Harford Democratic Committee chooses three nominees to fill District F vacancy on County Council

Jason Fontelieu, The Aegis, Bel Air, Md.
·3 min read

Mar. 30—The Harford County Democratic Central Committee has selected three candidates to submit to the Harford County Council for consideration to fill the vacancy in the District F council seat.

The candidates are: Stacy Stone, a civil engineer and one of the leaders of the 3P Protecting Perryman Peninsula Coalition; Kevin McKinney, retired Army Information Technology planner and vice president of the Harford County NAACP; and Wini Roche, former executive director of the Maryland Tourism Coalition and a founding member of Upper Chesapeake Bay Pride.

Roche previously ran for council president in 2022 and the District F council seat in 2018.

Stone, McKinney and Roche were interviewed by the committee at its Tuesday meeting, along with Lavy Mammen and Jim Nemeth, who were not ultimately chosen. Each committee member who voted — nine members took part, seven in-person and two virtually — voted for three of the five candidates to submit to the council. Stone received all nine votes, and Roche and McKinney each received seven.

The central committee chose three nominees to take over the vacancy left by County Council member Jacob Bennett, a Democrat who lost his seat in February after a Circuit Court judge ruled he could not serve on the council while employed as a teacher by Harford County Public Schools.

When council seats become vacant, the central committee of the party of the previous seatholder nominates three people for the council to choose from as a replacement. According to a news release from the central committee, the deadline for the council to choose a new member for District F is April 15.

Stone said she was happy and surprised to have received all nine votes and believes she was chosen due to her frequent attendance County Council meetings in the past year with the rest of the 3P coalition.

"It just really goes to show what a community organization can do," Stone said.

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McKinney said he was honored and humbled to have been chosen by the committee, and that despite Bennett's legal situation, "we must proceed and do the best we can for District F's citizens."

Heather Cantos, Bennett's legislative aide, addressed the committee prior to the candidate interviews and expressed her distress at having been left out of the process by the committee.

"I'm disappointed that as the person who has dedicated themselves to the people of District F by keeping our office open and running, handling [Bennett's] constituent affairs, meeting with various departments in the county and showing up to support the community that I have had no contact from the central committee," Cantos said.

Committee chair Henry Gibbons offered an apology to Cantos and said the committee would work to make sure a similar oversight would not happen again.

Cantos asked the committee to wait to submit a list of nominees to the council until after Bennett's hearing in the Maryland Supreme Court on April 4.

Gibbons then pointed out that there's no provision in the county charter providing for an alternative way to fill a council vacancy if the committee did not submit a list of nominees to the council.

"I don't even want to speculate on what the ramifications of going that route were," Gibbons said.