It's time for a real change!
PREFACE: I want to make it easy for you to read about the basics, if that's all you want to read, and to offer more detailed information if you want to take a closer look.
Click here to open/download a digital version of our campaign brochure. This is just as the hard copy looks, except that some panels were re-arranged to put the front panel on the left.
Besides this page - and the links - you can learn more about my views by reading some of my columns from the Frederick News Post and the Gazette, or recent blog entries. You can read what some of your neighbors have to say about me here.
Click to jump to brief commentary about the following issues:
Growth | New Market Region Plan | Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance | Education | Traffic | Affordable Housing.
Our county government is not working...for you.
We live in a wonderful place. We don't have to sacrifice what we love about where we live for something less. But we have been.
We have a developer-driven planning process in Frederick County today. Our community – our future – is being shaped by short-sighted, piecemeal and economically unsound planning. Haphazard development that serves only narrow and short term interests does not represent your interests.
We're stuck in an endless and contentious debate about whether our foot should be on the accelerator or the brake. We grow faster. We grow slower. But the real problem is that we're on the wrong road – we're going in the wrong direction.
This road – the road to Loudoun County – leads to higher taxes, higher fees for water and sewer and trash collection, more congested roads, crowded schools with portable classrooms and older schools in desperate need of renovation, the conversion of our rural landscape to suburban sprawl, inadequate parks, an increasingly serious shortage of affordable housing, higher crime rates, reduced air and water quality, less walkable communities, and a long list of other problems.
Consider your own experience. You know that all those problems have been getting worse.
And they will continue to get worse if we continue the current pattern of irresponsible, inefficient and sprawling growth. A majority of the current Board of County Commissioners, with a blind faith in the benefits of almost any growth, has supported an out-of-date, business-as-usual approach to growth that comes at the expense of our prosperity and diminishes the quality of our communities and our lives.
Many communities have made the same mistakes. But it is not inevitable. There are alternatives.
We need to go in a different direction. But, in order to do that...
We must have a county government that works, and a Board of County Commissioners that works...for you.
The Board of County Commissioners has a major impact on nearly every aspect of your life in Frederick County.
There is a direct connection between the way government makes decisions and the decisions it makes. The health and prosperity of our communities and the quality of our lives must come first. Re-organizing our priorities requires a new Board of County Commissioners and a better process for examining the issues and making better choices.
• Frederick County government must be open and transparent, honest and thoughtful, practical and problem-solving.
• To get there, we must level the playing field, which is steeply tilted toward private development interests.
• I am committed to improving our inadequate ethics ordinance.
• I support long overdue and effective lobbying reforms.
• I believe it is essential to improve communication, cooperation and planning between our county government and the municipal governments of our cities and towns. County government should respect and support the ability of our towns to control their own destinies.
• The process of planning our future must involve our citizens, our towns and a diversity of other stakeholder groups in a formal, substantive and meaningful way. The public interest is not protected if the public is only involved on election day, or when public participation is reduced to expressing opposition to one developer initiative after another.
• The long term economic and social impact of planning and development options should be thoroughly examined. These decisions are too important to be made on the basis of personal anecdotes and untested assumptions.
And finally, all planning must be done in the context of a long term vision.
Leadership with vision will make a difference that matters!
The people of Frederick County deserve leadership with a more ambitious and inspired vision of our future. Leaders who won't settle for merely adequate. Leaders who know runaway sprawl is not inevitable. Leaders who know we have something special here, and will not squander our prosperity and good fortune.
Frederick County needs leadership that will...
Foster the participation of citizens, communities, businesses civic groups and other stakeholders.
Development must enhance a community's character and strengths, address its needs, and fit its vision of the future.
Protect and support our existing towns and neighborhoods.
Our communities will evolve. But they do not have to become "ye olde historic towne centers" surrounded and connected by a sprawling sea of suburban subdivisions.
Build houses and neighborhoods as if people and community matter!
Real communities are diverse, and great places to live offer a variety of housing types and sizes and prices. This variety of housing choices is necessary to meet the needs of residents of different economic levels and age groups.
Ensure that all our children have access to a high quality education.
Outstanding neighborhood schools are a vital part of the foundation of great communities. When we build sparkling new schools to support new growth, but neglect older schools and communities, it reflects poorly on our values. Frederick County must attract and retain excellent teachers, and ensure that all children and teachers spend their days in safe, properly-equipped and well-maintained facilities.
Preserve farmland and our rural landscape.
Our farmland and rural landscape will not survive by accident. If we don't preserve our rural heritage and our agricultural economy, it's only a matter of time before it is gone, replaced by sprawl.
Protect open space, natural beauty and our "green infrastructure" of forests, rivers and streams.
Maintaining open space supports existing communities and bolsters local economies. Protecting our green infrastructure benefits all of us and is an essential part of preserving the quality of life in Frederick County. Great places to live maintain a clean and healthy environment.
Apply sound economic principles and impact analysis to planning and development options.
Our county commissioners make major policy and planning decisions without honestly examining the economic impact. These decisions are too important to be made on the basis of personal anecdotes and untested assumptions. All Frederick County taxpayers pay the price for our failure to include a level of scrutiny that no successful business would do without. Responsible economic and infrastructure impact analysis within the planning and development process is necessary. Without it, we will continue to pay more...for less – to subsidize bad planning with higher taxes and/or direct hits to our quality of life.
Re-write and update the Frederick County Zoning Ordinance
Our zoning ordinance directly affects or controls most land use and development in Frederick County. And yet we are governed by a woefully out-of-date zoning ordinance that was written 30 years ago and has been adjusted in a piecemeal manner since then, with nearly 200 individual text amendments. We've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't in the last three decades, but our planning is still shaped by a document written when sprawl was state of the art – a document that actually makes some of the best ideas and most livable, economically-sound communities illegal.
Below are some brief comments about a few specific issues (more will be added):
Growth Affects Everything
How we approach growth is the most important issue in this election because it affects every aspect of life in our county.
We’re Paying More for Less!
Higher taxes and fees, unbearable traffic, crowded schools (and portable classrooms), inadequate parks and other problems are the price we pay for the irresponsible
policies of our county commissioners.
New Market Region Plan
The recently passed and highly controversial New Market Region Plan encapulates everything that's wrong about how we're planning the future of our county.
A great majority of those who have been paying attention to the process know that the New Market Region Plan update is a bad deal.
When the Board of County Commissioners voted three (Cady, Lovell and Reeder) to two (Gardner and Thompson) to pass the ill-concieved plan, most people assumed it was also a done deal.
It isn't!
If I am elected, and there are two other commissioners who share my perspective on this matter (prior to the Republican primary, there are at least seven candidates who likely will), we will take the plan back to the drawing board...and do it right.
NOTE: Read Kai's column from the Gazette: Blueprint for growth is an abominable plan
Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance
I will protect the current Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance!
In spite of repeated assertions by some of the current members of the Frederick County Board of County Commissioners, the Frederick County Adequate Public Facilities (or APFO) ordinance is not a planning tool.
Rather, the APFO is a "backstop" to bad planning. It is a way to ensure that we maintain certain minimum standards for school capacity, water and sewer, and roads, when county planning would otherwise have allowed it to be worse that "adequate."
The APFO has become the number one target for developers (who have made repeated attempts to weaken it, in some ways that would render it meaningless) because – due to bad planning – it is often the wall they bump into when pursuing specific development proposals.
If the county were planning in a more appropriate, responsible and intelligent manner, however, the APFO would not be "in play" so often.
The answer is not to weaken the APFO, but to improve the planning process.
We must not weaken the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. And I will also lead efforts to improve it in certain areas. For instance, anyone who drives in Frederick County knows the existing APFO has not prevented traffic congestion from getting worse on county roads. In addition, we should examine the possibility of adding certain categories of basic public services, such as fire and rescue services, or parks.
NOTE: Read Kai's column from the Gazette: Frederick deserves more than 'adequate'
Education
Healthy and prosperous communities offer a high quality education to all children.
Great places to live retain experienced teachers, commit to better than “adequate” facilities, and do not let older schools deteriorate.
Even though the county has made some progress with regard to overcrowding, most parents, teachers and students experience many ways in which we have strained the current system.
For instance, we count so-called "portable"classrooms (or temporary "learning annexes") as part of the capacity of our schools, even though they are not adequate. And schools with many portable classrooms do not have expanded lunch rooms, gyms, hallways, bathrooms, or anything else.
We strain – or stretch – our resources in many other ways, such as squeezing in more and shorter lunch periods or starting some schools earlier than we should, etc.
Frederick County public schools do an outstanding job, in spite of the problems and challenges.
But we can and must do better.
NOTE: Read Kai's column from the Gazette: Smaller schools help student performance
Traffic
Traffic congestion is more than an inconvenience. It's a serious quality of life issue.
Everybody hates traffic congestion. Every candidate for office talks about solving the problem. Every elected official refers to a new road they supported, an improved road they voted to fund, or the road construction money they help deliver from the state or federal governments.
And yet, as every Frederick County driver knows, traffic keeps getting worse, and worse.
Again, what we are doing isn't working.
We are not going to solve the problem by spending larger sums of precious tax dollars to build more and bigger roads, and then more and bigger roads.
There is no doubt that we do need some new roads. And we do need to improve some of our existing roads.
But...if we don't take a harder and broader look at how we are planning and managing growth, and how the way we build our communities affects our ability to move around and in and out of the county, it will continue to get worse
Currently, Frederick County's "Adequate Facilities Ordinance" only reviews and requires "adequate" roads from the entrance of a new development "to the nearest intersection of an arterial road or freeway/expressway with an arterial road."
In other words, the de facto county policy today is to ensure that we all make good time getting to inevitable and worsening traffic jams clogging all the roads outside of our neighborhoods.
Awful traffic is one of the ways we all subsidize poorly planned growth.
Many people seem to think that worse traffic is inevitable.
But it isn't.
NOTE: Read Kai's column from the Gazette: A bit of rage allowed about Frederick roads
Affordable Housing / Workforce Housing
Affordable housing (also referred to as workforce housing) has is a growing concern, as more and more of us find it hard, if not impossible, to afford the sort of homes that were available to those with the same jobs and similar incomes only a few years ago.
There are many reasons why this is an important issue. But, if you boil it down,
Replacing farmland with sprawling sub-divisions of large homes does nothing to help affordable housing. In fact, it makes it worse.
Affordable housing starts with good planning. Successful and sustainable communities offer a diversity of housing types and sizes…and prices — housing that reflects the people who live here.
NOTE: Read Kai's column from the Gazette: More houses alone won't lower prices
WHY I'M VOTING FOR KAI!
Patti Murphy
Myersville
Kai Hagen is the kind of hard working, principled and dedicated individual we need on the BOCC. Kai cares deeply about Frederick County, and has worked tirelessly to protect the quality of life we cherish here.
He's a genuine public servant, whether it's coaching youth sports leagues, volunteering at his children's school, assisting in the development of ThorpeWood and the Catoctin Land Trust, serving on the county's Citizens Zoning...