By Adam Pagnucco.
With the Park and Planning power grab bills now dominating county debate in the aftermath of Senator Ben Kramer’s explosion at the county council, let’s return the issue to more sedate aspects of policy. Following is the written testimony of retiree Larry Cole, who was a transportation planner at the planning department for twenty years and describes the impact of Kramer’s bills at the practical level if they are implemented.
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Testimony of Lawrence Cole, Bills MC/PG 104-23 and MC/PG 105-23
The two bills proposed by Senator Benjamin Kramer, MC/PG 104-23 and MC/PG 105-23, are an opportunistic and ill-considered effort that would undermine the work efforts of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) and the interests of Montgomery County residents. I urge that MC/PG 104-23 be defeated and that MC/PG 105-23 be revised to delete transferring from the Montgomery County Council to the County Executive the responsibility for selecting a Planning Board Chair.
Some members of the public have recently expressed concern about not being given an adequate opportunity for comment on some Planning Board items in the past couple of years while most Montgomery County hearings – like much of the country’s hearings – were held remotely. But the restructuring to be examined by the proposed task force would likely reduce these opportunities by subsuming current M-NCPPC work efforts into the Executive Branch and turning many external public reviews into internal discussions.
I have been a Montgomery County resident since 1991. I retired from M-NCPPC in 2016 after twenty years as the highway coordinator, reviewing almost every roadway project in Montgomery County during that time that was proposed by either the Montgomery County Department of Transportation or the Maryland State Highway Administration. The staff and Planning Board reviews that I participated in provided the public a valuable opportunity to voice their opinions on these projects, sometimes the only opportunity.
During a controversy about a Montgomery County project moving forward about fifteen years ago when questions were raised as to whether the Department of Permitting Services had followed proper procedures, a DPS official was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that it wasn’t their job to deny permits to County projects. Actually yes, it is their job to deny permits to County projects if those projects don’t conform to the law and the County’s Master Plans. Moving Park and Planning staff into the Executive Branch would ensure that disagreements as to whether the proper procedures have been followed would remain internal, making it unlikely that the public would even hear about potential problems, never mind have an opportunity to comment.
I had an experience on one MSHA project (Connecticut Avenue at Jones Mill Road) where MCDOT got MSHA to make a design change that would make the MCDOT’s preferred design for their adjacent project (Platt Ridge Drive Extended) the only feasible one even though it had large impacts to parkland; MSHA backed off on this change only when Park and Planning staff told them that these park impacts would now be attributed to their own project. Both projects were later successfully constructed, but the staff and Board’s review and M-NCPPC’s control of park property ensured that no one could pull a fast one and circumvent the decision-makers’ role as well as the negate the public’s opportunity to comment in an informed way on the projects themselves and on the parkland impacts.
The Montgomery County Department of Transportation and the Maryland State Highway Administration generally have a good working relationship and that’s a good thing to ensure a smooth-running transportation system. But giving the Montgomery County Executive Branch the ability to sign off impacts to parkland for State projects would surely prove to be a strong temptation for other instances of you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours. In return for a favorable County review on one project, the State might just find it doable to construct a project that the County Council does not want but that the Exec does. Even if the current County Executive doesn’t want a Capital Beltway widening, a future County Exec might just “pave the way” by transferring to the State the parkland that sits under much of the Beltway between I-270 and Georgia Avenue, eliminating one of the biggest hurdles toward achieving that widening. It’s important that such a decision be made in the light of day with an opportunity for the public to comment rather than in a back room. The transfer of some Park and Planning functions being transferred to the Executive Branch via MC/PG 104-23 would likely result in a less open public process. This bill should be defeated.
MC/PG 105-23 proposes changes in regard to ethics and public engagement that seem worthwhile and may warrant this bill’s status as emergency legislation that would take effect immediately; changing how the Planning Chair is selected however would not. While MC/PG 104-23 would authorize a task force that could potentially recommend large changes in the Planning and Parks Departments in two years, this proposal essentially jumps the gun on the reorganization contemplated in MC/PG 105-23 and would put the County Executive in charge of selecting the Planning Chair upon adoption. A County Executive-selected Planning Chair would likely be more amenable to transferring more Park and Planning work efforts to the Executive Branch.
The current Exec has already had the power to withhold his confirmations of the Council’s selections for the entire Board during his first four-year term and will continue to have this power during his next term. This bill would not just reverse the current procedure for selecting a new Chair but the County Council would also be cut out of the process altogether since there’s no provision for the Exec’s choice to be confirmed by the County Council.
The recent Planning Board controversy, the impetus for both bills, apparently started with a coup attempt by one member of the Board to take over the Planning Board Chair’s position; another coup attempt to get control of this position by means of legislation without a thoughtful public discussion beforehand is not a solution and could engender more controversy. MC/PG 105-23 should be defeated unless this provision is deleted.
Thank you for your consideration of these comments.
Sincerely,
Lawrence Cole