Though briefly mentioned in the last article, here we will take a deeper dive into the 5 most expensive of the 13 knowledge transfer contracts that the county currently has in place. Each of these contracts were direct awards to an individual. We have redacted the names of the contract recipients. Person 1 – Awarded…
Maryland politicians are sweating hard about what could happen in January, 2025 when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office as the 47th President of the United States. Headlines like the following by Caley Shannon and Andrea Duran, writing for SoMDNews.com, have been common: Some of this would appear to be click-bait and perhaps, unwarranted fear-mongering. Successive U.S.…
In Part 1 of this series we listed the infrastructure the local, state, and county governments are giving away for free for the University of Maryland’s Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC) in North Bethesda—all sited at the coveted Metro North Bethesda station. How wise is this move? The UM-IHC is funded by MoCo, state, and…
For many years our county’s officials have been extolling MoCo as a bio-tech center. In his weekly message from August 2, Marc Elrich said MoCo is #3 among all of America’s life science hubs. In a Glass Gazette from July 2024, Council Member Evan glass noted that “Our life sciences sector is incredibly important to…
Interesting story today that caught our eye, this one from Realtor.com in their “trends” post: Per this writer Julie Gerstein for Realtor.com, it sounds like a town in Missouri outside of St. Louis is doing just fine for its residents — without levying a property tax at all. Who knew? Well, some of us did. …
I’ve written at least nine posts about the need for school vouchers, and I’m convinced that at some point they will become a reality—even in progressive Montgomery County where Superintendent Monifa McKnight and teachers’ union president Judith Martin very likely turned MCPS into a safe space for sexual predators. For our newer readers, here’s a…
Occupation: Maryland State Delegate, representing MoCo’s 16th District Affiliations: Maryland Democratic Party. Former legislative assistant to longtime career politician (since 1997!) U.S. Representative Bradley J. (Brad) Sherman of California. Former legislative director to U.S. Representative Brian N. Baird of Washington state (2005-07). Member of the Maryland Legislative Latino Caucus. Also a member of the Maryland Legislative Jewish…
Here at Clean Slate MoCo we are very cautious about discussing issues at the national level. I’m begging an exception for this post, because we have a confluence of policies at the national and local level that can only be considered a war against the poor. In May 2024 President Biden increased the tariff on…
One of the most amazing books I ever read is Poverty and Prosperity by the economist Deepak Lal. In that book, Professor Lal outlines how freeing the economic markets in India and China raised fully one-fourth of the entire world’s population out of crushing poverty and wealth inequality within 40 years. This book is so…
The 149th running of the Preakness Stakes occurred this past Saturday and of course the state’s machine political establishment used the occasion to flaunt their wealth and “status” to the rest of us hoi polloi, as well as the nation. Per The Baltimore Sun’s coverage of the events surrounding a five-minute horse race, a good…