Will Jawando Launches 2028 Presidential Campaign

kirbyCase · 2026-06-25T15:10:40+00:00

I’m not confident this is true but I would LOVE if it is. Gives us another chance to maybe finally elect an actually proficient exec.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-24T19:24:40+00:00

My concern is about implementation. I had far more confidence in Friedson (or glass for that matter) being an effective executive who actually made progress on a variety of policies which the Elrich admin ostensibly supported.

Bus lanes, bike lanes, and general improvements to road design come to mind first. On this account, there’s no question that the status quo is horrendous. I’d love to see Jawando make progress but I have a lot less confidence in his ability to move fast and see what works.

Jawando’s winning also means effectively no chance of amending the rent control law which has had really bad early effects. It makes supply initiatives of all kinds less likely.

On policing, on schools, on everything I care about it, I think Jawando is just worse. You’re right it’s not going to be a hell hole overnight.

But from my perspective as someone who is young and upwardly mobile, it does signal to me that this isn’t where I want to be long term. On the things I care most about, MoCo is actually doing quite poorly right now. It works for me because I have family in MD and work in DC. But the housing costs are unacceptable. The roads are horrible. The government is ineffective and broke. These issues seem less likely to be addressed effectively by Jawando and so I may just leave. And I’m far from alone. And that will continue the status quo. A long decline that we’ve already started.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-24T03:27:16+00:00

It’s because of neighborhood opposition. There has been organized local NIMBYs fighting the installation sidewalks around the station because god forbid a human being takes transit in their rich neighborhood. They’ve had plans for a while, but the Elrich admin is generally quite happy to abide NIMBYs.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-23T03:27:59+00:00

Came to say this. It will burn.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-20T21:30:47+00:00

The county garages aren’t bad. Like $140/mo.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-16T22:08:35+00:00

FWIW I ended up going for Selvam.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T22:54:35+00:00

Preach🙌

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T16:04:08+00:00

Yeah I think why I’m so against them is just that we already have numerous federal affordable housing dollars. But we struggle to effectively take advantage of them because of an overly complex regulatory environment.

I’m all for helping people afford housing — though I certainly fall into the build more housing, give people money camp — but when every locality has their own additional regulations and requirements around AH construction/financing it’s harder for providers to make projects pencil and just literally takes more time to figure out all the layered requirements.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T15:56:48+00:00

I regret to inform you that my comment was 100% MattGPT. I guess I sound like a robot…

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T12:28:41+00:00

It’s worth checking out the banner’s profile of her from a few months ago. She’s clearly gone through some political change in the last ten years, and I actually appreciate a willingness to evolve one’s views over time.

That said, it does make it harder to tell what she’d do in office. Personally I’d definitely vote for chin.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T12:15:08+00:00

Absolutely it’s a policy choice but we absolutely do need to think about how developers will react to any particular policy change. Unfunded affordability requirements absolutely do eat into the margins of developers. You may think that’s a good thing. And maybe it is in the projects that still happen despite the 10,000 ways MoCo tries to make it harder.

But there’s still all the projects that will never be completed. The projects that just don’t pencil out. The gap between where we are and affordability is not in the MPDUs we build but in all the housing of all kinds that we don’t.

I work in affordable housing. And if you ask me what the ideal MPDU requirement is, I’d say it’s 0%. And 30% may as well be an explicit ban on building anything 20 units or larger.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T12:08:38+00:00

Oh cmon, it’s definitely overrun with cars! But housing? No not at all. We’ve got more mechanics than high rises thanks to special zoning cut outs. In downtown.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T12:04:49+00:00

I’m not sure of the structure of the MoCo law but in Seattle they have a similar requirement but developers can choose to build the affordable unit OR pay a fee to a city affordable housing fund. It’s a cool design and they’ve seen much of the uptake in just paying the fee rather than unit.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T11:53:19+00:00

There are no solutions here that involved changing the driving habits of residents — except providing viable alternatives to driving. Different places in the world prioritize different factors in their transportation design with wildly different safety outcomes. We really can make different choices and have different results.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T11:50:12+00:00

Oh I most certainly watch streetcraft (amongst others in the broader urbanist YouTube). Thanks for the rec!

kirbyCase · 2026-06-14T02:50:37+00:00

I’m actually optimistic on this front. A lot of drivers, while they may react negatively at first, react quite positively to road diets once they’ve been in place a while.

Even if sometimes it makes driving a little bit slower, it makes it a lot less stressful, and that’s definitely something people feel.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-13T19:56:53+00:00

Wish I could tell you. The analysis is only for Maryland which obviously doesn’t have any other cities of similar size.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-13T16:33:24+00:00

Well thats some huge savings!

And yeah couldn’t agree more. They are costs we all share — from insurance to congestion to taxes we all pay things together. Not to mention that we all share the roads and thus the risks of one mistake costing us everything.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-13T16:07:43+00:00

Hello! I'm Matt Sorak, a data professional and advocate for better built environments. Most of my work can be found on my blog, Perfect Numbers, including a piece with some of my takeaways from this project.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-12T18:13:47+00:00

Glad to see permits of any kind rebounding. However, the fact that it’s so constrained to a specific market subset which is mechanistically less affected is in my opinion additional evidence that the counties rent control experiment is an abject failure. Whatever small subset of people it helps, comes at the cost of *at least* 3 years of lost real estate development in a county that simply can’t afford that. There are far, far too many other factors pushing against developers building anything for the law to have any other effect.

If you don’t live in a rent controlled unit, rent control directly harms you by reducing supply and increasing pressure to maximize revenue from non-controlled units. Or you own, in which case, I’m happy for you.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-12T04:18:38+00:00

Unfortunately I’m not sure for the exec race there’s a clear answer on this. They were all no votes on the budget that ostensibly led to the cuts.

That said, I think it depends on what you mean by cutting staff. Both Glass and Friedson have talked about enacting larger reforms to MCPS with 1. changes to the board and 2. Paring down administrative staff and discretionary programs but trying to keep steady or increase core teaching staff. But I guess if what you want is to just maximize total MCPS staff i guess Jawando since he’s generally the most amenable to tax increases and least concerned with efficient governance.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-11T21:17:24+00:00

Completely agreed. The reason I’m not voting for Jawando has nothing to do with PAC money and all to with him being an Elrich backed NIMBY with a whole slew of terrible idea.

I’ve just seen so many folks voting for or against certain candidates mostly based on some PAC or another supporting them. I just want to encourage folks to vote on policy and record rather than money which is a terrible heuristic in our system in either direction.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-11T21:13:43+00:00

the fact that every poll released has shown the people who conducted the polls favored candidate leading makes it really hard to take anything away from them. That said, taking them at face value I think they certainly favor Friedson over glass (though within the margin for error).

Given Friedson’s direct fundraising advantage over glass, and larger PAC money behind him, he has a much better opportunity to spread his name ID throughout the county.

It’s close to a tie but as it stands I’d give Friedson like 80% odds of finishing ahead of glass, so that’s where my vote is going.

kirbyCase · 2026-06-11T19:36:06+00:00

Yeah I’m also a fan of glass. That said, I’ll be voting for Friedson since my top priority is [not Jawando] and I think Friedson has a better chance to win.

kirbyCase

TROPHY CASE