‘Proud of my record’: Q&A with county executive candidate Evan Glass

What differentiates you most from your opponents — and what makes you the most qualified to be the next county executive? 

Montgomery County needs a leader who will be able to bring everyone together, so that we can realize the future that is needed — and fight back against Donald Trump. I am proud of my record on the council, passing the largest number of laws and bringing people together to tackle the big issues. I’m a firm believer that anyone who considers themselves a progressive needs to make progress. I’m proud of the tangible progress I’ve made working with every member of the council [while] finding compromise.  

What are the one or two laws you regard as the most significant among those that you worked to pass? 

It’s a hard question; the laws I’ve passed range in scope and specificity. When I learned that nearly 700 people were being injured on our roads every year, I passed the Safe Streets Act to protect our neighbors who were walking, biking and driving.  

At the same time, I recognized that it was too expensive to build housing in Montgomery County, so I made a technical change to how we collect impact taxes that makes it cheaper to build housing, by changing when taxes are paid. It has actually saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on individual projects — and we’re still collecting the same taxes. It’s just when those taxes are paid, so that interest is not paid to Wall Street — and so the savings are here locally. One is a broad-scale piece of legislation that immediately helps people and is understood. The other is a technical change. Those are just two examples.