Aloi Urges Supporters to Write Her In
Shelley Aloi isn’t taking “no” for an answer. The Republican mayoral candidate and former City of Frederick alderman lost to incumbent Randy McClement in the Sept. 12 primary, but vows to continue the fight with a write-in campaign.
“I am a better choice than the two gentlemen candidates, who are in lock step with one another,” Aloi said in an interview.
She regrets going the traditional party campaign route, preferring a nontraditional role, independent of partisan politics, she said. Now, she’s waging a formal write-in campaign, a campaign she says will address the issue of Frederick at a crossroads, a city in need of a strong leader who can articulate a vision for the city’s future in bold terms.
“I am asking people to vote for a movement,” Aloi said. “It’s not about me; it’s not about politics. It’s for a two-term limit in every office, and also for including those excluded in the primaries, those unaffiliated voters. Ultimately, it’s about what’s best for the city of Frederick.”
Aloi, who also ran for lieutenant governor with gubernatorial candidate long shot,
Republican Ronald George in 2014, filed to run for mayor at the 11th hour on the last day to file, July 3. That was a mistake, she said in an earlier interview. She had witnessed her popularity rise closer to the Sept. 12 primary, and realized that her message was getting some traction before she lost to McClement, who took 60 percent of the Republican vote, to her 40 percent. This was her second loss to McClement, who’s seeking a third term; she challenged him in 2013, along with former mayor Jeff Holtzinger and won 32 percent of the vote.
On election night, three supporters vowed to write her in on Nov. 7, she said, and it piqued her interest in continuing her campaign. In addition to making her campaign a platform for election reform, Aloi’s believes the city has to be “more fiscally responsible, transparent and truthful.”
She cited the current mayor’s negotiations with the city’s police union will cost the city an "unknown amount." Although, Aloi said she supports the city’s first responders and wants to “honor” them, the city put itself in a bad financial position by not asking union members to continue to pay a portion of their healthcare for themselves and their families upon retirement.
“The two men running for mayor guaranteed future retirees free healthcare and you get to pay for it. If you live in the City of Frederick, you will be paying 100% of the healthcare costs for some city employees who retire in 2030 … Union contracts historically included cost control measures for healthcare before the two men running for mayor made a different decision. We knew that healthcare costs were escalating dramatically and they ignored the trends,” Aloi’s website says.[Aloi4mayor.com]
Democratic nominee and current alderman Michael O’Connor makes no apologies for his support of McClement’s negotiations with police. “My support for police is clear and I don’t have any reservations. Every benefit police officers get is a benefit that is negotiated at the time with officers on the force,” O’Connor said.
To further prove her point about the city’s missteps in fiscal prudence, Aloi referenced the Hargett Farm. The city purchased the property along Butterfly Lane in western Frederick during Jeff Holtzinger’s administration [2005 – 2009] for $18 million in 2009. The 148-acre farm was appraised at $6.3 million in 2011.
According to Aloi’s calculations, the city will ultimately pay $30 million for raw land, or $200,000 per acre. Neither McClement nor O’Connor were in office when the land purchase was made, but Aloi said the city’s fallen down on its obligation to find an economically feasible use for the property. A consultant’s report estimated $98 million to build out the park, a number Aloi said is astronomical and wholly out of reach for the city. "The city's borrowing capacity for the Capital Improvements Projects is estimated to be only $10 to $12 million in 2021.
But that $98 million estimate is meaningless and irrelevant, according to O’Connor. He’s asked for a task force to explore cost effective uses for the property, and anticipates the bill will be far lower and more realistic.
Rounding up her examples of how the Republican and Democratic mayoral candidates have erred in ensuring the city’s transactions are “transparent and truthful,” Aloi points to the city’s downtown hotel public-private partnership deal with Plamondon Hospitality Partners. The city, she said, vowed not to use taxpayer money, yet has pledged $3 million for the purchase of the East Patrick Street property. She pointed out that the property has a value of nearly half that, according to the state’s tax assessment records.
Although she believes the hotel will be “an economic boon” for the city, she questions why the city would commit that amount of money to the project while saying no public money is involved in the project. “I know there’s not a direct correlation between market value and assessments, but who buys a property without doing a buy-side appraisal? Nobody does that,” Aloi said.
The city’s Director of Economic Development Richard Griffin said in a previous interview that nothing is carved in stone when it comes to the purchase price of the property and that the city’s mayor and board of aldermen must approve the sale price. The price was negotiated by Plamondon with the Randall Family, LLC, who owns the property at 200 E. Patrick St. The property is the former home of The Frederick News Post. Griffin said the Plamondons have a better track record than the City of Frederick in negotiating land prices, pointing to the purchase of the Hargett Farm.
Aloi’s declaration that her write-in campaign is now “official” didn’t appear to faze O’Connor. “It’s democracy … She feels she needs to do it, so she should do it. It won’t change the way we’re conducting our campaign, and we are not modifying our strategy in response,” O’Connor said.
As for her comment that he and McClement were indistinguishable, the two-term alderman acknowledged that he and the current mayor share some attributes, but disagreed with Aloi’s assessment. “Some things about us are the same, but I would hardly call us in lockstep,” he said. “I understand that’s the approach she needs to take, but it’s not true.”
McClement gave a brief and generic response to Aloi’s allegations about his fiscal mistakes, and lack of transparency, via his campaign spokesman, Dave Schmidt, but didn’t comment on her bid for mayor via a write-in campaign. “These were all questions brought up by the other candidate during the Primary, we addressed them during that election and I’m grateful that the voters chose to send me through to the General Election. That’s my focus now; earning the votes on Election Day that I need to continue serving the City of Frederick,” he said in a written statement. [printed as received]
