By Adam Pagnucco.
The county council has released its interview list for interim planning board members. According to the council’s agenda for tomorrow, the council will conduct public interviews at 1:45 PM and hold a closed session at 3:30 PM with the topic of “appointment of Planning Board members.” The interviewees include:
Raj Barr‐Kuma – An architect whose career began in the 1960s and has worldwide experience.
Cherri Branson – A former congressional staffer, appointed county council member and Director of Procurement under former County Executive Ike Leggett. Branson ran unsuccessfully for council at-large in 2018.
Francoise Carrier – Casey Anderson’s predecessor as chair of the planning board who served for one term. She is currently a land use attorney in private practice.
Norman Dreyfuss – A former two-term planning board member and developer whose projects include Leisure World.
Barbara Goldberg Goldman – A former Democratic Party official and entrepreneur who got into a heap of trouble for her comments about Black candidates running for governor. She is a former board member and chair of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission as well as the founder of the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County.
David Hill – A Westat systems analyst who served on the Rockville planning commission for ten years and has a long history of civic activism in the city.
William Kirwan – An architect who served on the county’s historic preservation commission for ten years. Kirwan ran unsuccessfully for planning board in 2019.
Vincent Napoleon – A lawyer and business executive with experience in many industries including shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and biotechnology.
Roberto Pinero – A former federal government analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget who specialized in housing issues. He is also a former board member and chair of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission. Pinero finished second to Carol Rubin for a board appointment last year.
Amy Presley – A former two-term planning board member who was a legendary civic activist in Clarksburg and now runs an estate liquidation company.
Jeff Zyontz – The council’s former zoning attorney who has decades of experience in county government.
I commented on Carrier, Dreyfuss, Goldberg Goldman, Presley and Zyontz in a post about their applications last week. State law holds that no more than three members of the board may be members of the same party. The list does not state the party affiliation of each applicant. Branson, Carrier, Goldberg Goldman and Napoleon indicated that they were Democrats while Dreyfuss and Presley were not Democrats during their prior tenure.
If the council indeed appoints a full interim board tomorrow, that would have to be an all-time speed record for MoCo.