Fitzwater created the transition team in December, led by co-chairs Toni Bowie, founder and managing partner of the local workplace culture company MaxLife, and Rick Weldon, president and CEO of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce.

Frederick is fortunate to have such experienced leaders on which a newly elected executive can draw. More than 130 volunteers from all parts of the county were organized into eight committees.

They studied such topics as economic development, education, workforce development and government innovation, and offered 64 specific recommendations. Some involved the way in which the administration is organized, but most urged specific action on how the Fitzwater administration should proceed.

Some examples include:

• Reorganize and revitalize the Business and Industry Cabinet, created by former County Executive Jan Gardner to hear directly from the business community. Partly because of the pandemic, the group has not met for three years, but it is worth having.

• Streamline permitting by expanding the Fast Track Permitting program to serve existing businesses.

• Create a Minority Business Enterprise program to support and encourage the growth of minority contractors.

• Provide targeted tax relief to ALICE (asset limited, income constrained, employed) families.

• Raise teacher salaries and explore other incentives, like expanding workforce housing, to recruit and retain teachers.

• Partner with Frederick County Public Schools to develop universal pre-kindergarten.

• Establish a Division of Housing to help low- and moderate-income families, including more federally subsidized housing.

• Strengthen the health care workforce, in which the extreme stress of the pandemic has led to worker shortages.

The full report is posted at publicinput.com/g6208.

Not every suggestion will be implemented quickly, and some might never come to fruition. But her team has given Fitzwater a road map, and she has promised to follow it to the extent possible.

To her credit, Fitzwater has vowed to begin publishing on the county website a continuously updated report card on which of the suggestions have been implemented.

One suggestion has the potential for far-reaching impact. The recommendation is that the administration work closely with Hood College’s Data Driven Frederick project, which the college describes as “a centralized repository of information about the region’s health, economy, social welfare, land use and infrastructure, serving as a dynamic local and regional resource for area leaders in all business sectors.”

The report said the county executive should collaborate with Data Driven Frederick to create a model public-private partnership to increase cooperation within our community and to “increase transparency, promote trust, foster innovation, and strengthen accountability.”

The report quite pointedly emphasized that the public must be informed about what works and what does not.

“The Transition Team expects the County Executive will use and share data, even when the data make us uncomfortable,” the report said.

Not everyone will agree with every recommendation, including potentially controversial ones like attracting more of the huge data centers built by Amazon and other companies that do cloud hosting.

But the team has provided a document that gives Fitzwater a clear idea of the work ahead. We look forward to tracking the progress.