Full Candidate Forum— and a response to Amanda Fiedler

I’d once again like to thank Broadneck Council of Communities, Arnold Preservation Council and Cape St. Claire Improvement Association for hosting the Candidates’ Night on the Broadneck. I really encourage you to have a watch since most candidates from County Council up through U.S. Congress attended the event. My time starts at 55:47 and the incumbent at 1:00:10. Click to view on YouTube.

Now that it is posted, I would like to address a couple of the spurious claims made by the incumbent:

• Not “super hyper-partisan”? While I never recall calling the incumbent herself hyper-partisan (super or regular variety), her record *is* mired by partisanship against the will and best interests of our district. Every councilmember— Volke, Haire, Pickard, Pruski, Rodvien, Lacey— they can all boast of multiple bills/resolutions receiving bipartisan support; this is unimpressive because it is the bare minimum we should get from our councilmember. But when there is an angle desired by the MAGA base or GOP establishment, Fiedler can be counted on to toe the partisan line. The GOP establishment/high-dollar developer donors don’t want affordable housing incentives? 4-3 votes. The MAGA base doesn’t want to support vaccine access and public health? 4-3 vote. Gun dealers & GOP/NRA advocates don’t want to pay for security measures? 4-3 vote. Over and over again. And if your campaign dog whistles about “parental rights in education” to virtue-signal to Moms for Liberty and MAGA folks, you can’t exploit your Tucker Carlson credit in one breath and feign indignation about it in the next.

• “Misinformation” is not just information that you don’t like getting publicized, Amanda Fiedler - County Council District 5. Absolutely NOTHING on TheRealFiedlerRecord.com is false, and I have promised that if anything is an error, I will fix it and issue a public apology. You haven’t taken me up on that offer. You may not appreciate that we did not fluff your budget-slashing efforts with your preferred euphemisms and sophistries, but that does not give you the right to lie and mischaracterize me. Your cuts might not have been that impactful as a percentage of the budget, but could have been impactful and consequential for our community in the real world. An officer who no longer has air support, a teacher who leaves for better pay, inspectors who are too overburdened in their caseloads to protect our communities and waterways— these aren’t just “shaking the couch cushions” when you consider the real-world consequences they could have inflicted.

If you want to see real fiscal stewardship from someone with both government and private sector experience without the partisan games and deception, JOIN THE FIGHT and VOTE.