By Adam Pagnucco.
Former Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson has responded to the allegations made by former Planning Board Member Partap Verma at last night’s state delegation hearing. The transcript of Verma’s remarks can be found here. Anderson’s response appears below.
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Casey Anderson Response to Partap Verma
Last night’s hearing was supposed to be about the structure of the Park and Planning commission. Unfortunately, Mr. Verma chose to renew the scurrilous behavior that led the County Council to replace the entire Planning Board. He also added new false allegations that appear to be intended to distract from his role in the debacle he helped cause.
Once again, I find myself forced to set the record straight.
Mr. Verma began a campaign of character assassination against me for a common and venal reason: he wanted to replace me as Chair of the Planning Board. He first tried to turn an anonymous complaint about after-hours alcohol in my office into something sinister. Once it became clear I was not going to be fired over that complaint, Mr. Verma looked for some other way to get me removed. He cast a wide net, approaching employees he thought might have had a disagreement or difficulty with me to solicit material for a human resources complaint. But he found nothing damaging, so he twisted the facts or made them up out of whole cloth to suit his purposes.
This isn’t just my view. Gwen Wright, the planning director, knew Mr. Verma had distorted or manufactured statements about me because several staff people who were approached told Gwen what had happened. And she told a reporter as much.
Mr. Verma then retaliated against Ms. Wright. He and the other members of the Planning Board voted to fire Ms. Wright based on the absurd theory that she had interfered with an investigation simply by telling the truth in public about his false claims. The termination of Ms. Wright backfired, because it led the Council to conclude that the Board had become dysfunctional. Now he apparently wants to rehabilitate himself by pointing the finger at the Council.
Mr. Verma’s new claim—that I asked the Inspector General to investigate a County Councilmember and a Planning Board member in order to blackmail these officials—is a lie, plain and simple. I never asked the Inspector General to do anything in hopes of wielding influence over the target of an investigation. Nor could I have directed the Inspector General to do anything. The Inspector General reports to a five-member Audit Committee. Mr. Verma and I were both members, but he was a voting member and I was not.
I am proud of the tremendous productivity and long list of achievements by the Planning and Parks Departments under my leadership. These accomplishments were made possible in large part because Gwen Wright, Mike Riley and I created a positive working environment where our staff was motivated and productive. For more than 11 years – more than 8 as Chair – we succeeded beyond my most optimistic expectations in elevating the influence of the agency, its staff, and their work in helping to prepare Montgomery County for the future.
It is for this reason, among others, that I truly regret having to once again defend my reputation. I especially regret the possibility that this back and forth will distract the Delegation from its important business. I will say this as clearly as I can: none of the accusations that Mr. Verma has made – about the Inspector General, the County Council, or a “toxic” workplace” at the Planning Board – have any merit at all.