Thursday, February 26, 2009

More District 4 Tidbits

Here’s what we have for all you D4 junkies today!

1. Nancy Navarro’s new website is up. She joins Cary Lamari, Chris Paladino and Republican Lou August in D4 cyberspace. Ben Kramer has a Delegate website up, but it contains no reference to the County Council race.

2. After nearly two weeks of harassment by this blog, the Washington Post has finally acknowledged the candidacy of Cary Lamari. Of course, that was buried in an article about Robin Ficker.

3. The Montgomery County Board of Elections has published its special election timeline. Among the key dates are:

March 5: Deadline to file candidacy for the primary
March 9: Deadline to withdraw from the primary
March 24: First campaign finance report due
March 30: Voter registration closes
April 10: Second campaign finance report due
April 14: Last day for primary absentee ballot application
April 21: Primary election
May 8: Third campaign finance report due
May 19: General election
June 9: Fourth campaign finance report due

4. We hear the precinct closure plan is dead. No word on Executive Director Margaret Jurgensen’s retention by the board. Former County Executive Doug Duncan called for her resignation more than two years ago.

5. This special election is not the first time Robin Ficker has changed his residence to run for office. Ficker, a resident of Boyds in District 15, moved to Montgomery Village in 2002 to challenge District 39 Senator P.J. Hogan. Hogan won the general election by a 19,099-9,689 vote.

6. We hear that some in the General Assembly are considering filing a bill to allow early voting in the District 4 special election. Maryland voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing early voting last year, but the legislature must pass implementing legislation. This idea is drawing a lot of interest, pro and con, from players in Montgomery County and we will have more on this soon.

7. For all the tumult about developer contributions in the last special election, none of the 2008 candidates had any record on development policy. This time around, two of them do. We will go all the way back to the 1990s next week to find out who they are, what they did and what happened. Don’t miss this one, junkies!