The Baltimore County Council will expand. Here’s what you need to know about the plans.

Baltimore County voters Tuesday the vast majority agree expand the County Council from seven to nine members, ending decades of debate over how big the council should be and how it could best represent an increasingly diverse county.

The county charter amendment capped what County Board Chairman Izzy Patoka has long called a “historic moment” that he campaigned for and worked tirelessly to achieve. Patoka regularly criticized the government body, which he said was “frozen in 1956” in terms of its composition.

Advice all male and almost all whitewith one black representative, Julian Jones, leading the district created about two decades ago to serve the county’s growing black community. Since the district established the board eight decades ago, Jones has been one of only two black representatives: Both he and former board member Ken Oliver, who served from 2002 to 2014, came from the same district. The district had only five female members, all of whom were white.

The two additional seats will not be on the ballot until November 2026. Here’s what you need to know:

1. The Council will have to deal with the cards

Typically, when a legislature changes policy lines, the process takes years and involves numerous public hearings. Not so with the Baltimore County Council. Members and their staff drew maps among themselves, dividing the county’s more than 850,000 residents into nine districts, each containing about 95,000 people, instead of the current 122,000 people in each district. Molasses was doing what he called “shuttle diplomacy” maintain bipartisan balance on the board, which now has four Democrats and three Republicans and is likely to have a 5-4 split, according to the new maps.

Councilman Wade Kah, Republican, added an amendment to the map. Many Democratic legislators and two Democratic council members complained both about the received cards and about the process of their creation. But Patoka has repeatedly said that without Republican support, the bill would not have passed, and that he could not have won their support without maps that preserved their representation. Cards stayed.

“Baltimore County voters supported not only historic changes to the council, but also redistricting reform,” said Republican Councilman David Marks, who represents Perry Hall. “This reaffirms our bipartisan bill and repudiates those partisan activists and state legislators who have been attacking us all summer.”

Marks said he shouldn’t expect those public hearings anytime soon. The council’s current priority is to name a name. interim district leader before Johnny Olszewski Jr., a Democrat who has held the seat since 2018, heads to Congress in January.

2. Available government funding

In the first month of his tenure, Olshevsky established public financing system in district elections to attract more diverse candidates. It’s unclear how much money will be available, but the state funding system is slated to be up and running by 2026, when two new seats are on the ballot.

“In 2026, people of color and women will have a great opportunity to win elected office in Baltimore County,” Patoka said. “With expansion and state funding, the County Council will be able to better reflect the demographics of Baltimore County.”

3. More than 2 places will be up for grabs.

In addition to the two additional seats, there may be other opportunities for interested board candidates. Patoka and Jones said they plan to run for county executive in 2026. Kakh resigns. Pat Young, a Democrat who represents Catonsville, said he is also interested in running for the county’s top office.

4. Make room for 2 new board members.

County officials calculated that two new council members would increase operating costs by approximately $1.4 million. Renovating the council office to accommodate new council members would cost $12 million over four years, based on a construction rate of $7,000 per square foot. There may be additional costs, but the board’s operations account for only a fraction of a percent of the district’s overall $2.7 billion budget.

5. Different candidates will not necessarily run or win.

Several white male council members currently serving have run against either a woman or a black candidate in the primary or general election and still won. Whether women or members of the district’s growing Latino, Indian or black community decide to run will depend on many factors.

Kathleen Bidell, a prominent real estate agent, planned to run for Kutch’s seat, representing the northern district; she refused when Del Nino Mangione announced that he would search position. Shafiik Hinton, a Middle River community activist who narrowly lost to Democratic Councilman Mike Ertel of Towson County, said he was disappointed that the proposed council expansion passed with what he considered flawed maps. Once voters see the final map, he predicts they will feel “woozed.”

He currently has no plans to run again unless the map changes. “You are not interested in entering a race that you know is highly likely to be entered.”