Gray to Play National Role; Council Member Assumes Leadership Of Counties Group

This week in St. Louis, Howard County Council member C. VernonGray made a transition into a much larger political world.

He rubbed elbows with members of the Clinton administration. Hetraded deep thoughts on "connectivity" and "knowledge-basedeconomies" with noted futurist Alvin Toffler, informal adviser tochief executives, prime ministers and Newt Gingrich (R), the formerHouse speaker.

And he boogied with rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry.

On Tuesday, Gray (D-East Columbia) was sworn in as president ofthe National Association of Counties (NACo). It was the capstoneevent of the group's national convention in St. Louis. Gray, 59, nowheads an organization that represents 1,800 counties and 75 percentof the nation's population.

With increasing emphasis in Washington on allowing localgovernments to solve local problems on their own, Gray expects to bea busy man. He will spend much of his volunteer job working thehalls of Capitol Hill, lobbying members of Congress on the issuesthat have counties most concerned: Y2K preparations, economic aid torural counties and sustainable development. He may even, onoccasion, travel down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House to chatup members of the Clinton administration.

Back in Howard County, political wags are wondering if this newprominence means Gray has his eye on a bigger office. Perhaps countyexecutive? Term limits prevent him from running for a sixth term asa County Council member in 2002. Gray, the longest serving member ofthe council, declined to discuss his plans.

"I believe in keeping my options open," he said from St. Louis."I have enough on my plate now."

The dominant issue on his plate is the Y2K glitch, the computerproblem that threatens to disable anything run by computers--banks,airports, government benefits and just about all other governmentfunctions--when the year 2000 begins. About 70 percent of urban andsuburban counties, including Howard, have been more or less cleansedof the problem. But smaller rural counties are lagging behind,according to Gray.

"We have to get these counties where they should be," he said.

To that end, NACo under Gray will be sending out Y2K tool kits toall member counties. The kits will explain the problem in detail andgive phone numbers of people and agencies that can help. NACo alsowill be doing live satellite workshops for the counties stillstruggling with the problem.

Another proposal Gray will champion in the coming year is a tax onInternet commerce. Congress is studying the issue. What is clear isthat enormous amounts of tax revenue could be generated by taxingpurchases made on computers--an electronic sales tax. What isunclear is how the spoils would be divided among federal, state andcounty governments. Gray said his mission is to make sure countiesget a piece of this pie.

"There is millions in potential revenue for Howard. Think of theservices we could provide with it," he said.

Gray said one of the highlights of the five-day convention wasToffler's presentation. The author made the argument that the enginepowering the modern economy is not the factories of old but minds andideas. Gray noted that this outlook was once consideredahead-of-the- curve but is now mainstream.

"He had phenomenal insights. He said we need to focus less on thefuture of the economy and more on the economy of the future," Graysaid.

The convention ended with a ballroom party Tuesday that had thetheme "Red, White and Blues 2000." Outgoing NACo president Betty LouWard, a council member from Wake County, N.C., swore in Gray. Then,with the first notes of Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," the convention-goers let off some steam.

"You have to remember, these people have been in meetings allweek," Gray said.