Council Member Will Jawando came to the CleanSlateMoCo offices for an honest, heartwarming, and convivial interview about his latest legislative initiative.
Thank you for joining us, Mr. Jawando.
Trust me, this isn’t my idea.
You recently introduced legislation that would mandate free digital rectal exams at all of the county’s service stations. What’s the motivation?
As men age, the rate of prostate cancer rises to about 600 per 100,000 people by the time they are in their mid-seventies. This condition cuts across all demographics, so it is definitely a county-wide, not to mention a nationwide, problem.
I tasked our legislative analysis department to identify where men in the age group 50–85 spend a lot of their time, and the surprising result was that all of them get to a gas station. Some go to sports bars, some go to gyms, some go to ramen restaurants, but all of them go to a gas station at least once a month. So gas stations are the best place for capturing the target demographic and providing this service.
These types of exams don’t require a lot of equipment. Nevertheless, with about 500,000 males in the county, how will you get enough gloves?
That’s the beauty of my legislation. Just as the council recently passed a measure to purchase gas-powered leaf blowers, under my plan the county will purchase all of the gloves left over from the pandemic! Latex, vinyl, nitrile powder-free—if a resident still has any, we’ll buy them back.
This is a holistic public health measure because as the county buys back those gloves, there is less chance they will wind up in our precious waterways.
Your proposed legislation benefits only men, so is it sexist?
Absolutely not. My previous initiative, mandating menstruation supplies, benefited only women in a particular age group. I realized that from the beginning, and am introducing this measure to compensate for what some may have perceived is a gender-biased bill.
These measures benefit younger women in one case and older men in the other. What will you provide older women and younger men?
A free copy of my book My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole, available from Amazon with coupon code WJForGovernor.
Who will be performing these exams?
We’ve identified several demographics that would be ideal candidates. First, the high school students have a lot of spare time because they are either walking out of school over one issue or another, or getting suspended for aggravated assault at football games. Furthermore, if the highway expansions go through, commuters will have gained one hour a day of free time. A lot of restaurants have closed in our county, with more closures to come, so those employees will be available as well.
Let’s talk violations and penalties.
During the initial roll-out, I don’t think enforcement should be the primary focus. We’ll encourage service station owners as well as the target demographic to become accustomed to the new arrangement. I expect that will take six months. After that, we’ll be deploying undercover inspectors all along Rockville Pike, Georgia Avenue, and Randolph Road. Stations that don’t have proper signage and supplies will face a Class A violation for every male in the station at that time.
How will this program be funded?
When the County Council introduces a new program, the typical funding comes from increases in recordation tax or property tax. That approach, quite frankly, is old school. One of my underlying objectives has been to defund the police, and we’ve made some progress in that direction. The county’s police department is down over 100 officers. The cost of my legislation is more than offset by the savings we’ve accrued in law enforcement.
Are you working on other legislative initiatives you’d like to tell our readers about?
Cleaning up the act at the yoga studios. When you unroll a new yoga mat, you smell something. That something is called azodicarbonamide, and it rhymes with “from me you cannot hide.” That compound is highly toxic to men (with or without enlarged prostate), women (menstruating or not), children, pets, and the five people in Montgomery County who actually have a job. In early 2024 I’ll be working on legislation to remove those mats from the county’s yoga studios, and buying them back from residents as well. This is a public health concern that affects all genders, races, ages, body shapes, income levels, and orientations.
Thank you for your time!
Stay tuned for the next CleanSlateMoCo Onion edition.
