Basic information
Democratic Party – running for Montgomery County Council District 7
Email: schwartzpaul02@gmail.com
Website: www.paulkschwartz.com
Facebook: facebook.com/paul.schwartz.79025
Twitter: @PKSpaul
Questions & Responses (all candidates)
1 – What lessons learned do you have since the start of the pandemic?
It was made abundantly clear that we were totally unprepared to provide a quality virtual option for all our school children. That must be corrected since if a major event such as a pandemic could happen in 2020, it can happen again. Moreover, we demonstrated that we failed to ensure that all our residents were provided with the same level of health care. I believe this was primarily due to insufficient communication efforts. We must work with local community leaders who are trusted by their local communities to help get the word out regarding health care needs and locations.
2 – If you could go back and do one thing differently from what was done in the last two years in Montgomery County what would you change?
Make better use of technology in a host of areas. We must do a better job of transitioning to renewable energy especially in the conversion of our buses to electric but also provide incentives in building construction. We must better utilize technology in traffic control especially with regard to traffic lights such as timed traffic lights and controlling traffic congestion at the traffic light. We also have the ability to make better use of technology regarding the use of cameras to oversee locations presenting vulnerabilities in terms of crime.
3 – What do you think are the 3 biggest and most pressing issues facing our county in the next 4 years? Why?
- Safety. Safety includes school safety, gun safety and community safety including the rise in hate crimes. This is a nationwide problem and Montgomery County is not immune from the threat of crime, including and, maybe, especially hate crimes. We have to be better prepared to make sure that the next Squirrel Hill, El Paso Walmart, Mother Emmanuel Church, or, more recently, Buffalo, New York does not happen here. This mean taking precautions to protect our houses of worship, for example.
- Environment. We must find a balance between development and protecting the environment. This includes maintaining the character of our communities when we seek to further develop them. It also requires ensuring that the environment is protected to prevent against the threat of overdevelopment as occurred in Houston, Texas resulting in massive flooding.
- Equity. This includes tax fairness. We must stem the tide of senior migration to more tax friendly states, as just one example. This also applies to businesses. When seniors retire, or businesses move, elsewhere, they take their tax money, their buying power and their community service with them to states like Pennsylvania, or, in the case of businesses, Virginia. Maryland is ranked dead last as the worst place in which to retire. This must change. Equity also means income inequality. We must do a better job of providing opportunity for our students who don’t’ have the financial means of going to college but still need a career path to good paying jobs. We must focus on better and more extensive vocational training and provide a career path via intern programs with the private sector for jobs upon graduation.
4 – What specifically do you plan to do in the 3 most pressing areas from Question 3?
- I would never have taken the School Resource Officers (SRO’s) out of schools in the first place, but now that they are out, I would expeditiously put them back in. I supported having the SRO’s back in the schools well before Magruder. I also support providing housing subsidies for our police to be better able to compete with surrounding areas for recruitment and to encourage our police to live in the community in which they serve and, in so doing, build the relationships with community members which is critical to effective policing. I would also support greater use of cameras to better able our police to respond to crimes. I, as well, support ensuring a greater police presence at houses of worship to reduce the potential for hate crimes related attacks on those institutions.
- I support community involvement in the development of planning rather than bringing them in for comment after the plans are already far along. One size does not fit all in a district comprised of some 16 different towns. Community involvement at the early stages of development is critical to ensure that the character of the local community is maintained as we balance the environment with development. Also, I look at attempts at re-zoning to be a violation of a commitment and should only be used when there is overwhelming support by the impacted community.
- I support placing a halt on any tax increases, including both property and income, and favor expanding the tax base rather than reducing it by driving residents to more tax friendly states to escape the high taxes in Maryland. I also support addressing income inequality by providing opportunity for those seeking career paths that may not include college. This, as previously mentioned, could include working with the private sector for internships or apprenticeships that would benefit the private sector by creating job ready individuals upon graduation. I am also in favor of a wealth tax as an additional source of revenue and one that seeks to have our ultra-wealthy pay their fair share of the tax burden.
5 – Would you consider supporting changes to electoral process such as open primaries or non-partisan elections in Montgomery County to allow 155,000+ registered Unaffiliated/Independents in Montgomery County to vote locally when it counts?
Absolutely YES. I am a strong supporter of expanding voting, not, as some would have it, curtailing voting. The more people that get involved in the voting process, the more representative the election results will be, thereby, better reflecting the priorities and needs of the people we serve.
Questions & Responses (County Council)
1 – What is your plan to attract and KEEP businesses in Montgomery County? How can we get more businesses across the county and especially where its lacking in the Up County and East County and compete with Northern Virginia?
Here are some observations regarding why we have been losing the fight to attract new businesses to Montgomery County and what needs to be done to change the dynamic. Length and cost seem to be critical obstacles to small business development in our community. Some of the older master plans in the community are likely outdated and maybe too restrictive and likely need to be updated. Turnaround time for getting permit approval is problematic and specific turnaround times must be instituted. I have been told that the permitting process may have to go through as many as five different entities and, if one of the five is unavailable, the process halts and waits rather than skipping to the next and going back to the other later in the process. Labor cost is problematic for small businesses especially in comparison to the competition of larger chain entities who can more easily absorb any increase in pay rates for cheap and unskilled labor such as after school jobs for students. There is likely a need to have carve outs of the minimum wage for certain classes of labor such as after school students. We must establish a “go to” entity at the county level to help oversee the entire process and ensure that the process is expeditious, ensure any instances of unnecessary excess are addressed appropriately, and serve to help walk the small businesses through the process. We must build in an appeals process that has teeth and can speedily address any instances of unproductive bureaucratic hurdles. We must work with the Chambers of Commerce to do more to market local businesses to set up in our community as appropriate.
2 – How will you hold developers accountable for past, present, and future infrastructure commitments (schools, transit, roads, etc.)?
This question is a bit befuddling to me. All awarded contracts must include ongoing oversight to ensure that the work is being performed to the level reflected in the contract. If not, there should be penalties built in including withholding of payment and under certain circumstances re-awarding the contract to another developer. Moreover, if a developer does not meet the standards outlined in the contract that was previously awarded, that developer should be precluded from being awarded any future contracts. Failure to meet the requirements outlined in any contract should eliminate the developer from consideration for future contracts unless certain standards can be met. Having failed to live up to the previous contract that was awarded should be a solid basis for removal from contention for future contracts.
3 – What do you plan to do about the increase in incidents of carjackings and homicides in the county and decline of applicants and morale in the police force?
I am a strong supporter of housing subsidies for our police so that we can better compete with surrounding areas for purposes of recruitment. This also includes ensuring that we provide a prevailing wage for our police. I believe that having our police live in the communities in which they serve facilitates the building of the relationships with community members so critical to effective policing. Paying a fair wage helps not only in recruitment but also morale. Establishing the Police Accountability Board is a positive step in establishing the trust needed between police and the community and will, thereby, improve community relations. I think the term “defunding the police” has been disastrous and we must begin the process of undoing the damage it created when it broad brushed our dedicated police with the so-called “bad apples”. I also believe that we need to make better use of surveillance equipment to better surveille the areas of our community to more expeditiously identify crimes being committed in our community and enable our police to respond more quickly. I also support greater use of cameras regarding traffic violations to free up our police to focus more on the more violent crimes.
4 – What do you see as your biggest advantage or positive that you bring to the table over your competitors?
I am confident that my breadth of experience at the federal, state, and local levels of government places me in a unique position to be a great asset to the County Council and the residents of District 7. As a Fed for almost 40 years, I served as the Director of Trade Enforcement for the United States Customs Service. I then moved to the Department of Homeland Security when that was stood up to help integrate the more than 26 disparate federal agencies into one department. Then, after Katrina, I was asked to join FEMA where it was my responsibility to work with state and local governments to identify vulnerabilities prior to the next major event rather than during. This is important because these efforts required achieving “buy-in” and overcome resistance, a skill more than useful as a member of the County Council. My extensive experience in developing legislation and the associated regulations AND developing and overseeing the programs designed to implement the legislation as well as my experience in the appropriations process should serve the Council well. Moreover, I get things done as evidenced by the recent passage of the Retirement Tax Reduction Act of 2022 after relentlessly advocating for tax relief as the Chair of NARFE’s Sate Legislation Committee. The co-sponsors of that bill reached out to me to help craft the bi-partisan legislation which was unanimously passed in the state legislature and signed by the governor. Lastly, as a reporter with the Montgomery County Sentinel I wrote about many of the issues important to Montgomery County residents such as Scotland Storm dealing with an afterschool program for the poor and CourtWatch Montgomery dealing with domestic violence and the court system.