Courtney Watsons first fundraiser of the year attracted a good crowd to Serafinos in Ellicott City last night. The fact that this was the second HoCo politico fundraising event this week did not seem to deter her supporters from turning out. She was also joined by her council colleagues, Calvin Ball and Mary Kay Sigaty as well as County Executive Ken Ulman. The remaining council Dem, Jen Terrasa, was not in attendance. Apparently she is battling the same bug that bought down Tom Coale yesterday.
I'm sure Courtney was happy that no protesters picketed her event.
In her brief remarks, Courtney made an impassioned plea for her supporters to pay attention to the 2012 school board race. She noted the importance of our schools to economic health of HoCo and urged everyone to get involved. Recently reelected school board members Frank Acquino and Sandra French were in attendance so presumably these are the types of board members Courtney prefers, as opposed to that other faction led by Allen Dyer.
I also spent a few minutes with Jon Weinstein. Jon was a candidate for the House of Delegates in the last election. He told me that he is going to be a phone-in guest on the NPR program “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” this weekend. If you have ever listened to show you’ll know that these guests participate in a short quiz. The winner gets to have Carl Kasell record a message for their answering machine, if anyone actually has an answering machine anymore that is. I told him I would be listening in to see how he does.
Peter Franchot, the state comptroller and potential gubernatorial candidate in 2014, was also in attendance. Peter told me that we can except to see more of him in HoCo over the next four years. Seeing as he is the states top tax collector I’m not so sure that this is a good thing.
