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Ali enters race for state delegate

Newcomer promises to be ‘very vocal’ on issues, approaches

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005

First thing Saqib Ali says he’ll do when he wins his way to Annapolis next year — always ‘‘when” — is to use his vote in the state legislature to bring money back to Montgomery County so that schools and roads can catch up with overdevelopment.

And he’s determined to take advantage of the soapbox that goes with that vote.

‘‘You will hear me in the newspaper making a lot of noise. You will hear me being very vocal,” says the first-time candidate. ‘‘It’s not just the issues that are important but the way I’m going to tackle them. I’m going to be loud, I’m going to make everyone know about them.”

A self-described news junkie, peace activist and populist (the last book he read was ‘‘America: the Book” by political comedian Jon Stewart), Ali is running for one of District 39’s three seats in the state legislature.

Delegates Charles E. Barkley (D) of Germantown, Nancy J. King (D) of Montgomery Village and Joan F. Stern (D) of Montgomery Village currently hold the seats for the district, which covers Montgomery Village, Washington Grove, North Potomac and portions of Germantown.

Ali says he’s in it for the people — not special interest groups or developers.

With his grassroots, knock-on-doors campaign philosophy having already generated $15,000 of on-hand cash, he has laid down a direct challenge to his competitors: Do not accept campaign contributions from political action committees and corporations.

‘‘I’m going to take money from regular residents, only money from individual people. I challenged the other candidates... so that we’re all accountable to the voters,” he says. ‘‘It’s really a matter of principle, because otherwise, regular people can’t compete with big businesses, the developers who give lots and lots of money.”

Born in Chicago to South Asian immigrant parents, Ali has lived in Montgomery County since 1991, for several years in Montgomery Village.

He earned bachelor’s and masters degrees in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is a software engineer with The Mitre Corp. in McLean, Va.

Of Montgomery Village’s hot-button development issues, he calls the potential development of the Montgomery Village Golf Club into a high-rise senior living community ‘‘a travesty.”

He opposes moving a county school bus depot to the Webb Tract as part of a county proposal to redevelop the Shady Grove Metro station.

Ali is undecided on M-83, still studying the ‘‘divisive” state proposal to extend Midcounty Highway north into Germantown.

What he says sets him apart from his fellow candidates is at the same time what brings him closer to ‘‘the face of Montgomery County.”

‘‘I’m in an interracial and interfaith marriage, I’m a professional, I’m sort of middle income and I live in a diverse world,” he says.

‘‘I have feet in a lot of different worlds. I can be a bridge between different communities.”