Letter: Riemer lacks qualifications
Hans Riemer, candidate to represent District 5 on the Montgomery Council, is a carpetbagger. He moved to Maryland so recently that he’s never even voted here and he gets over 75 percent of his campaign funding from out of state.
This is distasteful enough philosophically, but from a practical standpoint it’s far more problematic. I don’t see how Riemer’s nonprofit work on Social Security reform in California prepares him to understand the complexities of a local jurisdiction he moved to less than two years ago. And this isn’t just any local jurisdiction: it’s a $4-billion operation serving almost 1 million people in the National Capital Area, where numerous governing entities share overlapping responsibilities.
My real beef with Riemer, though, is not about his lack of basic qualifications for the job. Rather, it’s that he calls himself a progressive, but isn’t.
To wit:
• Riemer attacked his opponent — 20-year Silver Spring resident Valerie Ervin – for being supported by the working men and women of Montgomery County. Ervin has the backing of every labor union in the county: among them, teachers, police, firefighters, grocery store clerks and county employees. Being anti-labor is not exactly progressive.
• The only Maryland organizations to support Riemer are five development companies and an auto dealership. This is hardly the stuff of leftie activism.
• Most important, since registering to vote here last summer, this “progressive” has done nothing to help (or even to get to know) local progressives — folks who have been hard at work here for decades. (Riemer decided to oppose our own Marc Elrich and Joy Austin-Lane without even knowing who they were, nonetheless the enormous service they have provided.)
A fundamental aspect of a progressive worldview is seeking the common good above one’s parochial self-interest and this is where Riemer fails most spectacularly. In a political year marked by a burgeoning movement of progressive reformers — from Ned Lamont in Connecticut to Jamie Raskin in Takoma Park – Riemer’s only apparent interest is getting his own political career on track. At fundraisers and forums where state and local progressives share ideas and gather support, Riemer has been consistently, conspicuously absent all year long.
Early in the year, I wrote privately to Riemer, praised him for his work in California, and suggested that he might help our community – and his own political career – more by supporting the larger progressive movement than by pursing only his personal goals this year. He never wrote back. Some progressive!
Fortunately, District 5 can choose a true progressive whose background on the school board and county-council staff make her supremely qualified for the job. That person is Valerie Ervin. She deserves your vote on September 12.
Full disclosure: earlier this year, I was on staff for Jamie Raskin and then Valerie Ervin. I am currently not affiliated with any candidate for public office.
— Keith Berner
Takoma Park, MD