Working Together for Results

On Monday night, April 7, 2014, I attended the Anne Arundel County Council meeting. After sitting for over three and one-half hours, the council finally took up the recommendation from Councilman Jamie Benoit to put a funding mechanism in place to build a high school for the Crofton community. The recommendation he made creates a path to bring all of the stakeholders together to find a solution to the issue of overcrowding in Arundel and South River High Schools and offer a sustainable plan for the county to fund needed educational projects going forward. If passed, the School Board will recognize the good faith effort on the part of the County Council and authorize this needed project in their overall plan. The County Executive, whomever that may be, will be in the position of delivering on a vital need for the Crofton community. Ultimately, the benefit of this 13th high school will redound to everyone in Anne Arundel County. Predictably, there was some negative reaction to Mr. Benoit’s proposal—coming not in the form of an alternative, but a knee jerk “No!” that typifies our friends in the austerity camp. By now, it’s clear to most of us that when an elected official hides behind “austerity” he or she is simply shirking responsibility. That’s why we have a plague of broken government at the federal, state and local level. If we are going to break out of the logjam of do nothing government we must reject the regressive voices that offer no solutions and hide behind the hypocrisy of hollow rhetoric. Telling people the truth about the needs of our communities and working together to find solutions must not disappear down a partisan political fault line. As the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." In other words, we all live together and we all must try to work together to solve pressing issues that impact all of our lives. For most of us, our home represents the biggest investment we will make in our lifetimes. We want to protect the value of that investment by strengthening our communities and our neighborhoods with amenities like good public schools, efficient transportation, effective public safety, community centers, great libraries, good jobs, a clean environment and top level medical care. We are all in this together! It’s the job of elected leaders to cultivate, nurture, build and protect those amenities.