On November 3, Talbot County voters will choose our County Council. The top five vote-getters, regardless of party, will chart this county’s course for the next four years. Of the ten candidates, only three are incumbents.
The choice between the Republican and Democratic slates could not be more stark in this critical national, state, and local moment. This is the most consequential local election in a generation, and it is why I could not be prouder of the five Democrats running together as Team Talbot: Mike Bibb, Susan Delean-Botkin, Marvin Foster, Pete Lesher, and Brian Naranjo.
They are not politicians angling for a title. They are our neighbors: a firefighter, a nurse practitioner, a coach, a historian, and a diplomat. Between them, they bring decades of hands-on experience running organizations, managing budgets, delivering public services, and showing up for this community. That is exactly the kind of experience the moment demands.
Consider what they have already done for us.
Pete Lesher, now serving as Council Vice President in his second term, has spent more than thirty years at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where he serves as chief historian. Nobody on this ballot understands more deeply what makes Talbot County irreplaceable: our working waterfronts, our farmland under cultivation, and our small towns. Nobody has a stronger record of steady, thoughtful stewardship on the Council itself.
Susan Delean-Botkin has cared for multiple generations of Talbot County families as a nurse practitioner for nearly thirty years, running her own practice in Easton and treating many of the same neighbors she now aspires to represent. She has also led as president of the Talbot County Board of Education and served on the county’s pandemic response, proving she can guide large public institutions through hard decisions.
Mike Bibb led the Town of St. Michaels as president of its Town Commissioners and has served this region as past president of the Eastern Shore Association of Municipalities. His career began as a correctional officer, and he gave twenty years as a volunteer firefighter. He knows municipal government, public safety, and housing policy from the inside, including years helping low-income families improve their homes.
Marvin Foster came to Talbot County as a teenager in 1995, and this community helped shape him into the coach, mentor, and father he is today. He has spent his adult life paying that debt forward to our young people. He will bring to the Council something we badly need: the voice of families working hard to build their lives here. Marvin is a cybersecurity professional who has worked for the Pentagon, protecting our most vulnerable systems.
Brian Naranjo spent thirty-two years as a commissioned senior U.S. diplomat, serving in more than fifty countries and leading senior diplomatic missions in Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela. He has managed large staffs, complex budgets, and genuine crises. When he could have retired anywhere in the world, he chose St. Michaels, which had been his residence of record for 11 years while serving abroad and the one place he kept coming back to.
Why does Team Talbot matter? Because the challenges in front of us are real, and they will not wait. Our rural character and natural environment—the very things that make Talbot County a national treasure—are under pressure from sprawl and developers. Our infrastructure needs serious attention: flood resilience, stormwater management, road paving, public safety dispatch, and municipal sewer capacity. And too many of our children cannot afford to build their futures in the county that raised them.
Team Talbot shares a vision to meet these challenges: preserve our rural identity while sustaining the farming economy, modernize the infrastructure a thriving county depends on, and expand attainable housing and quality jobs so the next generation can stay. These are Talbot goals, and this team has the practical, executive-level experience to deliver on them.
I have watched these five candidates campaign side by side across the county, at festivals and front doors. What voters see is what I see: people who listen, who understand the challenges facing our county, and who love this place, its water, its farmland, and its people.
Early voting runs October 22 through 29 at the Easton Volunteer Fire Department Bingo Hall, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. You have five votes for County Council. I hope you will cast all five for Mike Bibb, Susan Delean-Botkin, Marvin Foster, Pete Lesher, and Brian Naranjo.
Talbot County deserves leaders who are ready on day one. Team Talbot is ready.
Phillip Jackson is the chair of the Talbot County Democratic Central Committee.
Thank you for your fine and vital work. You are my friends, and you have my support. Peace be with you.