A Baltimore County councilman is trying to change a new law that would let voters decide this fall whether to expand the council for the first time since 1956, arguing that it doesn’t provide voters with enough information to make a decision.
Councilman Pat Young, a Catonsville Democrat, was the lone vote against a measure in June to hold a referendum on council expansion. At the time, Young chastised his colleagues for drawing a new map that divides the council into nine districts. He argued that the mapmaking should have been subject to a more public process, as redistricting efforts often take months and include several hearings.
But the council was only able to pass the expansion bill and get it on the ballot because of the maps.
Council Chairman Izzy Patoka, a Democrat who ran on a promise to try to expand the council in the increasingly diverse county, needed the votes of the three Republican members. With Young on record that he wanted to expand the 7-member council by four members instead of two, and Councilman Julian Jones not sure that he wanted to expand at all, Patoka only had one other Democrat — Mike Ertel of Towson ― who was consistently with him on expansion.
Republican councilmen Todd Crandell, David Marks, and Wade Kach did not want to see their 4-3 minority further eroded by expansion. Crandell was not convinced that an expansion was needed at all. So, they compromised on a set of maps that would likely produce a 5-4 split, though that could change based on shifting demographics. All three Republicans voted with Patoka and Ertel on expansion, which specified that the change would happen along the lines of the map.
Kach had proposed an amendment, which passed, to create a process for gathering public input on changing the map through Oct. 1, 2025. But that did not satisfy Young, who has said several times that the process of passing the expansion “didn’t sit right” with him. He tried to get the maps tossed prior to the vote on the expansion bill, but he had no support.
Jones, who did not attend the expansion vote, also criticized the maps because they divided his district. He said Patoka did not consult him. Patoka said he tried to set up a meeting with Jones, but that it didn’t happen. Jones co-sponsored Young’s bill.
“It shouldn’t be left to us in these positions to be drawing maps and determining what could potentially be decades of impact on this county,” Young said.
Members of the public, and several state delegates, testified on both sides of Young’s bill. Confusion permeated the room as the council members went back and forth with their lawyers on whether the original bill to expand also dictated how the state legislature appointed school board members — it does not — and how much notice Young and the other council members had about the map’s creation. The maps were on the county website several days before the vote, and they were reported widely in the media.
There were flashes of acrimony among the normally collegial council members at a work session Tuesday night.
Kach, who served as a state delegate for 40 years, marveled at the audacity of state lawmakers coming to Towson to tell them how to draw maps when the state process is “a gerrymandered mess.” In 2017, Maryland’s Republicans sued state Democrats over a gerrymandered redistricting map in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. In a deposition, former Gov. Martin O’Malley said he directed the mapmakers to protect Democrats. In March 2022, a state judge ruled that a Democratic-dawn map was unconstitutional.
“It’s disgusting. There’s no other way to describe it,” Kach said of the criticism from Democratic state delegates.
When Crystal Mercer, a community leader testifying in favor of Young’s bill, told the councilmen that they should be “ashamed” of a process that lacked transparency, Crandell retorted: “I’m not ashamed, so take your shame somewhere else.” Crandell elaborated that he had seen the map with ample time to weigh in, and Young could also have done so if he’d wanted to.
Patoka and Ertel have been pushing to expand the council since before they were elected. The council is now composed of six white men and one Black man, Jones. Meanwhile, the county’s population has quadrupled to more than 840,000. The county is 30% Black, with a fast-growing immigrant population from Arabic and Hispanic countries.
The effort to expand the council would cost approximately $1.4 million in increased annual operating costs and $12.2 million in (one-time) capital improvement costs. And the position of council member would also become full-time. Currently, each councilman makes $69,000 a year, with the exception of the chair, who makes $77,000. Some have other jobs, even though many have said that the position is essentially a full-time one.
It’s unclear if Young’s bill will pass, but it appears that all three Republicans and Ertel oppose it. Patoka was a co-sponsor, though he also criticized the bill. It needs four votes to pass. The council will vote on Young’s bill at its Oct. 7 meeting.
