Politics & Government

Francis is a Candidate for City Council

The first-time candidate pledges spending cuts and budget scrutiny.

Les Francis, a former dean at Montgomery College making his first run for public office, is a candidate for Rockville City Council.

Under a slogan of “Less taxes … Less government … Les Francis for Rockville City Council,” Francis’s campaign website casts him as a fiscal conservative and budget hawk. He lists his top three campaign issues as the city’s budget and fiscal transparency, reduction of city taxes and the “elimination of redundancy and waste in delivery of city services.”

The city holds nonpartisan elections in odd-numbered years for the four seats on the City Council and for mayor. This year’s election will take place Nov. 8. Francis is one of eight candidates running for the council.

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Francis notes on his website that an independent study of RedGate Golf Course by the National Golf Foundation found that Rockville that the consultant had ever seen.

Francis wants to turn the course “into a permanent, non-developable [sic], green space.

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“Otherwise it will cost taxpayers more than $700,000 this year alone,” he writes on his campaign website.

“There is a need to right-size the city government, and to freeze open positions and consulting contracts,” Francis writes. “The City of Frederick—a city of comparable size to Rockville— runs most of its city departments and agencies with fewer than 50 percent of the employees.”

Francis also calls for the city to follow Gaithersburg’s lead and stop borrowing. He plans to reduce Rockville’s operating budget by 10 to 20 percent over the next two years, he writes.

He also calls for the city to protect its Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, which seeks to ensure that transportation infrastructure, public schools, fire and emergency service and water and sewer service can sufficiently handle the impact of new development. He calls for scrapping , which he calls “seriously flawed” and “unlikely to produce additional revenue for the city at an additional high level of cost to taxpayers.”

A resident of Rockville’s West End, Francis has worked as an accountant in the public and private sector, as a financial consultant and as a college professor and administrator.

He is a member of the West End Citizen’s Association, the AARP, the National Rifle Association, Defend Life, the Justice and Advocacy Council of Montgomery County, Help Save Maryland and Americans for Prosperity—Montgomery County. He also has served as a precinct captain for the O’Malley-Brown campaign.

Click here to view Francis’s platform statement and other statements by all candidates for mayor and council on the city’s YouTube channel.


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