In the Booth with Peter Brehm, candidate for Frederick City Council District 3
City Council candidate Peter Brehm indicated in a podcast with The Frederick News-Post that he is willing to revisit a charter amendment that allows non-citizens to vote in city elections.
Brehm is running against Wag’s Restaurant co-owner Dave Schmidt in the primary for City Council District 3 in the upcoming city election.
The primary is Sept. 9.
Brehm said he has heard many people raise concerns about the charter amendment that allows all residents, including undocumented immigrants, to vote.
“I don’t have a problem with [the charter amendment], and a lot of people I talk to do have a problem with that, so I’m perfectly OK revisiting that in a public forum. I think that would be great,” he said.
He said the council may or may not reach the same decision it did when it passed charter amendments in September 2024.
“To me, somebody who’s a resident and living in the city, paying taxes in the city, sending their kids to school in the city, often working in the city — to me, that person is a citizen in every way, except they don’t have the piece of paper,” he said.
He criticized federal immigration policies under President Donald Trump.
“America is a nation of immigrants, and while I do think that we need processes by which somebody who comes to the country becomes a citizen, demonizing immigrants who are not documented is completely inappropriate,” Brehm said.
He said he is a “big fan” of the Frederick Police Department’s policy of not asking people about their immigration status.
“That’s the philosophy we need to use, and I believe the city is operating in that manner,” he said.
Brehm also said he would support the idea of opening primary elections to independent voters. Currently, only registered members of a party can vote in that party’s primary.
He criticized a proposal for a cricket stadium in the southeast of the city, near where Interstate 70 meets the Monocacy River. The Washington Freedom, a cricket team, is leading the proposal.
The team has proposed changing the zoning of the proposed site for the stadium to allow plans to move forward. The City Council is weighing the rezoning.
“There’s some real issues there, from a light pollution and a noise pollution standpoint and the impacts on the surrounding residential neighborhoods,” Brehm said.
He also said the proposal could have adverse impacts on the floodplain of the Monocacy River. He suggested the city could look at rezoning the property differently.
“And I just wonder, with another zoning designation, perhaps residential, whether or not there might be better uses found for that property that would pose less of a concern …,” he said.
The full nearly 37-minute conversation can be found on Apple Podcasts. Listeners can hear Brehm discuss topics like development and the federal government.
The primary election is set for Sept. 9, but voters can mail in or drop off their ballots after receiving them in the mail in mid-August.
To vote in person, city residents can go to the Trinity building at 6040 New Design Road on the day of the primary or on early voting days Aug. 22 and 23.
Ballots will be accepted if they are placed in the drop boxes by 8 p.m. on Sept. 8 or postmarked by Sept. 9.
The general election will take place on Nov. 4, with early-voting days on Oct. 24 and 25.