He’s running in the 2nd District.
Frederick, Md (KM). A citizen activist who fought against the Monrovia Town Center is running for office. Steve McKay, the President of Residents Against Landsdale Expansion, says he’s campaigning as a Republican for the District Two seat on the County Council next year.
McKay says one issue in next year’s election will be growth. “We saw first hand how devastating the impact can be from bad development policies and bad development decisions,” he says. “We saw it in spades in terms of the decisions handed down by the last BOCC, the {Blaine} Young BOCC.”
The Board of County Commissioners in 2014 approved the Monrovia Town Center, which is expected to bring 1,250 new homes on property near Routes 75 and 80, despite citizen arguments which said all of these homes would lead to overcrowded schools and clog up the roads. A Circuit Court Judge vacated that decision, and ordered the case be reheard before the Planning Commission and the County Council.
McKay says the current County Council has done a fairly good job in keeping growth under control. “This last County Council, at least a majority on the County Council, has done a pretty good job managing the development issues that have come before them. They could have done a better job. There are issues that they could have addressed by didn’t. What I’ve learned is we just can’t take this for granted.”
He says he’s concerned a pro-development board could be elected in 2018.
McKay says he will be challenging incumbent Councilman Tony Chmelik in next year’s election. “I know Tony’s going to get a lot of support. He’s going to get a lot of support in areas that I probably won’t get support from,” he says. “It’s going to be a tough battle. And I think it will provide a good contrast in ideas, particularly in the development area. And I look forward to that.”
But McKay says he won’t take any contributions from developers. “There’s been far too much developer money in our elections. I think the 2014 election cycle, it was obscene how much developer money went into those campaigns, particularly Blaine Young’s. By my count, probably upwards of $800,000 from the development community went over there, and in much lessor extent to other campaigns,” he says.
McKay says he has not formally filed to run. He has until February 27th to do so. The 2018 Primary Election is Tuesday, June 26th.
By Kevin McManus