Valerie Ervin did not grow up poor - her dad was an Air Force officer - but, for several years after leaving home, she had to watch her pennies. She lived with her two young sons in subsidized housing and clerked at a Safeway checkout counter.

A quarter-century later those years remain far more than a biographical footnote. Despite the success story she is today, a union organizer who climbed the ranks and moved to politics and won election to the Montgomery County Council in 2006, she says, "I'll always remember what it's like to work very hard and have very little."

Not that she's had a sweet ride for any stage of her life. She organized workers in the catfish factories of Mississippi, the poultry factories of North Carolina, and the ranches of New Mexico where, as a previous Voice feature article about Valerie noted, "an African-American woman in her position was a rare and sometimes unwelcome sight."

Elected to represent Silver Spring and Takoma Park (District Five), Valerie came into office just as the County was about to enter its own era of financial struggle, an experience alien to many who live here. Two years later, she and the rest of the Council are now trying to rein in annual costs that exceed this fiscal year's revenues by $500 million.

One morning a couple weeks ago, over breakfast in a bag, Valerie took stock of the situation.