Robert and I told our friends, PaCy (Paul and Lucy Steinberg), over what may have been a too-strong cup of coffee at the bakery in Greenspring Atrium that we wanted to know more about the neighboring county, Howard’s, politics as we consider making the area our new home. Lucy barely missed a beat as she put down her cup and said, “You have to talk to Guy Guzzone.” I repeated his name back to her, relishing its delightful, Italian-English prosody as I said I’d call his office the next day. I did some research on Guzzone and found that he’s a leading figure in HoCo’s government, and I doubted I’d get an audience with this in-demand figure.
I sent him a Facebook message asking for an hour of his time.
“Does nine o’clock Tuesday work?” he replied immediately. Even with the digital distance, his guileless amiability struck me.
As Marylanders seem fond of saying, I’ve noticed, I thought, “Do what now?” But…but…you’re local Democratic political royalty, and I’m just little ol’ Colleen Morgenthau from Flushing, Queens, originally, well, until my parents…oh, wait–Guy Guzzone! Get it together, Colleen,” I thought! I used the emotionless remove of online communication to feign poise.
I fumbled a gushing, exclamation-point-heavy, affirmative reply. Two days later, I met him at his simple yet stately and neatly-ordered office in Annapolis where he goes about enacting public policy as the State Senator representing Maryland’s District 13 in the area’s bicameral legislature. His constituents make up a hefty portion of HoCo’s population.
Entrees–Into an Office and Politics
His office door was open, and Guzzone rose from his mahogany desk as I entered. Even in heels–granted, very squat old-lady heels–I was looking up at him, and I figured he was easily six-foot-three-inches. He greeted me with a big smile and a firm but un-aggressive handshake. His friendly eyes and unusually innocent smile made for an easy warmth that put me at ease. He asked me to please have a seat. He sat back behind his desk and we chatted.
In what Lucy had told me was his self-effacing way, he said there was nothing glamorous about him. Geniune humility works for Guzzone, believe me. He has a boyish charm–big, dark eyes and a winning smile–that the years in local politics, which I assume have been brutal at times, have failed to extinguish. Based on his voting record, what we talked about, and the candid vibe he has about him, I was confident of something right off the bat: that Guzzone has a genuine desire to manifest the Democratic party’s ideals of equity, inclusion, economic fairness, and social justice within Howard County’s founding framework of civic engagement, a diverse and cooperative community, and smart growth. His loose hair and relaxed body language fit with what struck me as an effortless, unpretentious ability to join with an interlocutor to reach an understanding.
I thought of what Howard County Council member Calvin Ball told me about his experience working with Guzzone over the years: “As someone who is an educator, environmentalist, advocate for those who need a voice, and most importantly a dad, I greatly enjoy working with him for our future.”
Hunger and Hope
“I used to listen to the stories of my father. He grew up in pretty much abject poverty in Baltimore City at the height of The Depression. That’s when I thought, ‘Life should never be that way for anybody,'” Guzzone said of the forces that shaped his political vision. His father worked at Bethlehem Steel, seeing his five siblings through high school. Clearly, that tenacity, as well, inspired Guzzone’s political ambitions.
Another formative force in a young Guzzone’s life was the sixth-grade teacher who recognized a spark in him, despite his painful shyness. She made Guzzone memorize The Gettysburg Address and perform it in front of the school. He says he still remembers the feeling of pride and confidence that filled him as he descended the stage and thought, “Wow–I just did something.”
He went on to get two Bachelor’s degrees, one in government and the other in economics, and then a Master’s in public management at the University of Maryland at College Park. Next, he was the legislative assistant for Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Fl.). Upon meeting his political mentor, Shane Pendergrass, thereafter, and after an unsuccessful bid for a Baltimore County Council seat in 1990, Guzzone moved to Howard County.
“Shane told me that if I really wanted to work in Howard County government, I needed to move here. Obviously, I loved it and stayed,” he said. Soon after, the perennial Howard County issues of smart growth and conscious development took on acute importance with the legendary Phisteria bacteria outbreak in that afflicted the Chesapeake Bay. Probably uncoincidentally, Guzzone went on to be the Director of Sierra Club Maryland before he refocused on his HoCo legislative interests.
Compensatory Concerns
Guzzone told me that if I were to ask someone what his main legislative concerns were, they’d say issues that affect the differently-abled community and access to behavioral/mental health care, and treatments for drug and alcohol addiction. In what I came to see in just an hour-long conversation as Guzzone’s ability to immediately look to real-world solutions after identifying abstract ideas, he said he specifically aimed to get people care as close to their homes as possible. And, he added, even more specifically, his policy emphasis had been on fair compensation for care providers.
“If you want to get things done, you have to have the funds to do so,” Guzzone noted with a confident aplomb.
“He’s fought hard to secure funding for individuals with developmental disabilities, local projects here in Howard County and much, much more,” said Del. Vanessa Atterbeary, who’s worked closely with Guzzone for four years on his legislative “team,” which also includes Del. Pendergrass and Del. Frank Turner. Atterbeary said Guzzone had been a good friend in addition to a mentor to her. I picked up on a nurturing vibe, myself, a recognition of the sacred gift of each person he comes across by Guzzone, too.
HoCo Home?
Guzzone’s easygoing demeanor emboldened me, and I challenged him to tell me why Robert, Moses–our dachshund-boxer mix–and I should make Howard County our home.
“Geography, how it’s situated in between Baltimore and Washington. D.C.,” he said. “James Rouse’s vision of an all-inclusive society,” came his second addition to the list.
Political leaders and financial investors historically have recognized the area’s growth, and their literal and figurative investment in it means that it’s home to “great services,” he said.
Sold! I should probably not sign a lease without consulting Robert, however. Especially because he helped me get control of my spending.
Fractious and Formative
Development and funding for education are two major policy areas that have shaped the county’s contemporary political landscape, Guzzone said, and by extension, the county writ large.
And: An interview with Steve Bannon on SYRW about how he gets that glowing skin.
“Throw into the middle of that the discussion of affordable housing,” Guzzone added, noting that securing reasonably-priced places for people live is an integral part of fostering an all-inclusive community–the kind Howard County aims to be. Any such discussion, he added, needed to take into account rising home prices. While I felt my brow furrow into a consternated wrinkle at this, I could tell Guzzone enjoyed the challenge of solving policy equations. Let’s be honest, diary–he’s obviously pretty good at it. He’s been a key player in Howard County politics since the 1990s, after all!
I was right, it turns out, about Guzzone’s love of hammering out policy, which he confirmed with a purposeful nod of his head. Still, he added, from time to time he asks himself why he’s doing this, a career–at this point, living a life, really–in politics. Anyone with “a heart and soul” would ask themselves the same question, Guzzone said, and even as a political neophyte, I could offer confirmation with certainty.
“It’s challenging. Don’t get me wrong, you get to work on a lot of interesting things, and it’s very rewarding. But I don’t think people realize the level of personal drain,” Guzzone said to me, looking out his office window for a moment.
In 1998, his first year as an elected official, the development of what’s now the Maple Lawn area of HoCo came to the fore of local politics, and Guzzone was right in the thick of it. He said he would take walks in the woods from time to time in those days to reflect on why he was in politics and if he wanted to continue to be. HoCo-ers, it turns out, have strong feelings about development. They’re also not shy about making their feelings known to their representatives. This is a good thing, noted Guzzone. But even as he expected to be blamed and held personally accountable for so much of what happened in the early Maple Lawn days and in struggles over related legislative issues, he didn’t foresee the “absolute hate and vitriol” that he’d be the target of because of them.
Pride and Non-Prejudice
Guzzone is a true progressive Democrat, and thus he takes the most pride in formulating and enacting policy that supports and validates minority communities, whether those be gender-and-sexuality-spectrum ones or health and wellness-based ones.
“The things I’m most proud of having accomplished in politics are Keep the Door Open, which is the largest funding bill for community-based mental health services. I was instrumental in getting the Head Start center built in Owen Brown. I got the food bank funded for the Community Action Council. And, though I wasn’t the lead on it, I was pretty engaged in whipping, if you will–or counting votes–on the marriage equality bill–that was huge, huge, huge.”
As a dyed-in-the-humanely-sourced–wool progressive Democrat myself, I was deeply moved to hear all of this, Diary. Not only that, but I couldn’t help but be impressed with Guzzone’s matter-of-fact, humble confidence utterly refreshing. And the ease with which he was able to list his proudest accomplishments off the cuff told me that he’d thought about this carefully and often.
The serious–but not grave–look Guzzone had talked about these issues reassured me, frankly, that the progressive cause in HoCo would not just survive, but thrive under his watchful, paternal eye. An extended silence, napped me out of my Democratic fangirl, as I’ve heard the kids say, reverie. Still, before I leftn Guzzone’s office, I thanked him for his time and for allowing me a glimpse into why he’d risen to the highest ranks of political office in the state.
Two Sides of the Same Coin?
As I walked to my car in a parking lot near the Senate and House buildings in the midday quiet of downtown Annapolis a balmy, spring breeze–slightly damp with what I hear becomes rather intense humidity in the summer–whispered around me. I stopped and looked back toward Guzzone’s office. My talk with Guzzone was free of bitter complaints or resentful accusations that I assumed, before we spoke, a seasoned legislator like him might be prone to. Even the most amateur political watcher, like me, can see the endless blaming, finger-pointing, and vilification of politicians by the media and the public must be difficult to take, at best, and deeply damaging at worst to those, like Guzzone, who are on the receiving end of it. What if, I wondered, I had misinterpreted what I identified as his heartfelt affability and humility. Maybe what I picked up on was the sensitive boy who faced a lot of challenges growing up, who wanted to turn those into a career in public service, and who felt wounded and fatigued by decades of being misunderstood and vilified by the very people he wanted to help.
My first peek into HoCo politics through this hour with Guzzone showed me that HoCo politics can, at times, be rife with down-and-dirty battles full of “acrimony and animus. But, as I drove from Annapolis back to the trailer park in Laurel where Robert and I had our RV set up, I chose to continue to see HoCo politics, and Guy, as content in regards to what had taken place politically in the state and his role in it, confident about what’s to come, and even instilled with lasting joy by a lifetime of service to his community.
I also remembered the smile on Guzzone’s face and the cheer in his voice when he said to me, and I recalled almost to the rhythm of the left turn signal clicking while I turned out of the parking lot: “Somebody’s gotta have the guts to take the heat to try to come up with the best policy possible, and I’m willing to do that. It seems worth it to me.”
If I weren’t already enamored enough with Guzzone, he took on a special place in my heart by telling me his favorite ice cream flavor was dark chocolate! Honestly, the day Robert told me he had never liked chocolate much–preferring vanilla over it, to boot!–I was torn between calling a divorce lawyer or a psychiatrist!
If we end up moving to HoCo, I know I can always count on Guzzone–or Guy, as he insisted I call him–for sound policy and to share a bowl of cocoa-based deliciousness.
–Colleen Morgenthau
Thanks for reading! Check back with us each here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. They want to take you along with them, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.