Skip to main content

What’s Happening? Well, I’ll Tell You.



You’re invited. 
So are your hocolocal friends, neighbors, and coworkers. 
All are welcome.

The PATH Early Voting Action event is tonight. The theme is: Our Votes, Our Power, Our Values


WHO: Howard County residents from across faith, race, socioeconomic

                        background, language, and geography

Candidates for office. Currently confirmed:

County Executive: Vanessa Atterbeary, Bob Cockey, Deb Jung, Liz

Walsh

County Council: Cat Carter,Linfeng Chen, Kevin Chin, Janssen Evelyn, Arinze

Ifekauche, Amir Naviwala, Jessica Nichols, Felita Phillips, Christiana Rigby,

Jean Xu

Board of Education: Mark Covington, Linda Frascarella, Lanlan Xu

State Delegate: Amy Brooks, Pam Guzzone, Abdun Matin, Gabriel Moreno


WHEN: Thursday, June 11, 2026

6:00–6:30 pm, followed by voting


WHERE: Parking lot of St. John Baptist Church 

9055 Tamar Dr, Columbia, MD


WHY: to promote voter turnout, educate residents on the candidates, emphasize the importance of local elections. 



I received the following from local advocacy group PATH. (I’ve written about them before.) PATH selects their priorities for action based on member and community input. They educate, encourage and foster community participation in local affairs, centering their activities in these chosen priorities. 


PATH Rallies Howard County Residents to Vote Early in June 23 Primary Elections

People Acting Together in Howard (PATH), part of the Maryland Just Power Alliance*, is hosting an early voting event with St. John Baptist Church on June 11th ahead of the June 23rd primary elections.

This year will see large turnover in county leadership, with the current County Executive term limited and every County Council seat up for election. The primary election is likely to determine several of these races.

PATH is using the event to promote voter turnout and educate residents on the candidates, emphasizing the importance of local elections. In the last midterm elections, only 27% of eligible voters in Howard County voted in the primaries.

During a brief program in the parking lot, PATH speakers will emphasize the need to vote in the primary elections to address housing affordability and other community issues that PATH has identified through listening sessions with over 700 residents. Candidates will be recognized during the program.

Attendees will then have the opportunity to vote inside the church, which is an early voting site for all county districts. The polls are open until 8 pm.

All candidates for Howard County offices, including Council, Executive, and Board of Education, are invited to attend. All four candidates for County Executive have confirmed their attendance, as well as many candidates for County Council, Board of Education, and State Delegate.

PATH has published candidates’ responses to their nine-question questionnaire on housing, support for immigrants, and other issues on their website: pathmaryland.org.

*****

What are your values? What can you do to put them into action? In a time of national turmoil and chaos, many folks feel powerless. Yet the most significant power that we have to effect change is in our hands as we vote. Don’t throw that power away.

Our Votes, Our Power, Our Values


Village Green/Town² Comments 




*People Acting Together in Howard (PATH), part of the Maryland Just Power Alliance, is a community power organization representing thousands of individuals in Howard County. We organize people in congregations, schools, and neighborhoods across lines of race, class, and religion to build power for policies that help everyone in our communities thrive.


Comments

  1. Please do not submit comments here. This function will be disabled shortly. Use the link above instead. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Columbia Chance Connection

  Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!”  We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...