If you don't know Kai Hagen yet, you will. In fact, he's looking forward to knocking on your door.

Kai has cared about Frederick ever since, as a small child, he used to visit his grandparents' farm in the northern part of the county. He's always known that he would live here one day; as a college student in Minnesota, he used to tell friends that he couldn't even think of marrying a woman who wouldn't relocate to Maryland.

March 31 will mark the 11th anniversary of his return to Frederick County, and now he's asking you to elect him to the Board of County Commissioners.

"It's my nature to get involved in the community," says Kai, who remembers handing out election literature at the polls as early as 1968. His more recent involvement in the community includes coaching youth soccer and basketball teams, and he's a member of the Frederick County Parks and Recreation Commission.

He's also the director of the Frederick Regional Action Network, an organization whose mission is "preserving and enhancing the social, economic and environmental health and vitality of our community."

Kai has been unfairly characterized by some as anti-growth. While he doesn't deny that growth is an issue that concerns him, his critics have vastly oversimplified his stand. "The bottom line," he says, "is that when you get involved in issues -- it doesn't matter which issues; pick an issue -- it's affected by growth and, more to the point, it's affected by the decisions we make about the nature of growth."

He has also been mocked on a local television show for giving up his so-called "real" job to pursue what he sees as a civic responsibility. This wasn't a decision he made lightly. His participation in local concerns was starting to make him feel like he was constantly battling to stop something negative, not working to achieve something positive. "I decided I could either give up -- just raise my kids, coach soccer, and watch these things happen -- or I could get more involved."

He chose the latter course, and he's been willing to work harder than most people for less money than most people because it matters. "I think this is the most important thing I've ever done outside my family," he says.

Kai definitely has big plans. He believes we first need to come to consensus about what a healthy community should look like, a comprehensive vision for our county that says something different about us than, say, Montgomery County. Then we need to work toward that vision.

One step we can take is to change the way citizens take part. Currently, most of the people at most of the meetings are paid to be there: lawyers, developers, lobbyists; the average person isn't privy to the process. He'd like to hire a full-time, nonpartisan citizen advocate or counsel, someone to help us become more informed and more involved. And he'd like to see citizen input be more interactive, real communication rather than brief, one-way comments.

Kai and his family now live on the same property where his grandparents first taught him to love Frederick County. That love, along with his great intelligence and integrity, will make him an excellent county commissioner. For more information about how you can help him get there, visit http://kaihagen.com