If It Isn't Broke...

Oftentimes when the subject of the governing of Howard County comes up, someone will quip "it's hard to screw up Howard County."

There is a good deal of truth in that statement. Compared to other jurisdictions, even those on our borders, we have it good here in HoCo with great schools, low unemployment rate, abundant parks and open space, and a Wegmans on the way.

HoCo, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average (with apologies to Garrison Keillor).

And ever since 1990 when the voters booted Liz Bobo out of the seat and put Chuck Ecker in, we've had a county executive who has worked to create a business friendly environment and grown the commercial tax base. That streak has continued with our current county executive.

Trent Kittleman, the Repub challenger, is no lightweight. She is certainly qualified to be the executive, I don't think many folks would dispute that. Her only problem is that she hasn't been able to come up with a compelling enough argument as to why we should change horses. She has tried to get some traction from suggesting that there are tax increases in our future if we reelect Ken but that has failed to ignite the electorate as evidenced by the failure of the GOP's Taxpayer Protection Initiative. The other issues like whining about flat screen TV's and executive protection come off sounding more like partisan sniping that a strategy for the future.

HoCo isn't broken. It doesn't really fixing inasmuch as it needs good governing. Ken Ulman and his team have done a pretty good job at that for the last four years. There is simply no good reason to change horses in the middle  of the stream.

Ken Ulman for County Executive.