Glass donates Pride flag to Montgomery County Historical Society
Council Member Evan Glass, the first openly gay member of the Montgomery County Council, donated a Pride flag raised at the Executive Office Building to Montgomery County’s historical society.
Glass donated the flag at Montgomery History’s annual conference on Saturday. It had previously flown next to the Executive Office Building for Pride Month in June 2019 — the first time the county had publicly displayed the Pride Flag.
In a statement before the conference, Glass celebrated it as a “symbol and reminder of the ongoing civil rights struggle for members of the LGBTQ+ community.” But the flag also attracted criticism last year when it replaced another flag honoring prisoners of war and soldiers who went missing in combat.
That flag was raised again the next day after the county added rings to the flagstaff, allowing it to accommodate more than one flag at a time. But Glass received hundreds of hate-filled emails after the incident, many of which also criticized his efforts to organize Pride events.
In his statement, Glass emphasized that residents of Montgomery County deserved to feel safe “living their lives as they truly are.”
Trump re-election chairs named in Montgomery County
Josephine Wang, a retired public school teacher and part-time faculty member at Montgomery College, has been named chair of the re-election campaign for President Donald Trump in Montgomery County.
Wang, a Gaithersburg resident, unsuccessfully ran for the Maryland Senate in 2018, seeking the Republican nomination in District 17. In 2019, she was a frequent opponent of the county’s efforts to establish a 12th early voting center in White Oak.
Nick Allman, Marcus Alzona, Jeff Brown, and Dwight Patel have been named co-chairs of Trump’s local re-election campaign.
Navarro inducted into Montgomery County Women’s History Archives
Council Member Nancy Navarro was inducted into the Montgomery County Women’s History Archives on Sunday “as a woman whose achievements are of historical significance to the County,” according to a press release.
Navarro is the first Latina ever elected to the Montgomery County Council.
During her year-long term as council president, she successfully passed the county’s Racial Equity and Social Justice Act of 2019, which aims to reduce or even eliminate systematic inequality by requiring the county to consider equity outcomes in all future legislation.
She was first voted to the council in a special election in 2009. In 2010, she was re-elected to a four-year term.
“Being inducted into the County Women’s History Archives is an honor and privilege that few in the history of our great county have had,” Navarro wrote in a statement last week.
Trone files for re-election
U.S. Rep. David Trone, whose district stretches from Potomac to the Pennsylvania line, officially filed for re-election on Thursday — one day before the official deadline.
Trone announced his campaign in the fall, promising to mount “an aggressive campaign for re-election,” according to spokeswoman Hannah Muldavin. He first won the seat in 2018 after former Congressman John Delaney decided to run for president instead of re-election.
Trone — a cofounder of the retail chain Total Wine & More — had already captured attention two years earlier when he spent $14 million to run for Congress in the 8th District, losing to Rep. Jamie Raskin in the Democratic primary.
In 2018, Trone spent $15.8 million of his own money in what became the state’s most expensive race. He beat Republican candidate Amie Hoeber, a former Reagan administration official, for the seat.
This year, Trone is contending for the Democratic nomination against Maxx Bero, a Watkins Mill High School government teacher. Bero has said Trone’s wealth makes him less representative of his district.
Three Republicans are running for the seat, including Kevin Caldwell — a Frederick County candidate who ran for the district in 2018 as a Libertarian — and Neil Parrott, a state delegate from Washington County. Chris Meyyur, a Frederick County resident who filed on the deadline day, is also running for the Republican nomination.