District 5, which includes much of Carroll County, including Eldersburg, Manchester, Mount Airy, New Windsor, Sykesville, Taneytown, Union Bridge and Westminster, plus the Frederick County portion of Mount Airy, is our home and our passion, and we humbly and respectfully request the support and the votes of District 5 residents in the upcoming 2026 election.

It is an incredible honor to represent our community and to be bold conservative voices in Annapolis. We are committed to using those voices to call for a more rational state energy policy and a reduction in burdensome regulations on Maryland businesses, to demand tougher laws to prosecute and lock away violent criminals, to oppose new and higher taxes and to advocate for education reforms that reward merit, protect girls’ spaces, promote career and technical skill opportunities, support teachers and return decision-making back to local jurisdictions.

Maryland is at a major crossroads: We must turn back immediately from Gov. Wes Moore’s and the Democratic supermajority’s tax-and-spend policies that raise our cost of living and hurt working families, before it’s too late. Maryland businesses and families are already leaving the state in record numbers. We believe that a more conservative approach, with lower taxes, lower spending and a lighter government touch can return the state to a trajectory of growth and greatness.

The 2026 Republican primary will be held June 23, 2026, with the general election to follow on Nov. 3. We humbly ask our District 5 friends, family and neighbors for your support and your votes, and we look forward to seeing you on the campaign trail!

— Justin Ready, April Rose and Chris Tomlinson

The letter writers are state lawmakers who represent Carroll County

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If you look around, there is diversity everywhere. No two regions of America are the same. No states or cities or small towns are exactly the same.

From the beginning, we have been a diverse people. Early native populations across the continent were diverse. Then came Europeans and Africans. Today, our census shows us to be 61% white alone, 18% Latino, 12% African American, 5% Asian, along with Native American, Native Hawaiian and almost 3% multiracial.

So if diversity is obviously present in America, why is it that government policy is so intensely dedicated to erasing its presence?

I believe the answer lies in the fact that changes in our ethnic and racial mix are scary to segments of America’s population. These fearful Americans have been persuaded by frantic voices that the end of their world is near. They have been scared into believing that they are being “invaded” by people who will take away everything they have: their jobs, their culture, their religion. They are told these “invaders” are rapists and murderers who will destroy their families and homes. Leaders say DEI must be stopped “by any means necessary.”

The problem with DEI, according to the loud voices, is that it allows for multiple points of view, numerous ways of doing things. To them, there can be only one view of America and the world, and that is the view of those who are now in power. No other views can be tolerated.

The problem, the real problem with DEI, is that it accepts America for what it really is: an exciting nation with diverse people trying to get along the best they can. That is a threat to those who are basking in the rewards of the status quo.

The problem with DEI is that it represents who we are, not who the powerful want us to be.

Allow DEI, and America will stay great.

— George Conover, Westminster

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To hear some tell it, there is nothing in the federal government’s budget that can be cut. Every dime spent is absolutely critical, and if anything is cut, “people will die!”

Even National Public Radio.

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher warned, “defunding [NPR] is a real risk to the public safety of the country.”

Maher said advocates for NPR are “devastated that the Senate voted to eliminate federal funding to the local public television stations throughout this country that provide essential lifesaving public safety services, proven educational services and community connections to their communities every day for free.”

If she really believes what she says is true, NPR will now prioritize its spending to ensure the continuation of its life-sustaining functions. Of course, that might mean it will have to eliminate other essential reporting, such as this review of a “teenager friendly” book: “What ‘Queer Ducks’ can teach teenagers about sexuality in the animal kingdom.”

Did you catch the “for free” part at the end of Maher’s statement? If NPR’s programming was really “free,” there would be no need to cut funding, would there?

The truth is, nothing is free. Just because the government is paying for it doesn’t mean it’s free. Anyone who pays taxes is paying for it.

NPR is seriously biased, but it is not free.

It’s like those “free courses” Maryland public school students are now able to take at community colleges. Students may not have to pay to attend the classes, but taxpayers certainly have to pick up the tab.

That’s a concept progressives have a real hard time wrapping their heads around.

Socialists, like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, are all about free. “Free” public transportation. “No-cost” child care. It’s all a lie.

A wise man once said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

And George Bernard Shaw once quipped, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

I don’t really blame progressives for being so deceitful. If the public is too naive to recognize what they’re up to and continues to vote progressive lawmakers into office, then the public gets what it deserves.

The good news is, all across the country, Americans appear to be waking up to the lie. Then again, we live in Maryland — one of the bluest of blue states — where robbing Peter to pay Paul is the state sport.

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future is a great example. The Blueprint prioritizes one demographic group over another. Counties like Carroll now receive less taxpayer money so that the state will have more money to give to other counties like Prince George’s County.

Worse, Carroll County has been forced to adopt the same educational “reform” plan every other county in the state has been forced to adopt. Only a bureaucrat or politician would think the same reforms will work in two jurisdictions as different from one another as Carroll is from Prince George’s County, but that’s what we’ve got going on here in Maryland — a one-size-fits-all government-mandated initiative that treats all Maryland counties the same.

And it will only cost taxpayers $10 billion.

Worse still, state legislators have not allocated enough money to pay for their “reforms,” so they are expecting local governments to make up the difference by raising local taxes.

This is how Maryland Governor Wes Moore is able to run campaign ads in his bid to become president, in which he claims to have fixed the state’s budget woes. He didn’t. He just shifted the tax burden to local governments.

The Blueprint even goes so far as to blackmail the counties. If they refuse to rollover and raise local taxes to pay for the state’s unfunded mandates, they will lose their state education funding altogether.

I’d like to see that. I’d like to see candidate Moore explaining why he cut off education funding to students in his state.

There is very little Democrats will not do or say in pursuit of political power. They have proven this many times, especially since President Donald Trump’s first term, but America is souring on progressive policies — and tactics — and Democrats are trapped. They were perfectly happy to embrace the radical left when they saw it as being in their political self-interest to do so, but they created a monster, and that monster is now feeding on its own.

That progressive policy positions are growing increasingly unpopular with the American public is the reason Democrats are looking for a presidential candidate with “aura.”

Elijah Templeton wrote in The Herald, “Politics have long been more about the candidate presenting the policies than the actual policies themselves and this is nowhere more apparent than America in 2025. This reality has led us to a second Donald Trump term and a Democratic party in complete disarray for one reason and one reason only: the Democrats do not have a candidate with aura.”

These days, the term “aura” is used as a compliment, essentially calling someone cool or suave, so what Templeton is saying is Democrats need a candidate with charisma, not substance; a slick politician, someone people will vote for because they are good-looking and charming rather than on how they will govern.

You know, someone like Wes Moore.

Zohran Mandami and California Governor Gavin Newsom also fit the bill. Fast-talking, silver-tongued politicians who have a lot in common with the average used car salesman.

With socialism becoming a common theme among Democratic politicians these days, a candidate with “aura” is all Democrats have left if they hope to win another national election.

But if the party cannot even disavow a Marxist, antisemitic candidate running to become mayor of the financial capital of the world, it has surrendered the right to be supported by anyone.

And they know it.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Trump recently called his supporters “foolish” and “stupid.” Of course, Trump understands that all these characteristics that he now associates with his supporters are why they have remained loyal to him for so long.

As many have stated, there must be incriminating evidence in those Epstein files regarding Trump, as he is working hard to keep them hidden and to get his supporters to change the subject. He has blamed everyone from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden for the “fake” information contained in the Epstein file held by his Justice Department and FBI offices. The problem with this argument, however, is that Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and jailed during the Trump administration. In addition, when Trump calls something “fake,” you know it is real, as in the fake 2020 election results and the fake charges of sexual assault made against him.

Trump is always blaming Biden for something or another. Just the other day, he lamented about the appointment of Jerome Powell to lead the United States Central Bank. “He was a terrible chair. I was surprised he was appointed. I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.” Of course, it was Trump, not Biden, who appointed Powell in 2017. But, hey, let’s talk about Biden’s state of confusion.

The president is grasping at straws as he can’t decide who to blame for the report, which he desperately wants to keep secret, including former FBI Director James Comey. Speaking of Comey, in the middle of all of this, the Trump administration decided that it was a good idea to fire federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who helped to prosecute the case against Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Well, that doesn’t look suspicious at all.

Trump follows the same patterns and routines when trying to establish his version of a story he doesn’t like. This is being played out today as he has filed a lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for a story they broke about correspondence between Trump and Epstein that appears to show that Trump and Epstein shared, in Trump’s words, a “wonderful secret.” I wonder what that secret could be?

What isn’t a secret is that Epstein and Trump had been good friends for years and that, interestingly, Trump appointed Alex Acosta as his secretary of labor during his first administration after Acosta negotiated a very unusual plea deal with Epstein in 2008 that largely ignored the most serious charges against him regarding the alleged trafficking of young girls. Acosta allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor.

After he joined the Trump administration, however, the Miami Herald reported in 2019 that Epstein had abused dozens of girls and documented how Acosta shut down an FBI investigation of the more serious charges against Epstein. Sounds like a cover-up to me. After this was exposed, Acosta resigned from the Trump administration. But why did Trump give him the job in the first place?

Federal investigators in New York picked up the Epstein case, and he was arrested on multiple sexual exploitation and abuse charges involving young girls. While in jail, Epstein killed himself, according to the FBI.

What we know from the New York case, however, is that Epstein faced charges of sex trafficking of minors and the abuse of young girls at his homes in New York, Florida, New Mexico, London and a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

For years since 2019, MAGA supporters, encouraged by Trump, pushed the idea that Epstein was trafficking young girls to Democrats, including Bill Clinton, and that Democrats likely had Epstein killed to protect their own. He also said that Democrats were keeping the Epstein file a secret to hide all of these facts. Today, however, we are learning that it is Trump who wants the Epstein file to be kept under wraps. I wonder why?

Meanwhile, the Justice Department seems to be working hard to protect Trump’s involvement with Epstein. Sen. Dick Durbin reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi pressured the FBI to put 1,000 personnel to work in 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein records and flag any records in which President Trump was mentioned. I wonder what they are up to?

Many Democrats believe this will finally wake up Trump supporters to how Trump has manipulated them for the past 10 years. This is wishful thinking, at best. The MAGA crowd is unable to connect the dots. Trump says that they are “stupid” and “foolish.” They will likely prove him correct, again.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

Our temple of liberty is full of cobwebs, and we need term limits in Congress like we have in the White House — just two terms of four years. After serving, lawmakers can go back to their other skilled jobs, but the trouble is, they have no other skills and hot air is not very much in demand, especially in the summer.

I don’t think their families want them home either, because they do not make good pets… used car salesmen, perhaps!

In general, politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason.

— Dieter Halle, Finksburg

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A tornado siren does not turn on automatically; it would have to be activated by the National Weather Service in the event of a Tornado Warning. For the tornado that struck Mount Airy on Nov. 2, 2018, which damaged my house, the NWS did not issue a Tornado Warning. There wasn’t even a watch or storm warning. It was a surprise. Had there been a siren, nobody would have turned it on.

I lived in Oklahoma for several years. Tornado sirens are more effective there as the land is flat, so the sound travels over considerable distances. Here in a more hilly region, the siren would be blocked by the hills and would only be heard in a small area.

We need to rely on modern technology, alerts sent to phones or weather radios. And better predictions from the weather forecasters.

— Steve Lichtman, Mount Airy

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Our outreach efforts were not zero-sum undertakings. Meeting the needs of the underserved did not mean ignoring the needs of other students.

One of the first things we did was host forums designed to give historically disadvantaged parents the opportunity to share their experiences at East and other CCPS schools, both the good and the bad. These discussions helped focus our outreach activities, and parents appreciated the opportunity to be heard. I learned a great deal from those discussions.

Something a parent said at one of the forums always stuck with me. “We’ve said all this before,” she said. “People always ask our opinion, and then nothing happens.”

I was determined not to let that happen at East, so I created a Community Outreach Committee to serve as a vehicle to keep me focused on issues important to students whose needs often fall through the cracks in the crush of everything a school principal has to deal with on a daily basis.

I am very grateful to the parents, community leaders and faculty members who invested so much of their valuable time to serve on that committee. Many of the school’s outreach activities and practices were a direct result of the committee’s work.

We hosted a Harvest Party at the Robert Moton Center on Center Street in Westminster. The event featured food, dancing, face painting and games. It was a way for the school to connect with families, who for a variety of reasons felt uncomfortable in a school setting.

The school participated in block parties organized by Grow Mission near Bishop’s Garth. It was gratifying to witness our students and parents having fun in their own neighborhood. The school’s involvement helped strengthen its ties with the families residing in that neighborhood.

To help African-American students recognize the power of education, the school organized field trips to Coppin State and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A special effort was made to ensure “at-risk” students were included on these trips. The experience was eye-opening for many who attended, some of whom came to believe for the first time in their lives that attending college was a real possibility for them.

We reached out to our Hispanic community by hosting a parent forum at St. John’s Catholic Church. CCPS interpreters helped facilitate that discussion.

One of my favorite activities was making home visits to meet with parents and students who had never had an educator in their homes before.

For me, it was about developing relationships and finding ways to make sure the school was meeting the needs of all of its students. Many of the relationships I developed during that time endure to this day, and it is still a treat for me to run into students I worried about back then, who are doing well today.

We worked hard to provide meaningful professional development for teachers, including working with Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty,” which explored the culture of poverty and its relation to education. We wanted to equip our teachers with the knowledge and tools they needed to effectively engage hard to reach students.

We worked hard to create an environment in which students enjoyed coming to school, understood why school was important, and could see a positive future for themselves.

I made a concerted effort to diversify the school’s faculty, and I worked hard to make sure all teachers and staff felt comfortable and supported.

We did more than pay lip service to the issue of diversity, whether it was defined in terms of a student’s race, ethnicity, socio-economic status or intellectual and emotional well-being, and we made a real difference in the lives of many students.

It was something we did together as a school community, and it was all very personally rewarding for me.

Each student was different, each deserved my attention, and I felt a personal responsibility to develop a relationship with as many students as I could because in the end, it’s that relationship which matters most — the relationship educators have with their students.

Do we know them? Do we know how to motivate them? Do we know how they learn best? Have we made their parents partners in the process?

Put students in whatever category you like; the key to their education boils down to meaningful relationships.

Our approach to making a difference for students was always a practical one. Lots of people virtue signal and make speeches about diversity. We tried in a small way to do something about it. We weren’t trying to change the world, we simply did the best we could to change lives — one student, one family, one teacher at a time.

I wouldn’t give a plug nickel for any prescriptive one-size-fits-all government initiative to accomplish anything. History has proven time and again, such initiatives are doomed to fail and a colossal waste of money.

But put together a school-based team of committed stakeholders who genuinely want to make a difference for students, and anything is possible.

We need to unshackle our teachers and school leaders from government bureaucrats who tie their hands, killing innovation and preventing schools and educators from adopting the policies and practices best suited to the individual school communities they serve.

As long as politicians and government bureaucrats are allowed to substitute their judgment for the judgment of the people working in and with local schools, public education will never improve.

The best thing bureaucrats — whether federal, state or local — can do to improve schools is to provide them what they need … and then get out of their way.

School leaders and classroom teachers know better than anyone else what their students and school communities need to thrive.

What they don’t need is people who know nothing about their students or their school communities telling them from afar what they must and must not do.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

As outlined by Robert Reich on Substack, “The United States government is no longer able to protect us from real hazards, such as flash floods, because it’s shifting funds to take hazards, such as a non-existent immigrant crime wave.”

Flood victims in Texas will have less support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) because the Trump administration has diverted congressional funds designated for FEMA to building immigrant detention centers in the Florida Everglades. Good luck to the people of Florida when hurricane season arrives. Perhaps when their homes are destroyed, they can take refuge in one of FEMA’s detention centers.

The media has adequately outlined the number of missing personnel — a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster and a meteorologist — at the National Weather Service San Angelo office near the Texas flooding. The National Weather Service office in San Antonio has also been without a warning coordination meteorologist and science officer, as stated by Reich, “who are supposed to work with local emergency managers to plan for floods, including when and how to warn local residents and help them evacuate.” All of these open positions are a result of people being fired or encouraged to retire by the Trump administration.
Maxine Joselow, writing for The New York Times, reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not renew contracts with four companies that FEMA uses to answer calls for victim assistance, resulting in hundreds of contractors being fired and leaving many flood victims without anyone to call for five days. As a result, “FEMA did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line,” according to Joselow. And CNN reported that FEMA did not deploy search and rescue teams from around the nation to help local first responders for 3 to 4 days after the flood.

Trump is hiring 10,000 more ICE agents while reducing the number of staff supporting our nation’s air-traffic control system, cutting staff at our National Parks during peak tourist season, eliminating experts at the National Weather Service, and reducing the number of disaster experts at FEMA. He has reduced the number of Social Security offices and support staff, making it more difficult for seniors to access services or information about their benefits. His Medicaid cuts — which he promised not to make — will result in the reduction of hospitals and nursing homes in our rural communities over the next several years. Yet, he is spending $45 billion to build immigrant detention centers that look like concentration camps. None of these cuts will make us safer or stronger as a nation. They will, however, make life more difficult for ordinary Americans and leave many, such as those in Texas, vulnerable to national disasters.

MaryAnn Tierney, writing for The New York Times, has worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations for the past 25 years in emergency management and served as a former deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She says that “the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, now warns of ‘rapid intensification,’ when tropical systems quickly escalate from mild to major hurricanes in a matter of hours. That compresses the time emergency managers have to evacuate communities, marshal resources, and respond. It leaves less room for error and demands more from the systems that protect us. And yet, the very system designed to meet this moment is being hollowed out.”

The “uncomfortable truth is this,” writes Tierney, “With each passing day, the federal government is becoming less prepared to face the next big disaster. And as the risk grows, the ability to deliver on its vital disaster response mission is shrinking.”

We all sympathize with the victims of the terrible flooding in Texas. But we can’t help but shake our heads as we realize that they are also victims of the local, state and federal government they voted for. In 2014, the Texas Republican Party declared that “Climate change is a political agenda … we urge government at all levels to ignore any plea for money to fund global climate change initiatives.” As a result, local officials refused to use the billions of dollars the Biden administration provided for an early warning system along the river.

The local Republican government ignored the fact that thousands of children regularly camp in a well-known flood zone, with a long history of deadly flooding, while refusing to invest in an early warning system to protect them. The local government stated that the cost of the system, $500,000, was too high. Do the math: $500,000 divided by 200 deaths = $2,500 per life possibly saved.

The people of Texas consistently vote for politicians who don’t want to provide even the most basic service for their citizens: helping to keep them safe. That includes being safe from natural disasters, which is a far greater threat to Americans than hard-working immigrants who are picking our vegetables or putting asphalt roofs on our new homes in the hot sun.

Republicans continue to vote for politicians who don’t believe in investing in their communities, state or nation, but then wonder why they can’t get the support and services they need when flood waters sweep away their home or when their children are drowned because an incompetent and careless government doesn’t seem to value their lives.

For many Republicans, no government is the best government, until they need help for themselves or their family. Then, they blame the government, the government they voted for, for not having the support and services they voted against.

Trump has stated that he wants to defund FEMA because he believes state and local governments should be responsible for caring for their citizens after natural disasters. This is a traditional Republican philosophy, but local and state governments lack the resources or capacity to respond to a billion-dollar flood or a five-billion-dollar hurricane. States like Florida and Texas would have to significantly increase their state tax rates to cover these new costs. Currently, Florida and Texas have no state income taxes, leaving their citizens to fend for themselves or rely on the federal government — and the rest of us — to bail them out after each disaster. In addition, even in flood zones, Texans are not required to purchase flood insurance, according to a report from Bloomberg News. If FEMA is defunded, voters in Florida and Texas will get to test out the reality of their “no government is the best government” philosophy. Hurricane season should be interesting.

Perhaps Trump is tired of bailing them out. As a citizen of a state who pays significant state income taxes to cover the services my family needs, I’m beginning to see his point.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

I and two other neighbors have sent in complaints to the city over the years. One has been trying to get the city to do something about this issue for over a decade now. The smell in my house is awful, it smells like cat urine, dead animals, mold and whatever else may be over there.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on pest control over the years, trying to get rid of the bugs that are crawling over from next door. I haven’t stayed at my house now for a little over three weeks because of bed bugs from there. The neighbor on the other side of the wall just threw out her mattresses and furniture and is spending money to have her place treated for bed bugs now as well.

I have spoken with many people from the city about this issue and nothing seems to be getting done. The backyard to the place next door is completely overgrown, and underneath all the vegetation is a mixture of various things they’ve hoarded over the years. There are constantly new people coming and going from over there and definitely drugs are involved.

One of the neighbors is too afraid to keep pushing with this because one of the men assaulted her father. I and the neighbor on the other side of them have had multiple trips to urgent care and doctors for shortness of breath, sinus problems and other medical issues due to breathing in that smell constantly. At this point, I’m not sure what else I can do. I wouldn’t even feel morally right selling my house to someone else with these problems, and I can’t afford to move.

— Jonathan Cole, Westminster

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In November 2018, an EF-1 tornado, confirmed by the National Weather Service, caused significant damage in Mount Airy, particularly impacting the Twin Arch Shopping Center. The tornado, which initially touched down in northwest Howard County, moved north into Carroll County, affecting areas around Pheasant Ridge before reaching Mount Airy. This event impacted businesses and residents in this region, which suffered structural damage and loss of power. Thankfully, no one was hurt significantly or killed. We may not be so lucky next time.

Emergency responders, including the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and the fire department, were involved in rescue and damage assessment efforts. The Red Cross provided assistance to those displaced by the storm and public safety personnel worked to clear roads and assess damage.

The scope of damage involved three of the four counties that night. We are the “four corners” of these counties (which is painted on the Water Tower in Town Center). An air siren mounted on the highest tower of our three water towers would be cost-effective and give significant warning to this region.

Protect this town and surrounding jurisdictions’ residents’ health, safety and welfare.

Email me at Hunter1061@yahoo.com if you agree and support this proposition. Thank you for considering this much-needed grant-funded device for this region.

— Joshua Marks, Mount Airy

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