By Adam Pagnucco.
The Montgomery County Council’s mass removal of the planning board was an unusual event though not a totally unprecedented one. It will go down in history as a dire crisis requiring a firm resolution, which it received from the council.
As I wrote on Monday, what we just witnessed was not about a liquor cabinet – it was a ferocious, no-holds-barred struggle for control of Park and Planning. Leaks, backstabbing, purge politics and an astounding pressure campaign targeting the professional staff created an intolerable situation. The council deserves praise for putting an end to it.
A rapid series of events ultimately forced the council’s hand.
First, the firing of planning director Gwen Wright by every planning board member other than Chair Casey Anderson showed that the rancor among planning board members had spread to staff. This threatened the ability of Park and Planning to carry on its tasks.
Second, rumors of more firings to come circulated over the weekend. The council’s special session on Monday froze those plans but they could easily have been resuscitated without action.
Third, the Washington Post’s story on a whistleblower complaint sent to the council showed that the crisis was MUCH deeper than previously believed. Who knows how far it would have gone if the council had not acted?
Fourth, while some in the real estate community were amused at stories of Anderson’s liquor cabinet, the laughter ceased when Wright was fired. The land use attorneys, developers, consultants and other players who depend on the planning board need to have their projects adjudicated by a responsible, professional and ethical organization. Wright’s termination called that into question in a way that none of my sources can remember. Without a cure, the county could have sunk into the kind of development pariah status that plagued Prince George’s County for many years.
Fifth, some in the civic activist community have entwined the problems at the planning board with the fate of Thrive 2050, which is on the verge of adoption by the council. They ask how Thrive could possibly be approved since, in their view, it is the product of miscreants and malefactors. The council will not back off Thrive, but here is the bigger point – the planning board rules on controversial issues all the time, and the last thing they or the council need is a pall cast over their conduct.
Sixth, if the planning board had continued to malfunction, the council risked a push by County Executive Marc Elrich to take over its functions. The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (Park and Planning’s official title) is a unique entity in the state, established by MoCo political boss (and developer) E. Brooke Lee in the 1920s to facilitate development. Counties other than Montgomery and Prince George’s have planning departments inside their county governments that are overseen by county executives (where they exist). The council has historically been protective of Park and Planning, seeing it as their agency, and is loath to give it up to any county executive no matter who it may be. Continued dysfunction at the board might have provided an opportunity for Elrich to make a move. And he is VERY interested in Park and Planning.
Finally, Park and Planning is a state-chartered entity subject to state laws. That means that if the mess had gone on, the county’s statehouse delegation might have become involved. One of the last straws to drop in the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) crisis of 2004 was a threat from Senate President Mike Miller to intervene. MoCo’s delegation does not have any Mike Millers in it, but the council dislikes state intervention into any matter under their purview. They simply could not risk such a thing.
Some are asking why all five planning board members were dismissed. Anderson’s offenses were drinking in his office after hours (which he admits) and alleged colorful language (which he denies). These would not be firing offenses in many organizations. But the move against Anderson has a precedent in the events at WSSC in 2004 when the council forced out all three of the county’s WSSC commissioners. The council believed that one commissioner in particular was the problem but the other two agreed to leave to make the transition quicker and cleaner, thereby helping the commission to move on. That seems to have been the mentality of today’s council – let’s have a clean slate and a new day at Park and Planning.
This was a big moment in the county’s history and the county council rose to the challenge. They deserve credit for realizing the seriousness of the situation at Park and Planning and taking firm action to fix it. They also deserve credit for sticking together during the crisis. And their actions contrast with events in the executive branch, which allowed its former chief administrative officer to hawk his book throughout county government for a year and a half before the council erupted and he resigned.
Perhaps the most important aspect of what the council did is the impact that it will have on their other appointees now and in the future. This council sent a very loud message that misbehavior will spawn consequences. Anyone thinking of concocting mischief or mayhem should pay heed.
What next? The council should quickly appoint a quorum of caretakers to handle routine business at the planning board. When the new council is seated in less than two months, they should begin the process of building a new board with careful intent to not recreate the old one. Finally, Gwen Wright deserves compensation and an apology. She had a long, honorable and award-winning career and in no way deserved to be fired. The details of all of these plans must now be put in place.
And as always dear readers, you and I will be watching.