PRESS RELEASE: County Board Defers Formation of Governance Task Force

December 22, 2025.

The 2025 election is over, but how the elected govern the County is still in the news.

On December 17, County Board voted unanimously to defer forming a task force to consider replacing its current at large system of governance with a district based system.

At the hearing I argued that County Board’s rationale for deferral, namely “that more time is needed to receive, consider, and incorporate feedback” is specious. It’s not the Board’s job to sort through feedback. It’s the task force’s job to do that. Delaying its operation is not going to make the job any easier.

The real reason the County wants to kick the can down the road is that the change of governance that the task force might call for would likely upend the existing power structure.

Consider that County Board’s at large system of representation is as undemocratic in its operation as it was racist in its origins. According to local historian Sherman Pratt, the adoption of the current at large system in 1930 was contemporaneous with the announcement by Black leaders of their plans to run for local office in one of the County’s 3 districts.

Replacing these districts with an at large board thwarted Black political ambitions for several generations. Because board members are not accountable to their neighbors, it has also served to silence any neighborhood or civic organization that opposes County Board on any matter large or small.

District representation would make it more difficult for the Board to trample on the voters in a particular district, if they were united in their response to a policy that affected their community. It would certainly be much harder to write them off as NIMBYs.

Nevertheless most current and former elected officials with the notable exceptions of Delegate Patrick Hope (D-1) and former Board Member John Vihstadt testified in favor of deferral, which then carried the day.

Deferral effectively takes the question of how the County governs itself off the agenda until after the June 16, 2026 Democratic primary, postponing it to the general election. After that the Democrat machine can then claim that reelection of the incumbent was a referendum in favor of maintaining the status quo.

Deferring the governance task force is a perfect example of the maxim “justice delayed is justice denied”, since the current County Board is as unusual in its construction as it is undemocratic in its operation No other county in the state and almost no other county in the nation enjoys strict, at large representation, which has been debunked on racial grounds since adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.