Ashwani Jain - Part I - Candidate for County Council At-Large - Part I

The Activist - Montgomery County, Maryland & Beyond

• Three priorites:
  • Reduce opportunity gap
  • Strengthen local economy
  • Reducing traffic congestion

• On the opportunity gap (instead of the achievement gap)
  • Official sanctuary county for immigrants
  • Universal pre-k
  • Expand language immersion programs
  • More 1 on 1 time between students and educators
    • More autonomy / support for teachers
  • Support students regardless of their zip code

• Main duties of council member
  • Budget, land use and zoning

• 120 million dollar budget deficit
  • Don’t cut critical services
  • We have amazing county employees

• Schools in north / eastern part of county are not being properly prioritized
  • Aging infrastructures
  • Invest in schools in students that are not part of the county
  • Success means listen and consulting with all (elected, managers, officials, etc.)
  • Partner w/BOE
  • Partner with school admin
  • Need to build a coalition

• Importance of BOE to get better schoolsGreat businesses mean:
  • Retention
  • Better workers

• Smart Growth
  • Inform them better
  • Help them relocate / share info with customers
  • Mixed use development around public transportation
  • Diversity of income in mixed use development
  • More job training
  • Helps expand tax base
  • Helps businesses find employees they need
  • Helps employees build a career; not just getting a job
  • Assist small business owners who are displaced from large dev projects

• Budget shortfall fix
  • Injects funds to economy without cutting essential services / laying off county employees
  • Expand tax base
  • Support small biz
  • Look at issue in comprehensive way
  • Leads to responsible fiscal membership
  • Lower amount of reserves can help

• On Reserve Budget
  • They still have AAA bond rating / low borrowing costs
  • Reaction to financial crisis
  • Helps weather econ. Downturn
  • Higher = easier to have AAA bond rating
  • Ours may be too high relative to other counties in area

• Budget / Land Use / Zoning
  • More Affordable housing opportunity
    • Expand % of new development as affordable
    • Expand MPDU program
    • Look at rent control
    • Landlord notice to tenants of increase and possibly getting approval from county before increase
    • Work w/ developers to pay to avoid MPDUs, instead get them to comply or go beyond
  • Quicker / easier to get to work
  • Ensure high quality of lifeGovernment can do this: saw this at HUD
  • Residents should not get priced out of their city
  • This is a priority
  • Only more density / floors as a reward for:
    • More energy efficiency
    • Electric charging stations
    • More MPDUs
  • Mixed use development should create Inclusive communities
  • Working with developers
  • Families feel like they are priced out of new devs
  • Feel like not getting enough notice of developments
  • Not enough affordable housing
  • Not developing enough mixes use / smart growth
  • Residents should get best deal for new devs
  • Workers should get respect on these projects