Calvin Ball III
Calvin B. Ball III is an American politician who serves as the county executive of Howard County, Maryland. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the first African-American to hold this office. He previously served as a member of the Howard County Council from the 2nd district from 2006 to 2018.
Early life and education
Ball was born and raised in Catonsville, Maryland to father Calvin Ball Jr., a Vietnam War Air Force veteran, and Carolyn Ball, a computer assistant. He graduated from Woodlawn High School in 1993, and later attended Towson University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and religion in 1997, the University of Baltimore, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in legal and ethical studies in 1999, and Morgan State University, where he earned a Doctor of Education degree in 2008. Ball is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternities.Career
After graduating, Ball worked as a supervisor in the Consumer Protection Division of the Maryland Attorney General's office and as a part-time professor at the University of Phoenix.In October 2001, he announced his candidacy for the Howard County Council in the second district, seeking to succeed term-limited councilmember C. Vernon Grey. He lost the Democratic primary, placing second behind David A. Rakes by a margin of 355 votes out of 4,451 votes cast. Following his defeat, state delegate-elect Neil F. Quinter hired Ball as a legislative aide. He also worked as assistant education and urban studies professor at Morgan State University, as a revitalization coordinator and community organizer for the Oakland Mills Village Board, and as a firefighter and emergency medical technician for the county.
In January 2006, Ball announced that he would again run for the Howard County Council in District 2, challenging Rakes.
Howard County Council
In March 2006, after Rakes announced he would resign from the Howard County Council, Ball applied to serve out the remainder of his term. The Howard County Democratic Central Committee voted unanimously to nominate Ball to fill the vacancy on the Howard County Council. He was confirmed by the Howard County Council and sworn in on April 20, 2006. During his tenure, he gained a reputation as a social progressive. Ball was thrice elected as chair of the Howard County Council in 2006, 2010, and 2013, becoming the youngest person to ever hold this position.In 2010, Ball was named as the chair of the Maryland Sustainable Growth Commission's education subcommittee. In 2012, he started a statewide minority caucus within the Maryland Association of Counties. In 2013, Ball was appointed as the chair of the Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities.
Howard County Executive
Elections
;2018On November 9, 2017, Ball announced his candidacy for Howard County Executive, challenging incumbent county executive Allan H. Kittleman. During his campaign, he spoke on national and statewide political trends and ran on platform that included increasing school funding, protecting the environment, and diversifying the county tax base.
During the election campaign, Ball was outraised by Kittleman, with total spending on the race reaching $1 million by the end of October 2018, but was aided by the national environment favoring Democrats. He received endorsements from the Howard County Education Association, Progressive Maryland, and former Governor Martin O'Malley.
Pre-election polling showed a tight race between Ball and Kittleman, despite Kittleman's popularity and uncontroversial tenure. Ball narrowly defeated Kittleman in the general election on November 7, 2018, receiving 52.8 percent of the vote.
;2022
On June 1, 2021, Ball announced that he would seek a second term as county executive in 2022. During the election campaign, he outraised Republican challenger and former county executive Allan H. Kittleman, with total spending on the race reaching $1.3 million by the end of October 2022.
In June 2021, state delegate Robert Flanagan filed a public records request for emails exchanged by Ball, other county employees, and a lobbyist. The county identified 748 emails, but declined to release 497 of them, saying that doing so would reveal internal deliberations or information protected by attorney-client privilege. Flanagan filed a lawsuit in August 2021 against Ball, seeking the full release of the emails, arguing that they were withheld without being reviewed by the county's Office of Law. By the end of 2021, the county released nearly every email to Flanagan, who continued the lawsuit until it was dismissed in July 2022 after the county acknowledged that it had violated the state's Public Information Act and Open Meetings Act, and agreed to pay the maximum penalties. Kittleman subsequently ran ads highlighting the lawsuit, which Ball called a "Donald Trump, Dan Cox-style political stunt".
Ball defeated former county executive Kittleman in the general election in November 2022, receiving 59 percent of the vote.
Tenure
Ball was sworn in as the new County Executive on December 3, 2018, becoming the county's first African-American county executive. During his first term in office, Ball focused on the issues of crime, climate change, and education.In January 2019, Ball was named as treasurer for the Maryland Association of Counties. In January 2023, he was elected as the organization's president.
In September 2019, the Howard County Ethics Commission initiated an investigation into allegations that Ball illegally used the county seal in a video where he explains his commitment to the Democratic Party. The alleged infractions did not lead to a criminal prosecution because they were reported outside of the county's statute of limitations.
Political positions
COVID-19 pandemic
In early March 2020, in preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic, Ball suspended all out-of-state travel for county employees and participated in a tabletop exercises on how to handle COVID-19. On March 15, 2020, Ball announced that Howard County had recorded its first case of COVID-19. On the same day, he declared a state of emergency and ordered the closing of all commercial gathering places in the county until further notice. He soon ordered the closing of all non-emergency county buildings. In April 2020, Ball released a plan for handling coronavirus patient surges at local hospitals amid an increase in the spread of COVID-19 cases in the county, which included expanding hospital capacities and streamlining vital equipment purchases. He also signed an executive order to provide essential employees with one-time discretionary bonuses. In May 2020, Ball signed the Rental Protection and Stability Act, which prevented landlords from raising rents during the COVID-19 pandemic, and allocated $500,000 toward food assistance and rental relief.In May 2020, Ball cautioned against lifting coronavirus pandemic restrictions, saying that the county would not be "returning to normal any time that is immediate". The following day, after Governor Larry Hogan announced the state would begin its gradual reopening, Ball announced a reopening plan for the county, which included the termination of the countywide stay-at-home order. On May 20, he signed onto a letter expressing concern about the consequences of Hogan's partial reopening and asking for guidance from the administration as they decided how to proceed. The county entered its first stage of reopening on May 26, which included relaxed capacity restrictions on businesses and religious institutions, and entered Phase 2 on June 5.
From June to December 2020, Ball distributed $56.8 million in funding from the CARES Act toward the county services and various nonprofits throughout the county, especially those focused on child care, as well as $2.5 million in economic relief toward businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. During his state of the county address in October 2020, Ball said the county would launch a government-wide serology effort to determine if county employees had any COVID-19 antibodies. In November 2020, amid a spike in cases in Howard County, Ball announced new restrictions on indoor and outdoor gatherings.
In November 2020, Ball formed a 50-member HoCo RISE Collaborative, which included five workgroups tasked with producing a report on steps the county should take in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The report was finalized and released in March 2021, which included recommendations relating to the county's rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
In March 2021, Ball criticized Governor Larry Hogan for not notifying county executives in advance of his announcement that the state would be lifting most of its COVID-19 restrictions, but later said that the county would adopt the governor's order. In April 2021, he opened the county's first mass vaccination clinic at the Mall in Columbia and lifted the county's outdoor mask mandate and restaurant capacity restrictions. He declined to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the county's employees, and in August 2021 reopened all government buildings, but kept mask and social distancing mandates in place for unvaccinated individuals. The mask mandate was expanded to all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, less than two weeks later. In September 2021, Ball began distributing $63.2 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 toward various county programs and services.
In December 2021, Ball signed an executive order re-instating the county's indoor mask mandate following a surge in COVID-19 cases. In February 2022, he signed another executive order lifting the county's mask mandate.
Crime and policing
During his first term as county executive, Howard County experienced an overall decrease in crime, including a 40 percent reduction in violent crimes, in addition to the largest increase in police hiring in the county in 15 years.In his 2019 budget, Ball sought to phase out the police's aviation program, citing the county's $108 million deficit. The program was replaced by a surveillance drone program in 2020.
In June 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests, Ball said the county would be "revisiting" its police body camera pilot program. In his 2021 budget proposal, he allocated $3.2 million toward fully implementing the pilot program, which was later reallocated to the Howard County Public School System, delaying its implementation for a year. In his 2022 budget proposal, he included $1.6 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 toward implementing the program by October.
In April 2021, Ball said he supported proposed reforms to the county's school resource officer program, which included the removal of officers from county middle schools and requiring police to wear body cameras. In October 2021, he proposed legislation to create a county Police Accountability Board to handle complaints about police misconduct.