By Zachary Bandler
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Kimberly Stansbury’s husband encouraged her to run for Baltimore County executive in 2022 because he wanted to see her live out her dream of achieving public office before he died. He never got that chance.
Seven weeks after Stansbury lost the Republican primary that year, William Benton Stansbury died of complications of Agent Orange exposure.
“My husband had begged me, before he died, to try it again,” Stansbury said. “So, I said, ‘Let me go and see what I’ve got.’ I went upstairs to the attic, and my husband had taken all of the [political] signs that we gathered after the [2022] campaign, wiped them down, sorted them and put them away, and left me a note that said, ‘For your next run.’”
Today, Stansbury is drawing inspiration from her late husband and is once again running for county executive.
Born in North Carolina, Stansbury moved to Baltimore County with her parents when she was 4 years old. Stansbury went to Towson University immediately after high school, graduating in 1986 with a degree in political science.
“I worked a full-time job and a part-time job to pay for my Towson University tuition,” Stansbury said.
She also married William Benton Stansbury in 1986, and together they would have two children: a boy and a girl. Both of their children attended Baltimore County Public Schools, and both also graduated from Towson.
Stansbury is not oblivious to the fact that there has not been a Republican chief executive in Baltimore County since Roger Hayden in the 1990s but believes that it is time for a change.
“One-party rule gets stagnant, and we cannot tolerate to be stagnant,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury ran as the only woman in 2022 and is once again the only woman seeking the county’s top office this year. With the current county council made up of only men, Stansbury highlights the increasing need for diversity.
“We need to have the viewpoints of many different people, because when we have a different view of everything, we can make informed decisions about how to bring this county forward,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury said crime is a major issue the county is facing, specifically residents’ perceptions that it is not only unsafe, but that crime rates are going up.
“We need to make sure that the residents feel safe in Baltimore County,” Stansbury said. “We need to absolutely make sure that people, when they go to work, go to school, when they are just in the community, feel like they are safe.”
To combat this, Stansbury wants to address the current deficit in police officers. She welcomes recruitment classes and hopes to implement more programs such as take-home cars for officers to show her full support for local law enforcement.
Stansbury also wants more training classes for officers on how to de-escalate situations and multilingual abilities to help bridge the gaps between communities.
“We have so many different communities and so many different ethnic groups in Baltimore County that having bilingual officers can be nothing more than a plus for Baltimore County police officers when we can actually communicate with the public that helps us in every imaginable way,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury also said, “our elderly deserve better,” adding that she wants to make it easier for local seniors to age peacefully.
Stansbury wants to work with the council to freeze property tax rates for the elderly and potentially lower them. She hopes to make it easier for local seniors to stay in their own homes.
“They have lived here for a very long time,” Stansbury said. “If you have paid off your home, I do not see why you have to continually keep paying property taxes on something that you own.”
Stansbury talked about making it easier for businesses both big and small to find success in Baltimore County.
Besides working with Chamber of Commerce to create environments friendly to new businesses, she stressed the need to inform the public on the value that both locally owned and major companies, specifically mentioning Tradepoint Atlantic, bring to the county.
“We have to be all inclusive in Baltimore County,” Stansbury said. “We have to make sure that our businesses know that we welcome them here, that we are willing to work with them.”
Stansbury wants to bring back shop classes to local schools to help introduce students to vocational skills.
“Not everyone wants to go to college, and we should make sure that there is a path for them,” she said.
In addition to making clear to students their options outside of college, Stansbury wants to create an inspector general to make sure that kids are the top priority at Baltimore County Public Schools.
“We are trying to get an inspector general over education as well, so that we can make sure that $2.5 billion is being spent in the right places, and that there is no fraud, waste or abuse,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury shared that she is “out there every single night” interacting with the community whenever she can fit it into her schedule while maintaining her job.
“I’m going to be there and I listen,” she said. “I listen to people, I listen to what they tell me that they need and what they want, and I am there for them. I want to be there to do the right thing. I want to make sure that the community gets what it needs, and I am right there with them. I am a part of this community, and these are my people, and I am going to be there every step of the way.”