A closer look at the candidates who will be on the ballot Nov. 4:

Republicans

Robert Dyer, 43, is a Bethesda blogger, musician and advocate for people with disabilities. He’s also developed a YouTube following for his quirky fast-food reviews.

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Dyer faults the all-Democratic County Council for failing to attract major new employers to Montgomery and contends that growth policies have led to overly dense construction in areas that should remain largely suburban.

“This council goes weak in the knees whenever a developer walks into the room,” he said.

At the same time, affordable housing has been demolished, often driving away the very millennials the county claims to covet, he says.

Dyer supports universal pre-kindergarten and opposes bus rapid transit, asserting that transportation dollars would be better spent on extending the Midcounty Highway and building a new Potomac River crossing into Northern Virginia.

Chris P. Fiotes Jr., who gives his age as “over 60,” owns a Gaithersburg commercial real estate company. He says he became a candidate because of concerns about K-12 education, especially the lack of career and technical education for students not headed to college.

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Fiotes says he wants to trim taxes to make the county more affordable for police and other county workers who want to live there. He would limit spending by seeking more private-sector financing for social programs.

“Montgomery is a strong county, a wealthy county, and we should be able to take that wealth and put it into what is needed,” he said.

Adol T. Owen-Williams II, 50, is a Potomac financial consultant. He says that county government spending is “out of control” and that Montgomery’s economy is too dependent on the heavy presence of federal agencies. Should those agencies leave, he says, “we’re on our way to becoming Detroit.”

He would block funding for the proposed light-rail Purple Line and push for new roads and widening of existing thoroughfares. Owen-Williams says the council is locked in 1960s-style doctrinaire liberalism.

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He remains an outspoken critic of the 2007 law passed by the council to bar discrimination against transgender individuals, calling the measure a threat to women because it gives individuals who were born male access to women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

With three of the four at-large incumbents residing in Takoma Park, Owen-Williams said, the council suffers from a lack of diversity: “Liberals love to talk about diversity, but there is nothing diverse about these four.”

Shelly Skolnick, 70, a Silver Spring lawyer, says the at-large incumbents are “clueless and lack imagination,” especially in transportation policy.

Instead of a multibillion-dollar bus rapid transit system (BRT) with dedicated lanes for buses, Skolnick proposes the “BLT”: converting the left lane on three- and four-lane roads to toll lanes for buses and cars. He says the revenue would finance a network of travel plazas for Metro and Ride On passengers that offer expanded seating, coffee and restrooms to encourage late-night ridership.

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Skolnick also supports free tuition at Montgomery College for first-responders and volunteer tutors in public schools.

Democrats

Marc Elrich, 64, of Takoma Park is a former public school teacher seeking his third term. He led the council to pass two major bills in 2013: one raising the minimum wage to $11.50 by 2017 and the other a plan for a 98-mile bus rapid transit network.

Elrich says the next council must come to grips with how to pay for its ambitious transportation vision. “We can’t rely on the feds or the state. We have to confront the question of how to pay for it ourselves,” he says.

Another priority is stabilizing and supporting low-income families to help narrow the academic achievement gap. A frequent critic of the council’s development plans, Elrich says he wants to introduce more accurate formulas for forecasting the impact of new construction on traffic.

Nancy Floreen, 63, of Garrett Park is a former Montgomery Planning Board member seeking her fourth term on the council. As chairwoman of the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee, she shepherded a series of master land-use plans though the council, including blueprints for the Great Seneca Science Corridor and White Flint. She also presided over the multi-year effort to overhaul the county’s zoning ordinance, in an effort to add clarity and consistency to land-use decisions.

If reelected, Floreen says, her focus will be job growth and fiscal sustainability.

George L. Leventhal, 51, of Takoma Park is a former Senate staffer and county Democratic chairman seeking his fourth term on the council. He says he will continue to use his position as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee to strengthen the social safety net.

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Leventhal has worked to reduce homelessness and established Montgomery Cares, a network of doctors and clinics to serve the uninsured and underinsured. Leventhal also sponsored a bill requiring that domestic workers and their employers negotiate a written contract specifying terms and conditions of employment.

Leventhal is co-founder of Purple Line Now, the leading advocacy organization for the light-rail project. He says he will soon introduce bills banning the use of lawn pesticides and establishing paid sick leave for county employees.

Hans Riemer, 42, of Takoma Park is a former senior adviser to AARP and the 2008 National Youth Vote director for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. He is seeking his second term.

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Riemer led passage of an increase in the county’s share of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working people and authored the Open Data Act , which requires more transparency in making government information available to the public.

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Riemer also headed the county’s Nighttime Economy Task Force, which recommended ways for the county to become more of a destination for younger residents. If reelected, he says, his agenda will be transportation funding, expansion of pre-kindergarten and subsidized child care, improvement in storm response and snow removal, and a rethinking of the Department of Liquor Control, which oversees wholesale and retail sales of liquor in Montgomery.

Green Party

Tim Willard, 62, of Kensington is a retired National Archives employee. He says sustainability — environmental and economic — is his focus.

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He wants the county to increase its use of renewable energy and establish a “green job corps” to train at-risk youths in skills such as solar panel installation and environmentally friendly construction.