Anti-Floreen Activist Speaks Out

On Tuesday, we reported that a civic activist had launched an anonymous campaign to prevent Council President Nancy Floreen from being reelected. That activist subsequently contacted us and has gone on the record about his effort to oust Floreen. Following is his email to us along with our comment.

From: David Reile
To: acp1629@hotmail.com
Subject: Rumor Blog
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 13:24:01 -0500

Dear Mr. Pagnucco:

Please allow me to introduce myself. I am David Reile, (a.k.a. the “anonymous civic activist” mentioned in the Rumors section of your Blog entry Tuesday, August 31, 2010).

I am the treasurer of Ethically Responsible Government/EIGPAC.com, a grass roots organization whose mission is to hold elected officials in Montgomery County accountable in their service to our citizens. We are registered with the Maryland State Board of Elections. Though our website was initially marked with a placeholder page, it now includes contact information and is in full conformance with all county and Maryland law. There was never any intention on our part to “hide.” It was just a matter of competing life priorities.

As to the “illegally-placed road signs” that you mention, we have made every effort to place our signs in close proximity to the signs placed by candidates running for elected office in Montgomery County, including the Floreen campaign. Further, you may note the presence of hundreds of signs placed throughout the county by home builders and developers.

Next, we are not tied to or coordinating with ANY political party, campaign, or politician. This includes Marc Elrich. It is true that we like Marc Elrich and believe that he has been and will continue to be good for Montgomery County. For some perspective, we have also contributed to the campaigns of Nancy Navarro and Sharon Dooley. We financially supported Marc Elrich and attended his campaign kick off long before the PAC (Ethically Responsible Government) was formed or even thought of.

For the record, I/we do not “despise” Nancy Floreen. I/we do oppose many of her actions and decisions, including her excessive ties with the development community and her apparent antipathy toward civic associations and Montgomery County citizens in favor of large scale, over development of residential and rural communities outside of the Agricultural Reserve.

We believe that Ms. Floreen has not earned another term on the County Council or in any other elected office in Montgomery County.

As to the other “rumors,” we are delighted to know that our efforts to send Ms. Floreen home this election are being noticed. You may notice that there are other organizations which believe similarly. You reported on how Police, Firefighters, and MCGEO are working to support three at-large candidates. Who is conspicuously absent from that list? Nancy Floreen! We hope that she is absent from the County Council next year as well. We will add our support to any effort to make that a reality.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like additional information on our organization.

All the best,

David M. Reile

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At the time that we wrote our post, Reile's website had no identifying information on it and his PAC had no registration record on the State Board of Elections' website. The website now identifies the PAC's officers and the PAC is now registered.