Friedson’s ‘Affordability Voter Guide’ mailer creates stir on County Council
Glass says mailer is latest example of MoCo executive ‘campaign built on distorting the facts’; Friedson says voting records ‘speak for themselves’
By
Ceoli JacobyJune 5, 2026 11:51 a.m. | Updated: June 5, 2026 11:52 a.m.
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In a recent mailer titled “Affordability Voter Guide,” Montgomery County executive candidate and District 1 County Councilmember Andrew Friedson proclaims he is the only councilmember in the race “to consistently vote against tax increases.”
But some of his council colleagues — including one of his opponents in the county executive race and two councilmembers who chose to endorse others over Friedson — say the mailer doesn’t accurately convey their votes on the issue.
Friedson, along with At-large Councilmembers Evan Glass and Will Jawando, is seeking the Democratic nomination for county executive in the June 23 primary election. Glass first drew attention to Friedson’s mailer in a post on social media last week.
“Andrew Friedson’s latest mail piece about taxes isn’t just misleading — it’s hypocritical,” Glass wrote in a May 29 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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Since then, two councilmembers not directly involved in the race — Councilmember Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5), who has endorsed Jawando; and Council President Natali Fani-González, who on Tuesday endorsed Glass — also appeared to push back against the mailer.
In a Tuesday video on social media, Mink called the mailer’s contents “a bunch of BS” and spoke about Jawando’s efforts to come up with an alternate budget proposal that would limit increases in homeowners’ property tax bills.
“I can’t let these disingenuous claims go by,” she wrote in the caption of the post. Jawando’s campaign has not independently commented on the mailer.
On Wednesday, Fani-González issued a statement from her council office on “misleading information” about the $7.9 billion county operating budget for fiscal year 2027, which begins July 1.
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“I am disappointed but unsurprised by politicization of the Council’s recent budget decisions ahead of the Maryland Primary Election,” Fani-González said.
Friedson’s mailer, which Fani-González did not directly reference in her statement, says Jawando and Glass were among the councilmembers who supported “a $692 property tax hike on all homeowners and an income tax increase.”
“The claim that all homeowners will receive a tax hike is false,” Fani-González said. “We also rejected the County Executive’s [proposed] income tax increase, which would have raised income taxes for all wage earners, regardless of their income.”
The council voted 9-2 to approve the county operating budget for fiscal year 2027. Friedson and Councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7) were opposed.
Those who voted to approve the budget included Fani‑González, Mink, Glass, Jawando, Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe (D-Dist. 2) and Councilmembers Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3), Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4),Shebra Evans and Laurie-Anne Sayles (both D-At-large).
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In a statement shared with Bethesda Today on Wednesday, Friedson said the council’s official voting records “speak for themselves.”
“Everything in the ‘Affordability Guide’ is true and no amount of campaign spin can change how councilmembers voted,” Friedson said.
Votes at issue
At the center of the controversy over Friedson’s mailer are the council’s votes on two county operating budgets — the fiscal year 2024 budget, which included a 4.7% property tax rate increase; and the recently approved fiscal year 2027 budget, which included a progressive income tax structure paid for by eliminating a $692 tax credit, the Income Tax Offset Credit, for certain homeowners.
Glass has spoken repeatedly on the campaign trail about the budget vote in May 2023 during his one-year term as council president.
In that role, Glass told Bethesda Today during a recent interview, he led the council in finding “significant cost savings,” ultimately landing on a property tax rate increase that was less than half of the 10% rate hike County Executive Marc Elrich (D) initially proposed.
Friedson’s mailer frames the fiscal year 2024 budget process differently, stating that Glass “oversaw the effort to raise property taxes by 4.7%.”
On the day of that year’s final vote, both Friedson and Jawando voted against the 4.7% property tax rate increase. But both councilmembers joined Glass and the rest of the council majority in voting to approve the overall fiscal year 2024 operating budget — which was supported in part by revenue from the property tax rate increase.
In last month’s straw vote on the proposal to implement a progressive income tax structure and eliminate the Income Tax Offset Credit, Jawando, Glass and Friedson were all opposed.
However, Jawando and Glass both joined the council majority for the May 21 final vote to approve the county’s overall operating budget in a bloc with several other items, including a resolution to set the Income Tax Offset Credit at zero for fiscal year 2027.
That means that, despite their straw votes against eliminating the tax credit, Jawando and Glass were officially recorded as having supported the change.
Glass did not directly answer a question from Bethesda Today about why he did not move to take the resolution out of the bloc for a separate vote. But in a Thursday statement, he wrote he won’t “ever hold the budget hostage, even when there are aspects I disagree with.”
In his statement about Friedson’s mailer last week, Glass also refuted the idea that supporting a final budget constitutes support for every item it contains.
“By Friedson’s own logic, he raised taxes in 2023,” Glass said. “This is just the latest misinformation in a campaign built on distorting facts.”
Budget politics
Fani-González has said her colleagues’ attitudes during this year’s budget process were what ultimately led her to endorse Glass despite an earlier pledge to remain neutral in the county executive race.
In a Tuesday interview with Bethesda Today, Fani-González said she thought Friedson — who was one of two councilmembers to vote against the operating budget for fiscal year 2027 — “didn’t engage” in the process, except to protect items he didn’t want to see cut.
By contrast, Fani-González said, Glass was focused on finding consensus and getting the votes necessary to pass a budget before the June 1 deadline.
In a Wednesday statement to Bethesda Today about Fani-González’s remarks, Friedson said he has “a lot of respect” for his council colleagues.
“While we have occasionally disagreed on certain issues, I’ve been able to find common ground with them on many shared priorities to make our county a better place,” Friedson said, adding that he did not support the fiscal year 2027 operating budget because of its impact on homeowners and the county’s structural deficit.
“Throughout my time on the Council, I’ve consistently led the fight against constant tax hikes,” Friedson said. “I will continue to fight to lower costs and make Montgomery County more affordable.”
In addition to the three councilmembers, there are four other candidates in the race for county executive. They include Peter James of Gaithersburg and Mithun Banerjee of Silver Spring, both Democrats; as well as Shelly Skolnick of Friendship Heights and Esther Wells of Montgomery Village, both Republicans.
Fani-González and Mink are seeking re-election to their council seats this year.
For more information about candidates in the upcoming election, check out Bethesda Today’s 2026 Primary Election Voters Guide.
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine