Every member of the Montgomery County Planning Board has resigned

Montgomery County has no planning authority at this hour. A scandal that began with Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson has ended today with every commissioner, including Anderson, resigning. The County Council announced the resignations of Anderson, Partap Verma, Carol Rubin, Gerald Cichy, and Tina Patterson in a press release this afternoon.

Despite a series of scandals over the last decade, ranging from Farm Road to the Westbard sector plan, it was a full cocktail bar in Anderson's government office that ended up taking out the board. The County Council initially gave a light slap-on-the-wrist "reprimand" to Anderson and Commissioners Partap Verma and Carol Rubin, for their roles in BarGate. Planning Director Gwen Wright was then fired by the Board, after defending Anderson in press interviews. 

New rumors and leaks about additional bad behavior by commissioners, and an embarrassing article in The Washington Post this week, led the Council to belatedly reconsider its bizarrely-weak initial response. It then announced the resignations today. 

Anderson and the Board should have been removed years ago, over the issues I mentioned above, and for consistently operating under the thumb of developers. All commissioners serve at the pleasure of the Council. But the Council only acted today, after the County had been humiliated for several weeks by the clownish behavior of the commissioners. Only after the situation had become completely untenable, did the Council take action.

 “The Council has lost confidence in the Montgomery County Planning Board and accepted these resignations to reset operations," Council President Gabe Albornoz (D - At-Large) said in a statement. "We are acting with deliberate speed to appoint new commissioners to move Montgomery County forward. We thank the commissioners for their service to our County.”

The Council plans to appoint temporary commissioners by October 25. Montgomery County residents who are interested in filling these temporary acting positions should apply to the Council by October 18 at 5:00 PM. One can only hope that some of those impacted by the scandal will be inspired to share with law enforcement what they know of the inner workings of planning and zoning in Montgomery County.