Janet S. Owens, a Millersville Democrat who became Anne Arundel County's first female county executive in 1998, announced her re-election bid to the cheers of 300 supporters at a volunteer firehouse in Odenton yesterday.
"Why am I running? Because we have in place the building blocks to make Anne Arundel County the premier county in the mid-Atlantic states," Owens said yesterday, a statement that brought most of those who attended the event, including many state and local elected officials and county employees, to their feet.
Owens, 58, appears poised to face one of two Republicans - Tom Angelis, 55, a schoolteacher from Davidsonville, or Phillip D. Bissett, 45, a former state delegate from Mayo - in the November general election. No one has challenged Owens for the Democratic Party nomination. The filing deadline is July 1.
Both GOP candidates say they are eager to take on the incumbent.
"I'm excited for the opportunity, after the primary, which I think I will win, to have an energetic campaign against Ms. Owens," said Angelis, a former District of Columbia police officer who was director of recreation and parks for 19 months under former County Executive John G. Gary.
Bissett, who was chosen by Anne Arundel GOP leaders to fill the seat left vacant by the suicide of Del. Aris Allen in 1991, has already challenged Owens to a public debate.
"I want a debate on the substantial issues of our county, without notes," Bissett, who worked as a lobbyist after his defeat in 1998, said Friday. "Then we can see who has the depth of knowledge."
Bissett briefly attended the Owens event but was asked to leave before the county executive delivered her speech.
"I was there to wish her well and congratulate her on her candidacy," Bissett said.
Cecelia Fabula, the county's community services director, said that when she asked Bissett to leave the gathering, he told her to "get your resume ready" because when he was elected county executive, she would have to look for a new job.
Bissett said he left "when they asked me to leave," but not before Owens' husband, Baltimore attorney David M. Sheehan, "verbally abused" him.
"Phil just seems to be looking for attention," Owens said later.
'A terrific job'
But for the Bissett interruption, the day was all about Owens, who stood smiling while some of her closest political allies praised her.
"I'm here like all the rest of you, to make sure that Janet Owens is county executive for the next four years," said Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes. "She's done a terrific job over the last four years, and for that reason she should be county executive for the next four years."
Howard County Executive James N. Robey and Baltimore County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger lauded Owens for speaking her mind at meetings of the "Big Seven," a group of government leaders from the state's seven largest jurisdictions who meet to discuss regional problems.
"She tells us what she wants, and sometimes she tells us where to go," Robey said.
Owens, who won a surprise victory in the 1998 primary election against County Council member Diane Evans and then went on to defeat Gary in the general election, is counting on the achievements of her first term to win her another.
In her speech and in campaign brochures strewn across banquet tables at the Odenton event, Owens promoted her administration's efforts to boost education spending, accelerate the local economy and preserve thousands of acres of farms and woodlands.
"Four years ago, I thought our county government was stuck in the past," she said. "Now, four years later, I know our county is on the move."
In her first campaign for county executive, Owens, an Anne Arundel native who grew up on a farm in South County, portrayed herself as a political newcomer who would focus on school repairs, land preservation and senior centers.
Gary was viewed by many teachers and parents as insensitive to education needs, as he feuded often with schools Superintendent Carol S. Parham and the school board.
In addition, the FBI questioned the Gary administration's role in a plan to reroute a public road to better serve a prominent developer's property on Bestgate Road near Annapolis.
No charges were filed in the case, but Owens used that controversy, and others, to take over the county executive's fourth-floor office suite at the Arundel Center in Annapolis.
Hard knocks
Since then, Owens, who said yesterday that she was politically naive when she took office, has suffered a few of her own hard knocks.
She has lost the support of some residents because of her role in a plan to build a Safeway supermarket in Deale. Her decision to back a plan to build an office park at the former David Taylor Research Center has also upset residents.
"I don't believe that she will walk away with the race," said Council member John J. Klocko III, a Crofton Republican, who added that voters could question whether Owens had lived up to her campaign goals. "I think some people will ask ... 'Is Janet Owens good enough?'"