Katz Says He Will Seek a Second Term on the County Council
Although he is not making a formal announcement yet, Montgomery County Councilmember Sidney Katz confirms he will seek a second term on the Montgomery County Council.
Katz, the former Mayor of Gaithersburg, is serving his first term in the District 3 seat, representing about 200,000 people in Gaithersburg, Rockville, Washington Grove and Leisure World, as well as parts of Aspen Hill, Derwood, North Potomac and Potomac.
A member of the council’s Public Safety, and Government Operations and Fiscal Policy committees, he said he’s most proud of his work in the first term on bringing mental health courts to Montgomery County to help the criminal justice system locally.
Now as election season is beginning, Katz said, people are asking him if he’s running for council again.
“I have had many calls. It’s been truly gratifying,” Katz said.
According to Katz, the people calling say they are concerned about the next County Council and the institutional knowledge that may be lost with four elected leaders leaving at the same time because of term limits.
“I have lived here my whole life,” Katz said. “I know this area very well. Experience does matter.”
His life in public service began in the late 1970s on the Gaithersburg Planning Commission. He then served on the City Council and was elected as Gaithersburg mayor in 1998. He resigned from his position as mayor, in 2014, after he was elected to the County Council.
In 2018, Katz said he will run for the council’s District 3 seat again, but he has not decided if he will use the public campaign finance fund. He plans to file his candidacy sometime after the County Council passes the budget this month. He has not decided on a campaign manager, and his website has not been updated since the last election yet.
Some of the issues you will hear him talk about in the upcoming campaign will be the need to solve tax duplication for the municipalities and the county’s debt service.
“If debt service was a department it would be the third largest department in the county,” Katz said. “I believe we need a good frank discussion about what we are doing and how we are doing it so we are not going to be overloaded with the amount of debt service that we are paying.”
When Katz was mayor of Gaithersburg, he often touted the fact that the city had no debt.
The 2018 Gubernatorial Primary Election is scheduled for June 26, 2018.
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