The Montgomery County Council today unanimously elected Council Member Sidney Katz as president and Council Member Tom Hucker as vice president of the Council. They will serve one-year terms as officers of the Council.
“I will spend the next year continuing to work with businesses located here, and those that should locate here, so we can expand and strengthen our economy,” said Katz. “A growing economy is the foundation upon which we can all prosper. As we work to increase our tax base, we must seize every opportunity to demonstrate that we are a great place to do business, that we are welcoming, that our regulations and requirements are no more onerous than those in surrounding jurisdictions and that we are responsive to the criticism we hear.”
According to a press release:
Katz serves as chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee and as a member of the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee. He represents District 3, which includes Derwood, Gaithersburg, Leisure World, North Potomac, Potomac, Rockville, Washington Grove and parts of Aspen Hill.
Katz has served on the Mental Health Court Planning and Implementation Task Force, which led to the creation of a Mental Health Problem Solving Court in Montgomery County’s District and Circuit Courts. Katz also has served as chair of the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, whose mission is to reduce domestic violence and create a safe community for families to live free of abuse.
Katz was elected to the Council in 2014 and started his career in public service on the Gaithersburg Planning Commission. He also served on the Gaithersburg City Council and as the mayor of Gaithersburg for 16 years.
As a lifelong resident of Gaithersburg, Katz is well known as the former owner of Wolfson’s Department Store, which was a retail store started by his grandparents in 1918 in Olde Town. The store was continuously operated by the family until 2013.
Hucker was elected as Council vice president. He serves as chair of the Council’s Transportation and Environment Committee and as a member of the Public Safety Committee. Hucker was elected to the Council in 2014 and represents District 5, which includes the southeast and eastern portion of the County generally surrounding U.S. Route 29, including Briggs Chaney, Burnt Mills, Burtonsville, Calverton, Cloverly, Colesville, Fairland, Four Corners, Hillandale, Lyttonsville, Silver Spring, Takoma Park and White Oak.
Hucker’s career has focused on helping people make government more responsive and effective. Before his service on the Council, Hucker was a member of the Maryland General Assembly from 2006 to 2014. He also founded Progressive Maryland and currently serves as a board member of the Progressive States Network and as a consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Read the full press release for more information.
