By Stacey Sauter

April 22, 2025

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I come to you not with outrage, but with urgency—and with a deep respect and love for this county we all call home. I’m a fifth-generation native of Montgomery County and a tenth-generation native of Maryland. I have the ability to zoom in and out on our rich history. I can state unequivocally that Montgomery County has always made me proud of its excellence, diversity, and opportunity. But it’s as clear to me as ever before that we’re at a tipping point. The signs of a system under stress are all around us.

Wages can’t keep up with the cost of living, and long-time residents are being squeezed. Hard. And I’m one of them. Over the past three years my costs increased $1,000 per month in property taxes, insurance and utilities alone. This is before groceries or gas.  My income didn’t go up. But I’m $12,000 poorer each year. And now you want to raise property taxes again?

Another sign of stress is our once revered school system. Not anymore. Teachers are burned out and too many students are falling behind. But yet again you want higher taxes for more public education funding for failing results? That might be easier to accept if we had actual transparency to conclude that we’re getting our money’s worth. But so far, we can’t quite tell what you did with the money from the last three property tax increases.

And then, public safety feels uncertain. Whether it’s the rise in property crimes, carjackings, or just a growing sense that something’s off—people feel it. My understanding is that the Police department is down approximately 128 patrol staff. Which decreases response times and increases criminal confidence.

These aren’t isolated concerns—they’re connected. The one thing, the one certain thing that Montgomery County always had going for it was stability. We could bank on it. But the signs of stress that we’re seeing are symptoms of a system that has lost balance. We have too many people in the cart, not enough pulling it—and the wheels are starting to wobble. MOCO’s economy stagnated well before federal layoffs. Large companies left, and others don’t want to start or grow their businesses here due to the lack of stability.

 Tipping points don’t come with sirens. They come when people quietly lose confidence. When they stop showing up. When they start giving up. When they stop speaking up. And when they leave. We cannot allow that here. We need common sense to prevail. We need each of you to realize that raising property taxes again at such a sensitive time may be the exact tipping point where Montgomery County never, ever recovers to what made it so special to begin with.

We need a Council that listens—not just to advocates and insiders, but to the residents who are quietly slipping through the cracks. We can no longer respond gullibly to your special interests, pet projects, and cascading unmet human needs. We can no longer accept that every crisis justifies every cost, or that Montgomery County alone must carry the weight of the world. Like I said, tipping points don’t come with sirens. They come with quiet exits. With empty storefronts.

I stand ready to work with anyone in this room—elected or not—who shares the goal of keeping taxes in check. Montgomery County still has everything it needs to succeed. But only if we’re bold AND honest about where we are and where we need to go. Which starts with not passing yet another property tax increase. Thank you.

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Stacey Sauter is a former candidate for Delegate (LD15) and a current member of the MCGOP Executive Committee.