Testimony of WTP Co-Founder Nick Stewart (As-Prepared)
Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the Council.
My name is Nick Stewart, and I am the co-founder of a good governance advocacy group called We The People – Baltimore County. We are focused on housing, smart growth and economic revitalization.
As you may know, I published an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun in October of this year on the interim appointment. As I shared then, “[t]he stakes of this appointment are extraordinarily high” and that remains the case.
Most immediately, the County is facing tough choices when it comes to its budget, especially for fiscal year 2027. This will be brought about by a confluence of events, including:
increasing costs for pension and healthcare obligations,
the implementation of the Blueprint education plan without a reliable funding stream,
the exhaustion of federal grants tied to the pandemic, and
the continued decrease in the taxable value of commercial property.
And now, we must add to that list the impact that likely federal spending cuts will have on an economy like Maryland’s, which is strongly tied to the federal government.
The choices we make right now will determine whether we will have the stability and the platform to solve for the even-bigger policy challenges that have caused the first population loss in the County in a hundred years. Challenges like a major housing crisis, struggling communities that need reinvestment, finding the political will to support Blueprint, developing an economic vision to outcompete as a region and adapting to climate change.
What I’m trying to say is this: Against this backdrop, we need far more than a caretaker. We need an advocate who understands government from the outside and the inside, who can bring diverse stakeholders together to lead difficult conversations about the road ahead, and who can make tough decisions to ensure the County can unlock its full potential.
We also need someone who understands, as City Comptroller Bill Henry puts it, that balancing budgets is not just about increasing taxes or cutting services; it’s also about expanding our tax base by embracing growth and reinvestment (think Security Square Mall, Lutherville Station and Eastpoint Mall, just to name a few).
Even more than budgets, I think it’s fair to ask what happens to the progressive movement that County Executive Olszewski started in County government. There are two years left on a term that was devoted to making government more transparent, more modern and more professional. And we ought to have an interim county executive who shares that vision and is willing to carry it forward.
Ultimately, progress in the County is like a flywheel – you can spin it faster and faster with less effort after it gets going, but if you give up on it, it becomes incredibly difficult to restart the wheel again.
So the baseline question for us is whether we’re going to take up the mantle from the County Executive and spin the flywheel faster, or are we going to let that momentum fall away and return to yesteryear.
We have all the tools necessary to solve our own challenges, but we don’t have time to wait to restart that work. Baltimore County deserves better. So, to summarize, the most important qualification for the interim is whether they have the ability and the courage to meet this moment.
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