Inauguration Of New Mayor And Council: Nov. 22, 2009 at 1:00 pm

>This from the City of Rockville:

The inauguration for the newly elected Mayor and Council is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22, at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, 603 Edmonston Drive.

Eileen McGuckian, Rockville historian, will be the master of ceremonies. The event will include the formal induction of the mayor and council, the presentation of colors by the Rockville City Police Department and a performance by the Richard Montgomery High School Madrigals.

Brenda Millette, Chief Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, will administer the formal oath of office. She will swear in Mayor-elect Phyllis Marcuccio for her first term as mayor. Marcuccio served two terms as a council member before the election on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

The mayor will then administer the oath of office to the four council members: John Britton and Piotr Gajewski, who were both elected to their second terms; and Bridget Newton and Mark Pierzchala, who were both elected to their first terms.

Rockville Channel 11 will broadcast live the inauguration ceremony, air it throughout the end of November and December, and will make it available On Demand on the City’s Web site, www.rockvillemd.gov.

The inauguration is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. No tickets are necessary.

Once again, Rockville Central congratulates the winning candidates and thanks all the candidates for their service.

Election Analysis From Greater Greater Washington

Yesterday, >Rockville Central friend David Alpert, who blogs over at Greater Greater Washington, stepped into our little corner of the beltway to offer up some election analysis. Typical topics on Greater Greater Washington include smart growth, transit, public space, and traffic, so he writes about the election having a major repercussion on growth.

In the article Rockville votes for change: no change, he states that Phyllis Marcuccio built her political base on opposing most development in the City. He recounts a history of the Beall’s Grant II proposal and notes that opponents were against increased density in general, even in the center of Rockville.

He stipulates that Marcuccio wasn’t the only anti-change candidate noting wins by Bridget Newton who won the most votes overall, and Mark Pierzchala, who took the last seat on the Council.

Here’s a bit from his piece:

Naturally, the Rockville election hinged on many more issues than just development and the Beall’s Grant II project in particular. Pierzchala rides his bike to Metro year-round and ran primarily on a platform of open government. He also endorsed mixed-use development. Candidates talked about civility on the Council and the city’s budget.

David attended some of our Rockville Pike revisioning sessions and wonders if our new mayor and council support the Rockville Pike Plan. Perhaps some of our readers or newly-elected officials can help him out in the comments on his post.

Contributor Opinion by Roald Schrack: 2009 Rockville Election Analysis

The following >contributor opinion by Roald Schrack is adapted and reformated from a longer report he wrote and sent as a pdf:

This election attracted a number of Council candidates because there were two open seats. One seat on the council was open because Councilmember Marcuccio decided to run for Mayor. The other seat became open because Councilmember Anne Robbins retired. Two of the incumbent Council members, Britton and Gajewski were running for reelection. In addition, there were eight new Council candidates running for the two open seats. The multitude of choices were more of a challenge than a help for the voter. The turnout was larger than in 2007, probably because the weather was pleasant all day. As in 2007, the heavy electioneering did not get started until labor day. The City televised 3 forums and there were an additional four not televised. All forums were well attended. The Gazette newspaper carried interviews with all the candidates, and the City Channel 11 ran four minute speeches by each candidate. The website Rockville Central carried a lively discussion on the campaign, so there were many avenues available for the voters to learn about the candidates.

Topics of discussion were related to the economic situation and budget pressures. The state had defaulted on $2.4 million, and the city manager rebalanced the budget by deferring some capital projects and freezing hiring. There was a deferral of some garage fees to make the Town Center more accessible to shoppers in the evening and on Saturdays after much pressure by Town Center merchants. There was some discussion of the need for civility on the Mayor and Council. A little humor was added when the question of chicken raising in the city was brought up. The garbage collection question of once or twice a week that had been a heavy topic in the previous election was no longer a hot topic. Once a week had been in operation in most of the city and accepted. Not discussed at forums but an underlying element in the election was a widespread feeling of insecurity. Home prices had dropped, people were losing jobs, businesses were closing. Rockville had previously been largely insulated from economic conditions in the rest of the country because of the heavy influence of government operations. Even though the impact on the city was far less than in many other communities, still what changes did occur caused insecurity, especially about home values. Most home prices had dropped since the last election. Protecting communities from developments that might endanger home values became a largely unspoken but potent element in the campaign. The Gazette attributed the unexpected victory of Bridget Newton, with the highest vote on the Council to her position on neighborhood protection.

The large number of candidates causes a modification of the votes needed to win. If there are only two candidates then a simple majority of over 50% of the total vote is needed to win. In this election there were 10 people running for four Council seats. Of course the candidates with the four highest vote counts win, but dependent on the way the votes are distributed, a candidate with as few as 40% of the total vote can win. This 40% is further reduced by the voters that “bullet balloted”, i.e., did not use all of the four votes they had. In some districts this additional factor reduced the percentage to win to 37%.

The following table compares participation in this election with the last three elections. “Previous voters” refers to people that have voted in at least one of the last four elections. “New Registrations” refers to those people that have been added since the 2007 election. The average probability of voting is strongly dependent on past voting history. New Registrants have an average probability of voting of about 10%. The number of ballots cast in an election divided by the total number of registered voters (B/R) is called the “participation” level in an election. The values shown here are typical for municipal elections.

Table Comparing Participation

In previous elections the number of requests for absentee ballots has been a good predictor of the number of voters appearing at the polls. The table below shows the results for the last four elections

Year: Requests/Ballots
2003: 192/.031
2005: 213/.033
2007: 213/.036
2009: 221/.034

The graph below shows a comparison of voter participation for the various districts has the same shape as in 2007 but is everywhere a little less. This characteristic shape is relatively constant over many years and reflects the average voting probabilities of residents of those districts. The relative participation may remain the same but it will be shown later that those same residents can markedly alter who they vote for from one election to the next.

The graph below shows the relative votes for Mayor in the different districts. Marcuccio beat Hoffmann by at least 10% in four districts that really determined the election. The relatively low participation rates of the districts that Hoffmann did well in meant that she could not overcome the losses elsewhere.

It is interesting to compare the 2007 and 2009 vote patterns for the two candidates in the graphs below. Note that the Hoffmann 2007 and 2009 are comparable in shape. Note that the 2007 and 2009 graphs for Marcuccio are completely different in shape. It is interesting to speculate on the source of this difference.

The graph below shows an attempt to fabricate a vote distribution for Marcuccio from her vote in 2007 and two other factors that contributed to her vote total in 2009. The factors used are:
1) We can see from the Hoffmann vote comparison for 2007 and 2009 that Hoffmann lost votes in districts 1-5. Lets assume 80% of them went to Marcuccio.
2) It was clear by election day from yard signs and endorsements that there was a lot support for voting for Newton and Marcuccio. It doesn’t count if a voter was already for Marcuccio before Newton entered the race so we subtracted from the Newton vote those that had voted for Marcuccio in 2007.
This new factor was then weighted by 80%. Factors 1) and 2) were then added to the 2007 Marcuccio vote (shown as M07 in the graph) . The sum of these 3 terms is then shown as NH in the graph and should be compared to the curve M09 which shows the actual 2009 Marcuccio vote.

While the curve NH is closer to M09 than M07, it is still far from a good fit. What we could not do is change our 80% value as a function of district, which it clearly is the case in fact. It is interesting that Hoffmann got stronger support in district 6 in 2009 than she did in 2007. This increase in support for Hoffmann in district 6 is responsible for the drop in Marcuccio support shown in the curve M09 in that district.

Turning to the Council races, the graph below shows the vote fraction for the four winning council candidates as a function of district. There does not seem to be any evidence of “Slating”, e.g., to vote for two or more of the candidates together as the shapes of the curves are all different. Also below graphs are shown comparing the vote distributions in this and the previous election for the two council members that were reelected. Britton increased his average vote fraction in all but two districts. Gajewski has retained pretty much the same pattern, losing votes in four districts.

One of the graphs below shows the vote distribution for the losing council candidates. There is no apparent similarity in the shapes of the curves, their appeal varied widely in different sections of the city. Some candidates came close to winning. Of particular note is Carl Henn. In 2007 he lost by 113 votes, in 2009 he lost by 62 votes. Also shown below is a graph showing the missing vote fraction for the various districts. As mentioned earlier, not every voter uses the full four votes available. The graph shows the average loss of such votes. It is not possible to know whether a value of .5 means that half the voters only voted for three council members or whether it means that one voter out of eight didn’t vote for any council members - or something in between. In the past there were candidates that urged their supporters to only vote for them or some other strategy designed to give them an advantage. The missing ballot curve below does not resemble the vote pattern for any candidate but may represent some strategy in specific districts. In any case the missing ballots are not large enough to have had a large effect in the election.

Roald Schrack

Here is a link to the numerical results for the election as reported by the city of Rockville. The graphs in this report are based on this data. Here is a link to the City of Rockville website showing the voting districts.

This is a contributor opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such opinions for consideration — the more voices the better. We especially welcome people who disagree with us. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Rockville Central does not endorse candidates. We are encouraging towards all people who choose to run for office the city and try our best to make ourselves open to all. We actively encourage candidates to submit opinion pieces and other news. We don’t include every last bit, but we try to be fair to all and give useful information about what is happening.

Slideshow From Phyllis Marcuccio Victory Party

There is a terrific conversation going on >at this post, picking apart some of the implications of yesterday’s Rockville city election. More analysis will be forthcoming from some of our favorite observers.

In the meantime, though, here is a slideshow taken by Rockville Central friend Chas Hausheer at mayor-elect Phyllis Marcuccio’s victory celebration last night. Enjoy!

Marcuccio Defeats Hoffmann For Mayor; Britton, Gajewski, Newton, Pierzchala On Council

The election results are in and there will be a new mayor of Rockville. >Phyllis Marcuccio has defeated incumbent Susan Hoffmann in the race for mayor.

In the campaign for City Council, the winners are: John Britton, Piotr Gajewski, Bridget Newton, and Mark Pierzchala.

We will have more election numbers, analysis, and more in the upcoming days.

For now, a hearty congratulations to the winners from your friends at Rockville Central!

Reader's Note By Roald Schrack: See You At The Polls!

>Today promises to be a sunny day. The last election had blustery weather which held down the participation to 5887 ballots. This year, based on the 221 absentee ballot requests, which is 4% higher than the last election and good weather one can predict that there will probably be 7000 +/- 300 ballots cast. The Mayoral candidates show about equal donations and expenditures thus a close race can be expected. See you at the polls!

Roald A. Schrack

If you would like to contribute a Reader Note or other piece of writing, please send submissions to [email protected]. The more community voices, the better Rockville Central will be. Please remember that the views of contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors.

Election Day Details: You Can Still Register to Vote

Perhaps you are reading all of our >election coverage on Rockville Central and you want to vote but you have never registered. Don’t fret! The Rockville Ordinance allows eligible residents to register ON Election Day. So on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 you can go to City Hall, 111 Maryland Avenue and cast your vote.

You must:

• Be a US Citizen
• Be at least 18 years old by November 3rd
• Bring proof of Rockville residency
• Bring photo identification such as a driver’s license or state ID card. If the ID does not have an address, a document from a corporation such as a lease, utility bill, student ID, or current real estate tax bill will be accepted.

So if you have just moved to Rockville or never did get around to registering – just do it!

If you are already registered then be sure go to the proper polling place. Two of the polling locations have changed. Voters in District 2 will now vote at Rockville Swim and Fitness Center, 355 Martins Lane, (previously Beall Elementary School) and voters in District 8 will now vote at Thomas Farm Community Center, 700 Fallsgrove Drive, (previously Lakewood Elementary School).

You can view a map of all the voting districts on the City’s website.

If you physically can’t access the voting room in the polling place, you can vote at the curbside. Simply arrive at the polls in a car and have a companion notify an election judge in the voting room of the need for assistance.

The results of the 2009 election will be available through Rockville Channel 11, the City’s Web site and at City Hall. Results on November 3rd but they’re not official until Tuesday, November 10th.

I hope you are going to join me at the polls!

Reader's Note From Kathy Neal: Thank You For Participating In Senior Center Forum

This reader’s note was sent to us by >Kathy Neal:

Senior Center Candidates Forum
A Big Thank You to the Candidates Running For Mayor and Council

On Thursday, October 29, 2009 the candidates running for Mayor and Council participated in yet another Candidates Forum. As Chair of the Candidates Forum Committee, I would like to say thank you to all the Candidates for attending this Forum at the Senior Center. This Forum gave our seniors the opportunity to obtain first hand knowledge and insight in choosing which candidates they want to represent them for Mayor and Council. An important part of this Forum was the question and answer part allowing our seniors to ask questions addressing senior issues.

We appreciate all the candidates taking time from their busy schedules to meet with Rockville Seniors. We were impressed by the quality and candor of all the candidates. Rockville should be proud of this slate of Candidates willing to put forth their time and effort to serve Rockville citizens. This Forum was very successful, informative and well attended.

Good luck to all the candidates for what we hope there will be a record-breaking turnout at the polls on Tuesday, November 3 – Election Day.

Kathy Neale,
Chair, Candidates Forum Committee

To submit your own reader’s note for consideration, just drop us a note!

Guess Who's 18 Years Old Today

As you may have heard, Rockville City Council Candidate, >Waleed Ovase, is a senior at Richard Montgomery High School. Today is his 18th birthday! So although he has been 17 while running for office, he will be old enough to be on the ballot this Tuesday, November 3, 2009.

His age has stirred up some media coverage for Rockville and our City Election.

He was interviewed by WUSA9 on video:

Teenager Hopes for City Council Victory for Birthday

and they have a story too.

He also by interviewed by WAMU Radio:

17 Year Old Hopes Voters Elect Him to Rockville City Council

and by the Kane Show on Hot 99.5 where they say “18 Year Old Running For City Council. This kid better at least get into a sweet college over this”.

Obviously, his campaign has been considered newsworthy beyond our local Rockville scene, so we thought our readers would like to know about the coverage.

And, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish him a “Happy Birthday!”

Rockville Central does not endorse candidates. We are encouraging towards all people who choose to run for office the city and try our best to make ourselves open to all. We actively encourage candidates to submit opinion pieces and other news. We don’t include every last bit, but we try to be fair to all and give useful information about what is happening.

Rockville Candidate Finance Reports Show Hoffmann, Pierzchala With Most Cash On Hand

>The City of Rockville has now posted all candidates’ October 29 finance reports. They show a different story than our last story on this, which was based on the informal reports that candidates sent us on Monday and Tuesday.

In terms of cash on hand, the campaign of Susan Hoffmann has the most in the mayoral race, with $5,717.48 on hand. Among city council candidates, Mark Pierzchala leads cash on hand with $2,329.17.

The way the campaigns filled out the City’s finance forms varied, as did what they sent us earlier this week. In fact, it appeared that some of the forms did not total up correctly, and I started to try to make sense of it. While most campaigns filled the forms out the same way, some appeared to interpret the instructions differently. I finally gave up and decided to provide an overview of the summary sheets and direct links to the forms so you could make your own determination!

So, in the spreadsheet that follows, I just used the numbers written by the campaigns. If you see a discrepancy you can check out the original documents. (The direct links to the pdf reports are at the end of this article.)

(Here is a link to our last complete report on finances, so you can compare the spreadsheets.)

And here are the original reports:

Mayor

• Susan R. Hoffmann
• Phyllis Marcuccio

Council

• John Britton
• Piotr “Peter” Gajewski
• Carl Henn
• Trapper Martin
• Tom Moore
• Bridget Newton
• Virginia Onley
• Waleed Ovase
• Mark Pierzchala
• Max van Balgooy

Candidate Yard Sign Slideshow

Many come to have a love-hate relationship with this time of year. It’s election season! That means that, while we prepare to do our civic duty and make wise choices in the voting booth, candidates are urgently prevailing upon us to choose them.This brings with it a certain flowering of yard signs all throughout town. In case you have not yet seen all the candidates’ signs, we have prepared this little slideshow for you. No they are not in any particular order:>

(Note that candidate Max Van Balgooy has no signs so we sort of made one from a mailer.)

Marcuccio, Newton Appear To Lead In Campaign Finances

(This article contains a bit of my own opinion, but is mostly news so we are running it in the news column.)People who watched the very excellent Twinbrook Citizens Association candidate forum know that one of the questions posed to the candidates was whether they would agree to release details of their campaign finances early, on October 26. The official filing deadline is Thursday at the end of the day, which is after the Gazette’s publish date. This means that voters don’t have a chance to look at the latest campaign finance records over the weekend before election day.In my view, this is a significant problem, as it opens up the possibility of last-minute donations going unremarked until after the elections are over. The question at the Twinbrook forum was intended to make it possible for voters to see this information in the main Rockville news outlet (the >Gazette) before they decide who to vote for, instead of after they have already voted.

Along with the Gazette, Rockville Central asked the candidates to provide the information. (The Gazette asked last Thursday, we asked on Monday.) All of the candidates responded, in varying ways ranging from copies of reports they had filed early to quick notes and emails.

Today’s article by Nathan Carrick in the Gazette gives a good wrapup of where the candidates stand in terms of fundraising, and shows mayoral candidate Phyllis Marcuccio and city council candidate Bridget Newton apparently ahead of the pack:

Rockville mayoral challenger Councilwoman Phyllis R. Marcuccio continues to lead campaign fundraising efforts, gathering more than $18,000 from more than 160 donors, according to her unofficial campaign finance report sent to The Gazette.

The reports are not due at City Hall until close of business Thursday.

Most of the candidates had agreed at an election forum in the Twinbrook community last week that they would file an early report so that the information could be published in The Gazette. The Gazette also sent requests for early reports via e-mail Thursday evening.

Mayor Susan R. Hoffmann said she was unable to provide an early report by Gazette press time.

“While I am more than willing to comply with your request, my campaign treasurer has been travelling and is unable to prepare the report early,” she wrote in an e-mail Monday. . . .

Marcuccio’s cash on hand on Monday was $3,900. She has raised about $4,897 since Sept. 26. . . .

Bridget Newton raised $3,636 since the first report, spent $1,860 and has a cash-on-hand balance of $5,100.

(As you can see, I say Marcuccio is “apparently” ahead of the pack as mayoral candidate and incumbent Susan Hoffmann did not provide early information.)

[UPDATE: By my calculations, Newton has less cash on hand than the article reports. I have $2965.46. This is still the leading city council cash on hand number. When the official reports come out we will be able to get a definitive answer.]

Follow this link to the full article see how the rest of the candidates are doing in terms of money raised, spent, and cash on hand.

There’s just one addition to the Gazette piece. It lists city council candidate Virginia Onley as not having responded, but late Monday [CORRECTION: Tuesday] she sent us her information. Since Sept. 26 (the last reporting date), she has raised $715, spent nothing, and has $1,927.80 on hand.

As soon as the full, official reports are available from the City, we will post links to them. They are an important part of the campaign process.

[UPDATED, correcting Onley's email date, and adding a note that this article contains opinion.]

[UPDATED, to correct Bridget Newton's cash on hand.]

Video Of Rockville Central Candidate Forum

Readers, thank you very much for waiting so patiently for us to upload video from> Saturday morning’s candidate forum. We’ve gotten a lot of really exciting feedback from the event.

You would not believe how tough it was to get this video file in shape to post. Turns out working with a two-hour video file is qualitatively different than working with 10 minute YouTube posts. We also had some technical issues during the event that cropped up in the sound (low volume level, intermittent buzzing, and I think one of the microphone cables was going bad at the end there) that we did not realize during shooting. So those had to be fixed.

With all that, I did the bare minimum when it comes to subtitles. The first time each person appears, we run their name as a subtitle. (Cindy Cotte Griffiths’ subtitle actually runs on her second appearance, as her first was brief and I misplaced the subtitle during editing. Sorry Cindy!)

We only show names once, so if you forget who someone is in the middle, I recommend you pause and go look at a website for their face!

Because it is such a long video, we were not able to upload full “high quality” so when you watch it may be slightly reminiscent of 2005. And, since we just had the one camera, there are no slick cuts between speakers. Tim Hampton had to pan from person to person and sometimes we talked faster than he could pan.

All this is to say, please forgive us if it is not exactly broadcast quality.

But our chief goal — to post it so people could see — was achieved. And so without further ado, we give you, THE VIDEO:

Rockville Central Candidate Forum, October 24, 2009 from Brad Rourke on Vimeo.

Also, at the forum, I promised I would upload the detailed agenda that Cindy and I worked from. We wanted to make sure there was full transparency and you could see we did not alter question order based on which candidates were up next or anything like that. So, I’ve posted a PDF scan of my agenda notes here.

As near as I can recall, we only made two deviations from what we planned. First, in the “introductions” segment at the beginning, our plan was to ask each candidate a quick question then go on to the next. But when I saw that the microphone handoff was going to be possibly problematic, I decided to ask each candidate all four questions in a row. I think that worked pretty well.

The other change was at the end, where we squished together the final two questions and the candidates made closing statements. I signaled I was doing that in the event, but I wanted to call attention to that change as well. In all other respects, I believe we stuck to the script! (The “Tom” I wrote in the margin of the agenda is Tom Miner, whom I had forgotten to thank personally by that point and so I wrote his name down to remember.)

One last thing. I promised a full accounting of the costs of the event. The rental of the facility was $140 (plus or minus a few dollars — I will know when we get our security deposit back), and the coffee and donuts were $100.46. About $17 for the digital video tape. Cindy and I split the tab for all that, and, as I said in the event, we regard it as a contribution to the civic life of the community. We paid standard rate for everything — the same you would have paid if you were throwing a birthday party or reception. We considered passing a basket at the event to defray costs but ultimately decided that might be weird.

Gazette's Rockville City Election Coverage In One Place

The Rockville Mayor and Council Election is only a week away. As you research the candidates to make your choices, we here at >Rockville Central want to point you toward all the information available.

Joe Jordan, who is serving as Phyllis Marcuccio’s campaign manager, reminded us about Rockville City Election 2009 on the Gazette.net website.

In a nutshell, you will find links to:

• Short bio videos, about 2 minutes each
• The Gazette articles featuring each candidate
• Gazette news articles about the election going back to January 2009.

If you feel as though you haven’t been following the news closely enough regarding this election, it’s all a click away. Since they often don’t deliver the paper version of The Gazette to my driveway, I did some reading myself.

My Thanks for the Candidate Forum

What a great honor it was to co-moderate our >Rockville Central Candidates Forum last Saturday. Thank you to the candidates who were able to attend: Piotr Gajewski, Carl Henn, Susan Hoffmann, Phyllis Marcuccio, Tom Moore, Bridget Newton, Virginia Onley, Waleed Ovase, Mark Pierzchala, and Max van Balgooy. Their willingness to share details about themselves as well as their viewpoints provided insight into how they will handle the next two years in office. Many people have told me the forum either helped them decide or confirmed their vote.

We didn’t know if spending a Saturday morning learning about the candidates would be of interest to our readers, but with over 70 in attendance, it seems that it was. I’m grateful to everyone who gave us a chance by showing up.

All of our questions were developed from the comment streams on Rockville Central, so our readers played a big role in creating this forum. You may hear mention of “chickens”. If you weren’t at the forum, you’ll have to watch the video when we post it. A question about allowing chickens for eggs and companionship was submitted. I had the idea of using it for a “workshop” to find out how candidates approach issues, so we wrote up a scenario and asked the candidates to explain what they would do. People can’t resist a chicken joke!

Mid-way through the two hour event, I realized our timekeeper, Jonathan Smith, had a much more difficult job than me. He had to intently watch his stopwatch almost every minute without missing a second and he managed to do it perfectly.

Tim Hampton of VisArts volunteered to video the event for us and we kept him busy going back-and-forth with that camera, while Tom Miner of the Digits handled the sound system loaned by The West End.

Theresa Defino has been such a strong supporter of Rockville Central and was quick to jump in and help which meant we sent her for coffee and donuts bright and early. Thanks to her for all her efforts with Rockville Central, and also to Jacquie Kubin who joined her for the pickup and Andrea Jarrell who greeted everyone.

I know I missed John Britton who was at his daughter’s college parents’ weekend and Trapper Martin who had to attend his aunt’s funeral in North Carolina but I was able to read a statement from both of them.

As I stated in our closing, online communities can feel anonymous. Sometimes people are inconsiderate when stating their opinions or leaving comments because they are not thinking about the people behind the words. When we all gathered at the Thomas Farm Community Center, we made our online community a bit more real. Now we can picture a roomful of faces when we’re reading.

The past two and a half years working with Brad Rourke on all things Rockville Central has been such an adventure. From the very beginning, I wanted to get people interested in our local civic life. The low voter turnout has always bothered to me. I hoped Rockville Central would inspire people to get involved, volunteer and vote. Some people who have never attended a forum came and I’m glad.

Thank you to everyone who made the forum something special.