has caused me to reevaluate my past support for this proposal,” said Marks, a Republican. “Many of the advocates of this change are strongly partisan, and to the best of my knowledge, have made little effort to engage Republicans.”

Councilman Wade Kach, a Republican who represents north county, “is skeptical but is keeping an open mind,” a spokesperson said. Democratic Councilman Julian Jones, who represents the western county, said he is “weighing all the options and looking at the cost to citizens.”

“One of the things I like about our council is when you have a group of seven, you all have to get along as a group,” Jones said. “Right now, there are four Democrats and three Republicans, about as divided as you’re going to get, and I think it produces a good product.”

Councilman Todd Crandell, a Republican who represents the southeastern part of the county, has consistently opposed an expansion.

County Executive John “Johnny O” Olszewski Jr., who does not have a vote, said it is “time to expand the council – unchanged since 1956 – and provide more responsive and equitable government.”

That was echoed by Linda Dorsey-Walker, chair of the “Vote4More” petition that would increase the council to 11 members if passed by voters this fall.

“We have one African American on our county council, and this is at a time when the county is nearly 50% minority,” she said. “How do we make government more reflective of who lives here now?

“Women and young people, African Americans, LGBTQ, disabled folks have all said, ‘When do I get more of a voice or a voice for the first time?’” Dorsey-Walker said.

The two expansion proposals follow months of work by an 11-member county workgroup that analyzed the challenges of adding two or four seats on the council, before recommending a two-member expansion. Tony Campbell, chairman of the Baltimore County Structure Review Work Group, said there are significant fiscal and logistical challenges to expanding the council.

“Adding two members of the council means you’re also adding staff, you’re also moving things around the courthouse because it’s built for seven,” Campbell said. “If you have to add two members, you have to create more space or move people around.”

The workgroup estimated that it would cost more than $6.1 million to add two council members and $7.5 million to accommodate four more. Added costs include salaries for the members ($69,000 each) and staffs, cars for the members and the lease of district office space, as well the cost of equipment like laptops and  cellphones.

Baltimore County’s population has tripled in nearly 70 years, and each council member now represents just over 122,000 residents. The 2020 Census put the county’s population at 854,535, but county officials say that number has likely declined by a few thousand since then.

Voters in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties approved ballot measures in recent years that increased their councils to 11 members but both are larger than Baltimore County:  Montgomery County has more than 1 million and Prince George’s population is approximately 947,000.

At a recent public hearing, some citizens voiced support for the petition drive and an 11-member council. Sparks resident Shawn McIntosh urged the council to revise its charter amendment to give voters the option of increasing the council to either nine or 11 seats.

“The goal of Vote4More is to reduce district size for better, more responsive representation and to increase opportunities for a more diverse, elected body,” McIntosh said. “Baltimore County’s Council should look more like the community it represents.”

Dorsey-Walker believes she knows why there appears to be lukewarm support among some incumbents for increasing the size of the council: “They feel more powerful when they have more than when they have less.”

Her group has until July 19 to submit at least 10,000 signatures to the Baltimore County Board of Elections, which then has until the end of the month to verify signatures of registered county voters to see if there are enough to put it on the ballot.

Dorsey-Walker, however, remains upbeat.

“We have some challenges that remain ahead of us, but I am optimistic,” she said. “I think we’re in a good place right now.”

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