Julian Jones launching campaign for Baltimore County executive

Rona Kobell

The Baltimore Banner

August 28, 2025

Julian Jones can’t help himself.

It’s right in front of him — an obstacle course with a timer, painted with Ravens purple accents, at Northwest Regional Park in Owings Mills. Never mind that he’s wearing a wool suit and dress shoes – the 62-year-old council member hoists himself up and runs the course. When he’s done, he climbs the purple slide, shimmies down the chute and lands on his feet.

Jones, only the second Black council member ever to hold office in Maryland’s third-largest county, is used to obstacles — and to landing on his feet. And now, after 11 years representing the Randallstown area — including several stints as council chair — he is seeking to move up to the top job. He plans to announce Thursday evening that he’s running for county executive.

“I feel really confident that I’m the right person for the job,” said Jones, a retired division chief with the Anne Arundel County Fire Department and longtime president of multiple local firefighting associations. “I’ll stack my credentials up against almost anyone’s.”

On a recent weekday, Jones gestured around the playground, where an ice cream truck dispensed soft-serve cones to eager children after the first day of school. The Baltimore Ravens invested $400,000 in the park; the county put in about $700,000. The park includes pavilions, the slide, the obstacle course and fields. Coming soon is a splash park, though Jones said he’s planning to push for a county aquatics center.

“This is the ‘why,’” he said. “These are amenities. These are services to the citizens. Everything we do in Baltimore County comes from revenue.”

Jones is the council’s most pro-growth member, admonishing his colleagues to act so that residents who grew up here can afford to stay. His own children — Sanaa, 22; Malik, 32; and Julianna, 38 — live close to him and his wife, Sabrina, in Woodstock, but he knows that many people are not so lucky. Their kids, he said, have moved to Harford County or to Pennsylvania.

The East Baltimore native, who moved to Randallstown as a young adult, remembers his mother taking him to the homes of neighbors to help them sort through mail and pay bills because they could not read. He’s tried to give back as a public servant, he said.

He pushed hard for police reform after a county officer killed one of his constituents, Korryn Gaines, by shooting her through a wall after an hourslong standoff at her home. The 2016 shooting also injured her 6-year-old son. Jones also pushed for all students in Baltimore County to have free lunch and breakfast after realizing many went hungry because their parents didn’t fill out the proper forms.

He has bucked his own party by voting against an adequate public facilities ordinance to manage growth and additional protections for farmland, questioning the need for more restrictions when the county is losing population. The measures passed anyway.

His closest ally on the council is Pat Young, a Catonsville Democrat who also is running for county executive. Where Young, a former active-duty Marine, is disciplined and crisp, Jones is freewheeling and prone to occasional gaffes. He once compared overcrowded schools to Disneyland — they’re overflowing because everyone wants to be there.

But those who would dismiss Jones because of such missteps risk underestimating him. He raised more than $1 million last year and has continued to rake in more support. Constituents describe him as open-minded, willing to listen and someone who does his homework.

When residents of Boring, a community in Northwestern Baltimore County, tried to stop a former civic association president from developing their volunteer fire department, they turned to Jones. The planning commission had sided with the developer. Jones looked into the matter, then stood with the Boring neighbors; now he’s an honored guest at their annual event.

“Julian Jones made his office open to our concerns, and he stood up for us,” said Sam Blum, a longtime Boring resident.

Walking around with Jones is like being with a celebrity. People recognize him, shake his hand and tell him their problems. There’s drag racing in Pikesville. The local PTA needs more support. Sometimes a fan wants to say hello, or a local smoothie place wants a photo of him enjoying its latest green concoction.

Regardless of whether he’s standing next to Olympian Michael Phelps or 6-year-old Cameron Morgan, an aspiring track star, Jones reacts the same way. He pulls them in for a selfie. He has that quality that political types have observed in Wes Moore and Bill Clinton: When he looks at you, there’s no one else in the room.

As the only person of color on an all-male, seven-member council, Jones has long been aware that many Black county residents consider him to be their representative, whether they live in his district or not. Early on, his assistant tried to tell a woman from Turner’s Station that Jones was not her councilman. Jones finally told her to transfer the call to him, and he’s been taking calls from the Black enclave in Eastern Baltimore County ever since.

Baltimore County signs his checks, he says, and he’s going to help everyone — “even if it sometimes gets me into trouble,” he said with a smile.

Jones was referring to the time four years ago when he made calls to get the county to pave a county-owned alley in Towson at the request of a developer. That incident resulted in an Office of the Inspector General report focused on Jones. He was the subject of another IG report because he had a “donate” button on an email blast, which Jones said never came from the county server and focused on COVID and newsletter-type items. He said he removed it as soon as he realized the mistake.

While his fellow council members pledged to support the current inspector general, Kelly Madigan, in her push for a new term, Jones demurred. But he was disappointed that his fellow council members did not choose County Executive Kathy Klausmeier’s nominee for the post, Khadija Walker, saying they fell victim to “mob rule” because of the protests against removing Madigan.

In addition to Young, Councilman Izzy Patoka is expected to announce he is running for county executive. Local attorney Nick Stewart has announced he’s running. Klausmeier, who was appointed county executive in January, has said she would serve only two years.

If elected, Jones said, his priorities will be to continue what he’s been doing as one of seven — attracting growth, holding the line on taxes and improving lives.

“What drives me every day,” he says, “is to do the right thing for the citizens of Baltimore County.”