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Riemer and Ervin offer similar vision
Differences in approach and background may be the deciding factors in the District 5 County Council race

by Graham Taglang
Photos by Julie Wiatt

In most professions becoming established is a goal, not a liability.

Of course when it comes to the sly semantics of politics, being “established means being part of the “establishment.” And over the course of the Montgomery County Council District 5 primary race, the word has acquired a rather acerbic connotation.

Valerie Ervin and Hans Riemer are the only two candidates remaining in the contest. Each has described their opponent as the “establishment candidate” during their respective bids for the seat, although neither fully fit the description.

“The only way for me to win this election is to outwork my opponent,” Riemer said. He suggests Ervin is using the political clout that she acquired as the chief-of-staff for George Leventhal (D – At-Large) and as an elected member of the County School Board to obtain her impressive list of endorsements.

“I worked hard for those, and I’ve always been on the outside,” Ervin protested with a wry chuckle. “Plus, there has never been an African-American female on the Council. How does that make me part of the establishment?”

Ervin says that Riemer has worked within an even larger political system on the national level for several years, referring to his position as a policy director for the Institute for America’s Future, and as the political director for Rock the Vote.

Aside from this very brief bit of innocuous taunting, the race for the District 5 seat (Takoma Park and Silver Spring) promises to be a relatively clean face-off that focuses on personalities and issues.

The theme of Riemer’s campaign is “building stronger neighborhoods.We need to go back to focusing on neighborhood-level services,” Riemer says. “We desperately need to alleviate congestion; we need to deal with crime issues; we need to figure out what to do about growth as thousands of new people are streaming into the area.”

Ervin’s message similarly recognizes the need to address the challenges facing the county. “You start to see, once you get involved, just how important local government really is,” Ervin said. “It affects most aspects of people’s everyday lives.”

“In order to be progressive, you have to make progress,” she said. “I can incorporate my experiences as a union organizer, and on the school board, to lead people toward change.”

Transportation

Ervin is a member of a coalition to promote construction of the Purple Line. The funding and legislation, however, have yet to become a reality. “We need to build strong partnerships on this one,” she says. Ervin would like to see the County work alongside officials in Prince George’s County, the state of Maryland and the federal government to obtain funding.

“It’s not just a local issue,” she said. “We need everyone to be on board for light rail.”

Ervin also proposes more Ride-On buses and bus stop terminals as additional, and less expensive, solutions for lightening traffic congestion.

Riemer would also like to improve the city’s bus system with more covered stops, as well as clearer route maps. He also advocates more bicycle lanes for commuters.

Riemer feels grants from other areas will be necessary to fund the Purple Line. “If we don’t do it now, projects like the Green Line in Baltimore go ahead of us,” he said. “Then the project gets delayed by years.”

Growth & affordable housing

Riemer views expansion in the region as an integral part of his neighborhood restructuring goals. “We have all this great new redevelopment in Silver Spring,” he said. “The big challenge now is moving forward with the same kind of progress in Wheaton and Long Branch. The problem is there are no vacancies in these areas. We need to boost commerce without replacing small business with big business.”

On affordable housing, the two agree that currently the county has only a “ten percent solution.”

“It’s a crisis on every level,” stresses Riemer.

“We have a housing shortage in Montgomery County that is driving prices through the roof and threatens our diversity,” Riemer points out on his website.”Even worse, the County is failing to enforce and meet its own goals for new affordable housing.”

“We add 400 new units a year, and the HOC [Housing Opportunities Commission] says we need 4,000,” Ervin says. “It’s the county’s job to get the policies out there; to find the land; to build the partnerships with non-profits.”

She adds: “This is where we have the problem. We want additional affordable housing, but not growth.”

Ervin is curious as to why the county lags behind in non-profit group coordination. Partnership between the government and non-profit sectors in other cities has led to creative affordable housing possibilities.

“This happens all over the country. Why aren’t we doing that?”

Education

“I was speaking with a prison director, and asked him, ‘How do you know where to build the prisons?’” Ervin narrated. “You know what he said? ‘Look at the 3rd grade state testing levels in the local elementary schools.’”

“You put the jails where the kids have the lowest scores,” she continued. “The pipeline goes straight to jail.”

“The achievement gap is no joke,” she warned. “Sooner or later, we’re going to pay for it on the front end or the back.”

Ervin points out that the over representation of black and Latino boys on suspension lists or in special education programs is staggering.

Riemer says that after school programs will go a long way to getting students off the streets when their parents are not home.

“The police department wants to start after-school programs to control gangs,” he said. “That’s great, but the department needs to be coordinated with the Council and the schools, because right now there’s no policy in place.”

The candidates

On the surface, Ervin’s and Riemer’s views are similar; yet their approach to finding solutions is fundamentally different.

As an African-American woman hoping for a spot on a white, male-dominated Council, Ervin would not be considered an “establishment candidate” in most elections. In this race, however, she is comparatively so because of her experience with the school board and the County Council.

But is that really such a bad thing?

“People like to put me in a box,” Ervin noted. “But in a district like 5, you have to incorporate more than one point of view.”

“Twenty-five years ago I was a single mother living on subsidized housing,” she recalled. “Sometimes I didn’t know what the future would bring. But everything that I’ve done over the past 25 years has prepared me for this.”

When Riemer came to the area from Oakland, he knew what he wanted to do. Politics surrounded him from birth, having grown up with political activist parents.
Some say he is overly “ambitious.”

But is that really such a bad thing?

“I think I’m surprising people at every turn,” Riemer said. “I want to continue to exceed their expectations.”

“I’ve knocked on about 7,000 doors so far. People can see I’m personable, genuine, and I’m doing this for all the right reasons,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have a vision for a better future for this county.”

With the way that words get warped in local politics, it is sometimes a wonder that District 5 received even two candidates daring enough to approach the task. But it did, and on September 12 the voters will decide.

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