It was two hours into a Takoma Park City Council meeting, and the mayor wasn’t tolerating interruptions.
“I just ask you to respect our panelists and the people that are here, and to not disrupt this meeting,” first-term Mayor Talisha Searcy said firmly during the 2023 exchange with Tom Gagliardo, an attorney who had — unprompted — shouted an opinion about a city planning matter.
When Gagliardo asked permission to speak, Searcy told him, “No, sir, you cannot,” noting that it wasn’t the public comment period. He complied, but with a parting shot: “Just don’t diss anybody else.”
Nobody knew then that, three years later, Gagliardo, 79, a former Takoma Park city attorney, would be running to unseat Searcy, 46 — and that decorum and civility would become a campaign issue after Searcy ordered an end to clapping and booing to retain order during another meeting last February.
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“Clap-gate,” Searcy jokingly calls the flap that Gagliardo has turned into a campaign issue ahead of the Nov. 3 election in the Montgomery County city of 17,000 that borders Washington. (Because the mayoral elections are nonpartisan, so there was no primary.)
Progressive, quirky Takoma Park, a town of old bungalows and mature trees nicknamed “The People’s Republic of Takoma Park” and “Granola Park,” has long charted a unique course in emphasizing citizen participation in government. It allows non-U.S. citizens and 16-year-olds to vote in city elections. The environmentally conscious citizens’ center is named for a former activist and mayor who once stood in front of a bulldozer to block a highway and helped make the city an official sanctuary for political refugees.
But free speech doesn’t mean applauding during council meetings or shouting down political rivals, says Searcy, a federal government health policy official and former city council member. She notes that even the sharply divided Congress doesn’t permit outbursts during committee hearings.
“One of the things that my opponent doesn’t necessarily understand is that asking you to comply with the rules of order does not mean that you’re taking away someone’s freedom of speech,” she said in an interview. “In meetings following the [February] meeting, there were residents that stated they don’t like to speak at council meetings because of the behavior.”
The February meeting was marked by applause, cursing and outbursts during discussion of the city’s rent stabilization laws. One man raised a middle finger at the lawmakers after a profanity-filled speech at the microphone.
“What I witnessed this evening was blatant disrespect of me in my role as the presiding officer [and] blatant disrespect for others in this room,” Searcy said at the meeting, carefully measuring her words and pausing occasionally to collect herself.
She lamented “an environment where disrespect breeds disrespect” and where “somebody feels empowered to flip us off.”
Terry Seamens, a former council member supporting Searcy, said Gagliardo has often attended council meetings with several others, and the group “just kind of heckled people or made comments, or guffaws or boos when people were talking, and the mayor tried to stop that.”
Gagliardo, a white-haired labor and employment lawyer, said in an interview that he supports orderly meetings, but “you either value public input, whether supportive or critical, or you don’t. I do. The incumbent doesn’t. That’s one reason why I’m running.”
Gagliardo, during a recent meet-and-greet session, sat in an armchair in a resident’s living room on a quiet, tree-lined street and told a dozen voters of his concerns with the clapping restriction in addition to a proposal endorsed by Searcy to study holding city elections every four years instead of every two.
Searcy says holding elections less frequently could save the city money and cut down on time lawmakers spend campaigning rather than legislating. Gagliardo says the change would make elected officials less accountable.
“You know, some people might say, ‘Well they’re not really that important,” Gagliardo said of the two issues, but added: “I think a lot of people are going to vote based on this.”
The volatile February meeting touched on a city-commissioned study examining possible changes to Takoma Park’s program limiting how much landlords can increase rents.
Rent control changes are sensitive topics in Takoma Park, where increasing affluence has brought higher housing costs and concerns that longtime renters, including members of large immigrant communities, could be priced out.
“Takoma Park is a diverse community. It’s got many single-family homes, but it also has many multifamily homes,” said Jim Douglas of Historic Takoma, a heritage preservation group. “It has a variety of income levels and certainly a variety of races and ethnicities.”
Searcy and Gagliardo both emphasize preserving that diversity. Their race can be seen as a competition to out-Takoma-Park each other by championing the progressive, multicultural values that have long defined a city known for farmers markets with an international flavor, and a colorful Fourth of July parade lampooning politicians (mostly Republicans) with whom it disagrees.
In campaign appearances, Gagliardo has taken aim at proposals backed by Searcy to explore rent control changes, including lengthening the amount of time — currently five years — landlords are exempt from rent increase rules after a new property opens.
“She wants to triple the length of time that new construction is exempt,” Gagliardo said. “I don’t.”
Searcy said she hasn’t settled on how long an exemption period should be. But she questions whether the five-year waiver for newly constructed units provides potential developers enough revenue to recoup their initial investment and encourages new construction. Montgomery County’s exemption, which Takoma Park is not bound by, is 23 years.
“I’ve said, ‘Hey, I don’t know yet,’” Searcy said. “I know five is too short.”
Searcy said her general leadership style is to seek consensus if possible and listen to opposing views.
While she said she doesn’t like name-calling in politics, she emphasizes that she can take it.
“I have thick skin. My first job was at a Waffle House,” she said. “I’ve heard and seen it all.”