Tom Hucker

First Snow of 2012

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:17:01 +0000

It’s not even a month into winter and already some people are saying “enough.”

For Jamaican transplant Hugh Chambers, the weather is too much.

“I hate this weather,” Chambers said. “It’s too cold for me. I’m from a tropical country so that’s not my cup of tea.”

The cold temperatures were doing more than causing discomfort. Wednesday two Metro rails cracked, plunging the a.m. commute into chaos for riders on the Red, Blue and Yellow lines.

Both cracks were fixed, but not before causing a troublesome trip into work.

Wednesday was not as cold and there were no snowstorms in sight. The temperatures were near 32 degrees and the core of the cold air was moving off. By Friday and Saturday, temperatures are expected to be back in the 50s.

For some, the weather fluctuations have ominous implications.

“[The weather] is unpredictable,” said Maryland Delegate Tom Hucker. “We have to do more about climate change because climate change brings unpredictable weather.”

Unseasonably frosty temperatures are also threatening business in South Florida where farmers are scrambling to cover crops.

“To go from 80 degrees down to 20 degrees in about three days is going to be a shock,” said citrus farmer Justin Sorrells.

But Florida farmers do have encouraging news. Temperatures are expected to hit the 70s on Friday.

Others are embracing the cold weather. A Nuts 4 Nuts vendor reported seeing an uptick in sales of hot peanuts and cashews and at the outdoor ice rink–a business made for cold weather–people were all smiles.

“It’s been very chilly but it hasn’t stopped us,” said Beth Rosen who was visiting Silver Spring. “We’ve enjoyed exploring downtown ice skating. It feels like winter.”

Thank You

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:43:49 +0000

Thanks to Mary Ellen Flynn and Elliott Andalman for opening up their beautiful new office for our fundraiser! And thanks to Ike Leggett, Herman Taylor, and everyone who attended and contributed!

Check out the photos from Ed Kimmel here.

Proven Progressive Leadership

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 03:45:19 +0000

As founding director of Progressive Maryland, the state’s largest grassroots advocacy group, I know how to get results concerning your most pressing issues, like protecting the environment.

Ready to Fight for You

admin — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 06:46:09 +0000

With your support, I’ve fought for universal pre-kindergarten, living wage jobs, strong environmental protections, quality and affordable health care for all, sustainable energy policy, tax fairness, and top quality public transportation.

Protecting Maryland’s Children

admin — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 06:46:59 +0000

Tom has been protecting Maryland’s children by helping Maryland to provide universal Pre-k for all children, and fighting for the environment.

Effective Teamwork

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 06:47:58 +0000

Tom has been protecting Maryland’s children by helping Maryland to provide universal Pre-k for all children, and fighting for the environment.

Maryland State Delegate Tom Hucker joins Foundation Board of Trustees

admin — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:39:08 +0000

Republished from Montgomery Parks Foundation

State Delegate Tom Hucker joins Montgomery Parks Foundation Board of Trustees

The Montgomery Parks Foundation Board of Trustees elected Tom Hucker at their September meeting. His appointment was approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board on Thursday, October 20, 2011.

Mr. Hucker has been a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing District 20 since 2007. He serves as a Member of the Economic Matters Committee and the Bi-County Agency Committee and is the Chair of the Joint Committee on Federal Relations. “Montgomery County’s parks are one of the finest assets of our community. I’m honored to be chosen to work with so many experienced leaders to make our parks system the best it can be,” Tom Hucker comments.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome Tom Hucker, a dedicated public servant and respected progressive political leader, to the Foundation’s Board”, says Joseph Isaacs, President of the Montgomery Parks Foundation Board of Trustees, “ Tom brings not only the capacity for significant outreach to park supporters, but also an appreciation of the park system’s needs and challenges from his service on the Environmental Matters Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates and as a member of the Friends of Sligo Creek”.

Tom Hucker was born in St. Louis, Missouri and was the Executive Director and Founder of Progressive Maryland. In addition to his new role as a Trustee for the Montgomery Parks Foundation, Mr. Hucker is a Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); National Organization for Women (NOW), Equality Maryland, Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce and Friends of Sligo Creek. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Maryland-India Business Roundtable, USAction, Purple Line Now; and Progressive States Network.

The Montgomery Parks Foundation, a 501c3 charitable organization, is a champion for M-NCPPC Montgomery Parks, promoting the values and benefits of the park system to Montgomery County residents and policy-makers.

The Foundation provides opportunities for county residents and businesses to support Montgomery Parks as members, donors, sponsors, and advocates, and actively seeks individual donations, sponsorships, legacy gifts, and endowments to support park operations, development and maintenance.

Md. lawmakers plead to Congress for mercy

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:48:35 +0000

Republished from the Washington Examiner

Maryland state lawmakers say members of Congress are pointing a “double-barreled shotgun” at their state by threatening not to raise the debt ceiling.

“It is possible no state would be hit as hard as Maryland by a failure to raise the debt ceiling,” said Sen. Jennie Forehand, D-Rockville, as Maryland faces a possible credit rating downgrade dependent on how Congress handles the federal debt ceiling.

Forehand and Del. Tom Hucker, the co-chairmen of Maryland’s federal relations committee, implored the state’s congressional delegation on Thursday to vote for an increase in the debt ceiling without the preconditions of spending cuts.

“Political brinksmanship” threatens Maryland and the “millions of dollars in critical funding support” already “assigned to improve our schools, repair our crumbling roads and bridges, expand our overburdened mass transit systems, and clean the Chesapeake Bay,” the committee wrote in a letter to their representatives.

“Failure to raise the debt ceiling would undermine decades of fiscal discipline and unjustly punish all Marylanders,” said Hucker, D- Silver Spring.

Chicken drug pulled from market amid arsenic worries

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:04:52 +0000

Republished from the Washington Post

By John Wagner

Del. Tom Hucker (D-Montgomery) on the opening day of the 2011 legislative session. (Photo by Mark Gail/The Washington Post)

Some Maryland lawmakers sought to seize the moment Wednesday as word spread that a drug given to chickens for decades is being pulled off the marketafter federal scientists found low levels of a potentially carcinogenic form of arsenic in the livers of the animals.

Del. Tom Hucker (D-Montgomery), who has tried for two years to ban such products in Maryland, applauded the move by a Pfizer subsidiary to suspend sales of the drug roxarsone — but said it wasn’t enough.

“It’s high time that federal and state lawmakers do the right thing and permanently ban deadly chemicals like roxarsone and arsenic to protect our environment and our families,” he said in a statement, in which he blamed the failure of such a bill in his state “on lobbyists from Maryland’s powerful poultry industry.”

Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George’s), who has unsuccessfully championed similar legislation in his chamber, also weighed in with a news release about the company’s decision, which followed a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study of the drug, which has been given to chickens since the 1940s to protect them from a parasitic disease and help them gain weight.

“Not only have I been concerned about people ingesting arsenic through chicken meat, but I have been equally concerned about the arsenic entering the Chesapeake Bay and our wells, streams via chicken waste and farm run-off,” Pinsky said, calling the drug “poison.”

Pinsky also noted in his statement that, in the wake of the study, FDA officials have “stressed that there is no imminent health risk from eating the liver of chickens who ingested arsenic in their feed.” But, Pinsky said: “Chronic exposure to arsenic has been shown to increase the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological deficits and other health problems.”

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D), who is gearing up to run for governor in 2014, did not let the moment pass either.

In a statement later Wednesday afternoon, Gansler recounted that in 2008, he led a group of attorneys general across the country who called upon the FDA to ban the use of roxarsone and other arsenic additives in poultry feed.

“I have been fighting to bring this issue to the attention of state and federal regulators for years,” Gansler said, “and I am deeply gratified that the FDA has now found a way to work with industry to take arsenic additives in poultry feed off the market.”

Thousands of cars drive past stopped school buses

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:45:29 +0000

Republished from the Washington Examiner

Thousands of drivers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have been ignoring stopped school buses, according to a survey by the Maryland State Department of Education.More than 1,600 drivers bypassed stopped school buses in Montgomery County on a single day in February, for the second-highest in the state, according to the survey.

In Prince George’s County, only 745 drivers ignored the buses as they picked up or dropped off students, but 136 cars passed a stopped bus on the door side, the highest in the state.

Statewide, there were 7,028 violations. Large, populous counties saw the most violations, with Baltimore County topping the state with 1,723.

Stop arms swing out from buses and lights flash when they pick up or drop off students. It is illegal to pass a school bus, no matter what side of the street the bus is on. The Maryland State Department of Education sponsored the survey to look at how often the law is violated.

“There was mounting concern about violations. A number of bus drivers and local citizens had mentioned that, and actually there’s a national movement to look at this sort of thing,” said Bill Reinhard, spokesman for the state Department of Education. “I think Maryland was one of the first to really get involved and do something like this.”

Maryland Del. Tom Hucker, D-Silver Spring, is sponsoring a bill that would place monitoring cameras on county school buses to record motor vehicle violations.

“We knew it was a very rampant problem, and that’s why we put the bill in, but this only makes a stronger case for the bill and the need for the General Assembly to address the problem,” Hucker said.

Hucker said he thinks the committee is likely to pass a measure to improve school bus safety, because he and Del. Patrick Hogan, R-Frederick, have introduced similar legislation.

Hucker said the public might be concerned about placing cameras on school buses, but that people “might feel differently if their child was hit by a driver passing a school bus.”

“There’s always a lot of concern about expanding cameras and there’s some talk of doing a pilot program in one or two counties, and I certainly hope they’ll do it in Montgomery County.”

The state Education Department coordinated the survey with school transportation directors in all 23 counties and Baltimore City. More than 4,000 school bus drivers took part in the survey, representing 65 percent of school bus drivers.