Izzy Patoka announces bid for Baltimore County executive

Rona Kobell

The Baltimore Banner

September 8, 2025

Israel “Izzy” Patoka always loved maps.

A child of Holocaust survivors who emigrated from what is now Ukraine, Patoka was often called upon to translate for his parents, who were later-in-life English learners.

Maps, he learned, had their own language. Looking at them, he could figure out how communities flowed together and what were the natural and constructed barriers that separated them.

Patoka, now 67, turned that love of maps into a professional and political career. He graduated from Towson University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography and environmental planning. He became an integral part of then-Mayor Martin O’Malley’s neighborhood agenda, serving as the first director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods and in various state planning roles.

He moved across the city line nearly two decades ago and won a seat on the Baltimore County Council in 2018. After two terms, he said he’s ready for a promotion: He wants to become Baltimore County executive.

In a crowded field, Patoka hopes to distinguish himself with his robust planning background and focus on what he calls “good-government initiatives.”

“The way you articulate public policy is through your budget — your capital budget and your operating budget,” he said in an interview before his announcement at 6 p.m. Monday. “So, if you have specific initiatives you want to do, and you’re not putting them in your budget, then they’re aspirational, rather than something you can actually implement.”

Among his first priorities: bringing back the Office of Community Conservation, which he said thrived until 2010, when the larger Department of Planning absorbed it. He envisions the office as a coordinating agency that supports older, inner-beltway suburbs, like his hometown of Pikesville but also Catonsville, Woodlawn, Essex, Dundalk, Parkville, Rosedale and many others. They’ve been neglected, he said — there are no recreation centers, for example, between Woodlawn and Rosedale, a 22-mile half-circle around the Beltway.

Those who work for the office will coordinate with code enforcement, recreation and parks, community development, housing and other departments to ensure that problems are solved — whether they are potholes that need filling or zoning infractions that require legal action.

Patoka’s team is known in the county for what he calls “relentless follow-up.” His chief of staff, Justin Silberman, has been with Patoka since 2018. His legislative aide, Carlos Gonzalez, has been there almost as long. Legislative aides Zinna Moore and Kylie Taylor round out the team. They, too, have been indoctrinated into Patoka’s “relentless follow-up’ ethos.

Patoka served as the council’s chair last year and had a robust agenda, much of which he saw enacted. He led the council to pass an adequate public facilities ordinance to reduce overcrowding in schools and pushed his Republican colleagues to support an expansion of the council from seven seats to nine in hopes of encouraging more diversity.

He’s also supported a strong inspector general and increased historic preservation protections after a developer tore down a beloved Randallstown landmark, Choate House, while it was in the pipeline to be protected. He’s one of the lead councilmen working to finalize a map for the new council districts, a dizzying task that has been met with criticism for not being transparent enough and not giving minority residents enough representation.

He’s been a champion for the Pikesville Armory, a community-led initiative to turn the sprawling former National Guard complex into a community gathering place for concerts and events. And he’s been working to make Pikesville a more sustainable, walkable community.

“Izzy just makes it easy,” said Beth Snyder Rheingold, who chairs the Greater Baltimore Chamber of Commerce.

She credits Patoka with helping businesses and residents thrive in Pikesville, which she feels like is “in the beginning of an upswing.” Once nearly exclusively Jewish, Pikesville is one of the county’s most diverse communities, with new Americans from all over the world joining Black and Jewish families who once lived in Park Heights and West Baltimore.

Walking through Sunday’s Pikesville Fall Festival in Quarry Lake with Patoka — whom everyone calls “Izzy” — it’s clear how much his constituents appreciate the follow-up. Many promise to vote for him. Some approach with photos of their grandchildren, or of potholes to be filled or streets needing paving.

“He’s a phone call away,” said Glenn Resnick, a lifelong Pikesville resident and captain with the Pikesville Volunteer Fire Company. “He comes to all of our events, he’s in the community, and he’s very in touch with the people.”

Patoka surprised Resnick recently with a $125,000 donation from a developer who needed to make a community benefit donation. Resnick said the fire company will put that money toward a new truck.

Patoka enters a crowded Democratic field. Councilmen Julian Jones, of Randallstown, and Pat Young, of Catonsville, have also announced their candidacies. Attorney Nick Stewart, a former school board member from Catonsville, is running, too.

In 2024, Patoka’s campaign raised nearly $1.3 million — the most of any of the four candidates.

Patoka lives in historic Sudbrook Park with his wife, Denise, who is an architect; the couple have one son, Rory, who played short-stop and catcher for his college baseball team. Patoka has long been a community basketball coach and still gets together with his city softball team, The City Planning Blues.

If elected, he would be the second Jewish Baltimore County executive after Kevin Kamenetz, who grew up around one street over from him in Lochearn. His Jewish roots have shaped him, he says, and he frequently speaks out against both anti-Semitism and the overreach of ICE’s immigration enforcement. He doesn’t want the Baltimore County Police Department to help immigration officials deport residents who have committed no crimes, as they did recently in Catonsville.

“Where people who live in this county begin to have fear, county leadership should take a strong role,” Patoka said. “Families should not be afraid that their loved ones are not coming home after work or church. This is a first-world nation, and that doesn’t happen in first-world nations.”