Score one for the little guy in Montgomery County.
It was 30 years ago that Robin Ficker, perennial failed candidate and perpetual tax foe, first ran a ballot referendum to make it tougher to increase Montgomery County property taxes. On Wednesday, after all the votes from Election Day were counted, his latest attempt to do so was up 591 votes.
There are still as many as 64,500 absentee and provisional ballots left to be counted. Ficker, however, is feeling good about “Question B,” which would require all nine council members to approve raising property taxes beyond the rate of inflation. Under current law, only seven of the nine members need do so.
“This is not an anti-tax or anti-tax increase measure, this is an anti-extraordinary tax increase measure,” Ficker said.
The average homeowner will pay 13 percent more in property taxes this year after budget decisions made last spring.
Ficker says that made his issue an easy sell. He says he knocked on 60,000 doors, gave out hundreds of “Save Our Homes” yard signs and spent about $10,000 of his own money to advance the issue.
County Executive Ike Leggett, all nine council members, school board members, the majority of local state legislators, the League of Women Voters, the teachers union, and editorials from The Washington Post and the Gazette all told voters to oppose the referendum.
“We were probably outspent 20 to 1,” Ficker said, “but underlying all of this is the feeling that homeowners have been written off by incumbent officeholders.”
All nine council members spoke out against the referendum last week, saying it would vest too much power in any one council member, allowing him to hold a budget “hostage” for a pet project.
After Tuesday’s ballots were counted, 50.09 percent of Montgomery County voters stood with Ficker, and 49.91 percent stood with the elected officials and other opponents. It will be weeks before absentee ballots are counted, but Councilman George Leventhal said he got the message Tuesday night.
“Either way this goes, it shows the residents want the county executive and the council to rein in spending,” Leventhal said. “And the closeness in the votes here suggests we need to listen to that.”
