If council members are deadlocked for two weeks, the person who is the sitting council president at the time becomes executive for two years — though that person’s identity won’t be known until the council’s organizational meeting on Dec. 3.
Confused? You should be.
But this may not come as a surprise: The candidates quietly — and in some cases, not so quietly — mobilizing to try to succeed Olszewski and Alsobrooks aren’t terribly well known to average voters.
That’s according to a poll conducted for Blended Public Affairs, an Annapolis-based firm headed by Alexandra Hughes, the former chief of staff to two Maryland House speakers. This is the maiden public poll of a new alliance between the firm and Donna Victoria, a Maryland-based Democratic pollster, who has just become a strategic partner at Blended Public Affairs.
“We started Blended based on a theory that impact and influence happen in a different way today than 20 years ago,” Hughes said. “Media, social media, grass-roots, coalition building and research drive the way people make decisions now more than ever. We are thrilled to add polling and qualitative research to our suite of services to give clients the best possible real-time information to impact their long-term strategic goals.”
Hughes’ firm already expanded earlier this year when she hired Dori Henry, a former top aide to Olszewski and other leading Maryland Democrats, as senior vice president.