Kai Hagen enters the Fray
Frederick News Post columnFriday, February 3, 2006
By Joe Volz
Jvolz2003@adelphia.net
Kai Hagen of Thurmont, a community activist and Gazette columnist, will run for county commissioner "to level the playing field."
Kai, who will make it official as a Democratic candidate on Feb. 9 at a 7 p.m. meeting at the library in Frederick, figures the developers have most of the power right now and it's time for someone to represent the average citizen.
Although he has not run for office in the 11 years he has lived in the county, Kai probably knows as much about county government as anyone. He has been on a zoning advisory committee, serves on the county parks commission and is executive director of the Frederick Regional Action Network (FRAN). The network's mission statement says the non-profit organization "promotes common sense solutions to persistent challenges associated with growth and development."
Although Kai is nominally a Democrat, he argues that issues are more important to him than partisanship. He has voted for Jan Gardner, a Democrat, and Lennie Thompson, a Republican, and will vote for them again. Jan is for controlled growth. Lennie, as far as I can tell, is for virtually no growth at all. (Tell me I'm wrong Lennie and that behind all of those nay votes, you have a plan for the future.)
Anyhow, Kai realizes it's an uphill battle. He figures he can only raise between $20,000 and $40,000 for a year-long campaign. But he says he will have the largest group of volunteers ever assembled in the county.
Name recognition will be a big problem with the possibility that four incumbents, Commissioners Mike Cady and John Lovell, declared Republican candidates, and two undeclared candidates, but likely to run, Jan and Lennie, Kai will be competing for the one vacant spot.
Kai wants to get a couple of things straightened out. He is no radical advocating running the developers out of the county. In fact, he estimates that in a few decades he could support the increase of the county population by 100,000 or so. But he wants responsible growth, with a plan for water and schools and traffic and sewerage in place first. He figures that the difference between his approach and the developers' is that he wants responsible growth, not rapid growth at all costs.
Now, as far as name recognition goes, if the developers run true to form, they will help Kai solve his problem. They will regularly vilify him. If the developers don't watch it, they will make Kai a hero to the common man, a feat they have already accomplished in Lennie's case.
Kai's own public exposure is going to be limited now that he is announcing his candidacy. He will be giving up his column, an erudite examination of planning in the county, and his budding career as a panelist on "Pressing Issues" will be ending.
Kai jokes about trying to form a Responsible Developers for Hagen group. That is, if he can find some developers more interested in what is good for the country than what is good for their pocketbooks.
Kai figures he had to get into the race before the county commissioners become the Board of County Developers.
"If not me, who?" he asks.
That's a good question.
The developers, who attend virtually every meeting in droves and even help draft a lot of the county legislation, are a formidable foe. They stand to lose a lot of money, if a majority of county commissioners tries to slow things down. Time is money, after all.
Can Kai win? Yes, but he's an underdog.
WHY I'M VOTING FOR KAI!
Jane Sachs
Thurmont
Although I’ve known Kai for only six months, it seems like I’ve known him since we were both kids. I suppose most people know by now that he lives on land he first came to cherish as a small child from Washington, through visits to his granddad’s mountain farm. That was a big coincidence for me, because I have a similar history up here in the Catoctins. No doubt, Kai too spent hours in those days following deer trails through the woods,...
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