A July 18 article about Montgomery County's process for selecting the next chairman of its planning board omitted the names of three civic organizations involved in identifying qualified candidates. In addition to Allied Civic, the groups are the Montgomery County Civic Federation, the Coalition for Sensible Transportation and the Fairland Master Plan CAC.
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Three on Council Back Former Agency Head to Return to Position
Silverman, a candidate for county executive who pushed for Berlage's appointment four years ago, said Hanson would bring "the stature and unique combination of experience and fresh approaches that these times call for."
Hanson has the support of many environmentalists, including the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, and he was one of three candidates identified by Allied Civic -- a group of citizens organizations in the mid-county -- as "most qualified." The group also named William R. Dodge of Bethesda, a former planning director in Allegheny, Pa., and current board member John M. Robinson, an attorney with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
  Royce Hanson headed the Planning Board from 1972 to 1981. |
The Montgomery County Farm Bureau has endorsed Michele M. Rosenfeld, the former lead counsel in the planning agency who resigned this year, saying the agency had become "dysfunctional" and increasingly politicized.
Vincent Berg, a bureau board member, said the agricultural community wants "someone who will at least listen, rather than already have made up their mind" about land use.
As he prepares to leave office, Berlage issued a report yesterday chronicling Clarksburg Town Center and subsequent reform efforts.
"With my tenure coming to an end, I believe I have the latitude to be extremely frank and candid, and I tried to do that," he said.
The report was largely upbeat and emphasized that only about a half-dozen of the 116 site plans audited after the Clarksburg controversy were found to be deficient.
Much of the seven-page report focused on the 79 reforms put in place to make the planning agency more transparent. Among them: requiring developers to hold community meetings to describe their projects, televising Planning Board hearings and requiring a licensed engineer or land planner to certify site plan signature sets in writing.
