Brenda Diaz
-
Attach Performance Metrics to All Future MCPS Budgets: Our Children’s Education Depends on Our Fiscal Prudence
Read more: Attach Performance Metrics to All Future MCPS Budgets: Our Children’s Education Depends on Our Fiscal PrudenceThe County Council, County Executive, and MCPS are placing its residents in a moral and financial bind. On the table, there appears to be a dialectical dilemma: our children’s future or fiscal prudence. However, an honest discussion regarding fully funding MCPS above and beyond historical trends demands that we resolve the following questions: How can…
-
Turning Challenges Into Change: Why Montgomery County Needs MBLI Now More Than Ever
Read more: Turning Challenges Into Change: Why Montgomery County Needs MBLI Now More Than EverStarting something new is never easy—especially when it’s never been done before. As the first and only business-focused public charter school for middle school students in the state of Maryland, The MECCA Business Learning Institute (MBLI) Public Charter School was always destined to be more than just a school. It is a movement—a bold reimagining…
-
Community Profile: A Charter School Comes to Montgomery County—Interview with LaChaundra Graham
Read more: Community Profile: A Charter School Comes to Montgomery County—Interview with LaChaundra GrahamThe MECCA Business Learning Institute (MBLI) is a public charter school opening in Germantown, Fall 2025. The school’s founder (and president/CEO of the parent organization MBEF College & Career Academies, Inc.) LaChaundra Graham effuses the energy, passion, knowledge, and determination required to provide the county’s school children with a solid middle-school experience. She took a…
-
Laura Stewart Misses the Point of Campaigning
Read more: Laura Stewart Misses the Point of CampaigningThe board game Game of Life as we know it today was originally published in 1960. My edition at home is from the year ca. 2000, and it certainly shows its age in terms of social norms. Nevertheless, there is one square that is as germane today as it was in 1960: Run for Mayor,…
-
MoCo’s Relationship with Annapolis
Read more: MoCo’s Relationship with AnnapolisIn February 2024, Delegate David Moon promoted, on behalf of the entire Montgomery County delegation in Annapolis, HB1300. The brutally concise summary of that legislation holds unenforceable certain restrictions in housing associations, specifically those meant to limit construction of dense housing on lots designated as single-family detached. The bill’s title appears as Montgomery County –…
-
The Democratic BoE primaries: Part 2—Ranked Choice Voting
Read more: The Democratic BoE primaries: Part 2—Ranked Choice VotingThe outcome of the 2024 Democratic BoE primaries gives us a real-world view into how things could have been different under ranked choice voting (RCV). The rules of these BoE elections are extremely manipulative. The two top vote getters in each “district” face off in the general elections. That is nonsense, because everyone votes for…
-
The Democratic BoE primaries: Part 1—the At-Large Voter Dilution
Read more: The Democratic BoE primaries: Part 1—the At-Large Voter DilutionThe most popular piece I wrote on Clean Slate MoCo is MCPS Board of Education: MoCo’s most illegitimate governing body. That article explains how the BoE’s multi-member, at-large elections are a glaring civil rights violation, because a small demographic elects all of the winners. There aren’t a lot of these entitled and aggressive voters, but…
-
Removing a Council Member
Read more: Removing a Council MemberSome jurisdictions provide a remedy for removing an elected official that no longer serves his/her constituency. For Americans, arguably the most important removal procedure is against the president of the United States. Only the House of Representatives can impeach a president, and the Senate conducts the trial for removal. A two-thirds majority in the Senate…
-
Evan Glass Endorses Ranked-Choice Voting
Read more: Evan Glass Endorses Ranked-Choice VotingGoing back to November 7, 2023, Council Member Evan Glass expressed his support for ranked-choice voting. It’s Election Day! Make sure to vote if there’s an election in your community. And let’s continue working to ensure that there’s ranked choice voting in more communities next year!#electionday #rankedchoicevoting #rcv #democracy pic.twitter.com/zvYS2O4NFN — Councilmember Evan Glass (@CMEvanGlass)…
-
Networking at Conferences is Not a Critical Election Reform
Read more: Networking at Conferences is Not a Critical Election ReformIn State reform needed to make politics fairer, Council Member Evan Glass lauds the public campaign financing programs available in Maryland, and seeks to expand such programs to allow beneficiaries of the funding to purchase tickets to networking and community events. Such an amendment will further “level the playing field” for candidates running campaigns with…