The Montgomery County Council has asked county planning officials to “encourage transparency” following complaints that they didn’t enforce lobbyist registration requirements or better help the public access some virtual meetings during the pandemic.
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In a Feb. 2 letter to Montgomery Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson, the council said the board also had used the wrong process when it signed off on major changes to some approved development proposals.
“In isolation, any of these procedural concerns would be troubling,” said the letter signed by the council’s president, Gabe Albornoz (D-At Large). “Taken together, it creates an impression that the Planning Board’s procedures are lacking in transparency and public participation.”
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The council, which appoints the five-member board, asked Anderson to “outline the specific steps” taken in response to the complaints and to “create an environment that will encourage transparency and facilitate public participation.”
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The letter was first reported by the Seventh State blog written by David Lublin, an American University government professor and former mayor of the Town of Chevy Chase. Lublin had written recent posts about what he called the board’s “problematic ethics.”
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The focus on the board’s practices has intensified as the Montgomery County Council begins to consider the board’s proposal for Thrive Montgomery 2050, an update of the county’s general plan. The plan, which has sparked intense debate, will guide land use and growth for 30 years.
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In an interview Thursday, Anderson said the planning board has responded to the complaints, including by updating and starting to enforce its lobbying disclosure requirements.
“We take transparency and openness very seriously,” Anderson said. “Whenever anyone points out gaps in our procedures, we never hesitate to make improvements.”
He said that he, previous planning board members and the department’s staff had been unaware of the 1983 lobbyist registration requirement.
“No planning board had ever implemented it, probably because no one ever noticed this requirement,” he said.
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The council’s letter also noted the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board’s Jan. 3 finding that the planning agency hadn’t provided enough information to help the public attend virtual meetings of the Development Review Committee after they moved online at the start of the pandemic. Such meetings gather planning staff and employees from other government agencies, along with development proposals’ applicants, to discuss proposals before they go to the planning board.
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The planning department began streaming those committee meetings in December and has begun to upload recordings of previous virtual meetings to its website, according to department staff.
The council also said the planning board had improperly used an abbreviated process when agreeing to major changes to some approved development proposals, such as to increase building heights or shrink open space. The problem, the council said, stemmed from the proposals being considered as part of the board’s “consent agenda” for quick approval rather than after soliciting public testimony. Though the planning board has allowed the public to ask to testify on such issues — and thereby have them removed from the consent agenda — many people probably were unaware they could do so, the council said.
Anderson said the board plans to make it more obvious and “as clear as possible” on its online meeting sign-up page that people may testify about items on the consent agenda.