The clock is ticking for anyone interested in applying to fill a Montgomery County Council seat vacated by Gabe Albornoz, the departing at-large council member.
Applications for the position, which will run for just one year to complete Albornoz’ term, are being accepted through Nov. 5. The applicant who is ultimately appointed to the position would have to agree not to run for reelection to the seat.
Former Council member Cherri Branson was the last person who was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Montgomery County Council.
“Serving on the council is like drinking from a fire hose,” Branson said. “No matter what your base of knowledge might be, you won’t know the intricacies of all the stuff that comes before the council.”
Branson served as the District 4 council member for the last year of Valerie Ervin’s term in 2014, when Ervin stepped down to take a position with the Center for Working Families.
Branson said that when she applied for and was appointed to the council, she’d already had decades of government experience — but that was at the federal level.
“I’d been in the legislative environment for 23 years,” said Branson, whose last job on Capitol Hill was as the chief counsel for oversight on the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
From zoning matters to public safety to education funding formulas, Branson said serving on the council “requires a good deal of independent study,” and the ability to learn on the fly.
Branson said she was often surprised how many constituents paid close attention to council hearings and meetings. And her experience drove home the axiom “all politics is local,” she said.
“When you’re on the local level and you live in the community, you hear immediately from people,” about what they think of your decision-making, she said.
Anyone who serves in elected office, Branson said, will find that they will be working nights and weekends, attending events, work sessions and public hearings.
But she said she felt it was especially important for her to meet constituents because, as an appointed official, “they hadn’t had a chance to vote for me or vet me in any way.”
Branson said doing as many meet-and-greet events as she could “was really important.”
Applications to fill the vacancy for the at-large council position are being accepted through Nov. 5 at 5 p.m.
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