By Adam Pagnucco.
Let’s understand something about Council Member Will Jawando. He is an excellent public speaker. He keeps his cool on the dais and says exactly what he intends. He is the last elected official I would expect to see lose his temper in public. But he came close last week, when an official in County Executive Marc Elrich’s office pushed him farther than I have seen him pushed before.
The issue before the council’s Planning, Housing and Parks (PHP) Committee on May 3 was Elrich’s funding request for the People’s Counsel position, which I have previously written about. The People’s Counsel is a position in the county code established to “protect the public interest and promote a full and fair presentation of relevant issues in administrative proceedings in order to achieve balanced records upon which sound land use decisions can be made.” It has gone unfunded since the Great Recession. This is the second straight year in which Elrich has asked the council to fund the office again. So far, the council has not done so and two members have introduced a bill that would instead create a new Community Zoning and Land Use Resource Office with different duties.
Meredith Wellington, a former planning board member and a 2018 Council District 1 candidate, appeared before the PHP Committee to represent the county executive as his land use policy analyst. While the issue before the committee was the funding request and not the alternative bill, the bill clearly loomed in the background. It quickly became apparent that all three PHP members – Jawando, Natali Fani-Gonzalez and Chair Andrew Friedson (one of Wellington’s 2018 Democratic primary opponents) had major doubts about funding the People’s Counsel office. But Jawando stole the show with a thundering performance at the end.
In discussing the executive’s funding request with Wellington, Jawando brought up the fact that the executive had made a similar request last year. He then recalled that he had asked Wellington to “get us these changes and updates to the office so that we could consider it, the restructuring of it, before we fund it. To my knowledge, unless you have something to share today, that has not happened.” Jawando was clearly frustrated that the issue had returned at the executive’s behest with no more work done on it since last year.
Wellington replied that “this position is a legislative position and it’s not a county executive position. If it had been, believe me, I would have had all the changes that I could possibly consider that would make this job work.”
None of the council members bought that because the executive has a long history of weighing in on issues before the legislative branch, including land use and planning board appointments. Wellington herself is an example, because while land use is an authority reserved to the council, she is employed by the executive as a “land use policy analyst.” And Jawando further noted that the funding request was made by the executive, thereby placing the burden on him to make a case for it.
Wellington then brought up the alternative bill, which is intended to “abolish” the People’s Counsel, and shifted to a racial equity argument. Citing a racial equity analysis by the Office of Legislative Oversight [OLO] of the bill, she said:
You know, the road to racial equity and social justice is complicated. But you can get there. And I think, you know, we didn’t have the analysis of that organization [OLO] last year. But now, they’re actually recommending that you all fund this position because even the original concept, although it didn’t have the depth of a true racial equity and social justice analysis, but even originally, the idea of it was to level the playing field so that somebody would have – you have a person you can just go to and you don’t even know what your issue needs. I’m having flooding in my house or I don’t know who to call or I’m having an issue with a next door neighbor in terms of their wanting to build a five story addition.
Fani-Gonzalez pointed out that council member offices assist constituents every day with those issues. (I once worked in a council office and I can attest that that is a BIG part of what they do!) Meanwhile, Jawando simmered as his colleagues spoke.
At this point, it’s worth noting the testimony opposing the bill that would create an alternative office to the People’s Counsel. While there was some mention of racial equity, including by Wellington, most testimony focused on land use issues – specifically on stopping development projects. Let’s bear in mind that Jawando has never been a fan of outright NIMBY politics.
Eventually, the committee moved on to the question at hand – whether to put Elrich’s funding request for the People’s Counsel on the reconciliation list, which is the council’s ledger for considering budget spending requests. Jawando was at first open to it while his two colleagues were not. But as he listened, he became more skeptical.
Wellington did not help her case by repeatedly interrupting council members, which increased the temperature in the room. This current council is the sixth I have seen in my time in this county. I have never seen a panelist win a public argument with a council member. These words – “You’re right and I’m wrong, thank you for correcting me” – have as far as I know never been uttered by a council member from the dais!
As the conversation went in circles, Jawando – one of the coolest customers you will meet – could no longer hide his growing annoyance. What followed was a display that my sources have never seen from him. Here is what he said to Wellington near the end of the meeting.
Will Jawando lets it rip.
*****
Jawando: What really has irked me is this using the cloak of the racial equity statement – because it has to be a cloak because you did nothing from last year. And I’m not asking for a response yet. I will let you say something.
Wellington: OK, thank you, because you are attacking me.
Jawando: No, I’m attacking the process that you all – you said from your mouth last year upstairs to me that you were going to work on this and come back with something. And you didn’t. And I can show you the tape. You did nothing, didn’t communicate with my office, nothing – hold on now, I’m going to let you respond – and then you say, oh, there’s this racial equity thing, and so let’s fund it and we’ll figure it out… If you wanted to figure it out, the time to figure it out was over the last year.
And it could have a function, but if it doesn’t, it’s really important, it will use – it will be the squeaky wheels who want to stop development who will use it. That’s the – and we have to, that’s – and I don’t want it to do that. It could have an appropriate function, but you all have signaled to me and the county executive that you’re not serious about it doing any other function that might be more inclusive because you came up with nothing on the last year.
So I’ve actually changed my position entirely and we won’t put it on the list. And I’ll work with community members. I do want to speak to the community members who have reached out, if you want to work with us, urge the county executive to actually put something in place and say something that means something. I just, I get tired of this, like, oh it’s the racial equity, but no, you didn’t come with a plan that talked about racial equity at all.
*****
And POOF, the People’s Counsel office is dead for at least another year.