‘Team Rockville’ Slate Makes Early Announcement For 2013 City Elections

At a crowded Rockville pizza parlor Saturday, a slate of candidates that calls itself “Team Rockville” announced its plans to run for city offices in 2013.

Leading the slate is second-term Councilman Mark Pierzchala, who is running for mayor. The rest of Team Rockville are: Councilman Tom Moore, who is seeking re-election, and Julie Palakovich Carr, Beryl L. Feinberg and Virginia Onley, who also are running for council seats.

The candidates addressed supporters at a campaign kick-off event at Giuseppi’s Pizza in Rockville Town Center. Pierzchala said Rockville faced the challenges of a growing population, a shrinking federal sector, and the need to build up the city’s private sector.

“Team Rockville is about making decisions based on facts,” Pierzchala said. “It’s about honoring our city government. It’s about expressing a vision of where we want to go and why we want to go there. It’s about preserving the quality of life for Rockville and even thriving in difficult time.”

Why Team Rockville? Why Build a Slate?

Pierzchala, who ran for mayor in 2007, said that he, Moore and Onley, who ran for council in 2009 and 2011, came up with the idea to run as a slate.

“We are running as a team because it's the best way to get a governing majority. That's what it boils down to,” Moore said. “Since 2003, everybody has run individually. There haven't been any formal teams. There have been informal alliances, but it hasn't been effective.“

Onley has served on many city boards and commissions, including Rockville’s housing board and the Charter Review Commission. Onley said she’s passionate about running for office because she wants to move Rockville forward.

“I'm asking you to let me be your voice on the Rockville City Council,” Onley said during her speech.

Newcomer Palakovich Carr is a senior public policy associate at the American Institute of Biological Sciences, a nonprofit. She is on Rockville’s Environment Commission, was chairwoman of the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Committee and has served as vice-chair of the city services and budget work group for the Rockville Summit.

“I just want to continue giving back to the community,” said Palakovich Carr. Environmental issues would be one of her priorities if she were elected, she said.

Feinberg is the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer in the Department of General Services for Montgomery County Government. She previously worked for almost 15 years in the county’s Office of Management and Budget.

“Numbers sing to me, I'm not afraid of them,” Feinberg said. “I believe I can bring that budget expertise to looking at the city's budget.”

What's Up With The Early Announcement?

Rockville’s elections will be held on Nov. 5. The deadline for candidates to file is Sept. 6.

While candidate announcements are generally made closer to the filing date, Team Rockville says it has chosen to announce early because it wants to get more voters to the polls in November, said Max A. van Balgooy, the team’s interim campaign manager.

But that could be a challenge because less than 17 percent of the city’s registered voters participated in the prior election, a turnout Pierzchala says “stinks.”

“You can always knock on the same 6,000 doors because those are the people who vote, but this gives us an opportunity to knock on more doors, make more phone calls we couldn't make otherwise,” Pierzchala says.

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