Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D) has a $500,000 campaign finance war chest that is overflowing with donations from development interests. Wasting no time, he has a fundraiser planned for Thursday that is co-hosted by, among others, a prominent developer, Aris Mardirossian...

Greater transparency necessary for Montgomery County development decisions

...A twin package of legislation introduced recently by state Sen. Ben Kramer (D-Montgomery) offers to take some other steps: adding some requirements for greater transparency for members of the planning board; limiting their ability to make donations to politicians; and in what some on the County Council have complained, cutting into the council’s authority to appoint all board members by allowing the executive to nominate, subject to council approval, a candidate for either chair or vice chair.

That would be a small reprise of the system in use in the late 1960s and not changed for a few decades, when the power over the board shifted back to the council. It would partly parallel the way it works now in Prince George’s County, which, with Montgomery, makes up the bi-county Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Kramer’s proposals still would leave the Montgomery County Council in charge of land use decision making, allowing it to continue to hold the power to approve or veto Planning Board development recommendations. He has proposed a task force to examine some of these issues. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday evening.

Transparency is an oft-used phrase these days in government. At the opening session on Dec. 6 of the newly elected 11-member Montgomery County Council, new members Kristin Mink (D) and Laurie-Anne Sayles (D) and returning member Will Jawando (D), put down markers on the issue of transparency, saying that there are many instances of the council operating in the dark, and calling for greater light.

Land use would be a good place to start.

Montgomery County’s system for making decisions about new development, overseen by the council, may be one of its most difficult to observe and understand. Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D) has a $500,000 campaign finance war chest that is overflowing with donations from development interests. Wasting no time, he has a fundraiser planned for Thursday that is co-hosted by, among others, a prominent  developer, Aris Mardirossian, whose Bethesda Land LLC is involved in a controversy over a promised park in downtown Bethesda...

Miranda Spivack: Greater transparency necessary for Montgomery County development decisions - Maryland Matters