http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112900613.html

After Two Decades, Simply A Citizen
Next for Owens? Time on the Farm

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 30, 2006; AA03



Christmas will be a little less harried this year for Janet S. Owens. As a county executive always at the mercy of a jampacked schedule, she has had few chances in the past eight years to throw a Christmas party. Now she will get her chance.

Sunday will be the last day in office for the Democrat, who could not run again because of term limits. After narrowly losing her bid for state comptroller in the September primary, she will be for the first time in two decades simply a resident of Anne Arundel, no longer an elected official or at the helm of a county department.

"I have plans," she said, detailing a Christmas party on her South County farm and hopes of raising three or four Scottish Highland cows.

In the long term, she said, she will be selective about any future post. "It would have to be something where I feel like I'm making a contribution, where I can use my skills in government and managing," she said.

She has considered government, nonprofit organizations and even the private sector. And she hasn't ruled out running for office again. "I know I'm not a legislator, and I don't see anything that appeals to me now, but you never say never," she said.

During her two terms, Owens, 62, generated $364 million in budget surpluses and lowered the property tax rate.

The daughter of a southern Anne Arundel tobacco farmer, she won office campaigning in large part on promises to preserve the county's rural nature. She has since preserved 12,000 acres of open space, more than all past county executives combined, she has pointed out. She has also, however, overseen vast commercial growth, especially in the western end of the county. Some critics call her the Queen of Sprawl.

It's a label she has dismissed as a "personal attack by mean-spirited people." The County Council also has considerable power over development, she said.

Preservation is a key part of her legacy, she said. "I did what I said I would do when I ran," she said.

As part of that legacy, she points to the "gold coast" of business she has tried to develop along the 295 corridor to bolster employment and the economy.

Owens began establishing herself politically in the county with various administrative jobs, including director of the Housing Authority and the Department of Aging. She won her first elected position as an Orphans' Court judge in 1990.

Eight years later, she leapt into the county executive race as a virtual unknown and became the county's first female executive.

That distinction came with challenges, according to Owens.

"I was always seen as a 'nice lady,' " she said. "Implicit in that was that I couldn't make decisions, that my husband was really running things."

She received complaints after two pictures in a local newspaper showed her wearing the same dress. People went as far as criticizing the type of stripes she had on different jackets.

"There were all these double standards that a man would never have to face," she said.

The harshest words, however, didn't come until the most recent election, when her opponent Comptroller William Donald Schaefer called her "that little prissy miss" and "little girl" who wears "long dresses, looks like Mother Hubbard -- it's sort of like she was a man."

Reflecting on it this week in a coffee shop near her office, Owens called them unpleasant but played down the personal attacks.

"What he said was bizarre," she said, "but it was portrayed as if I was in a tiff with Governor Schaefer, when really it was the media in a tiff with Schaefer and then calling me up for reaction."

In her last week as executive, Owens predicted tough financial times ahead for the county, with a tight state budget, declining revenue and several labor contracts up for renewal.

But they will all be decisions for her successor to make.

And after eight years of early mornings, endless meetings and late nights, Owens said she is looking forward to enjoying her county simply as a resident again.

"You have a little window to do something, and you have to run and do what you can," she said. "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. Anne Arundel is my home.

"I'll be around."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company