Probe Sought Of County's Planning Department

· Gene Lynch, 50, of Silver Spring, former chief of staff to Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) and former secretary of general services. Lynch was the top aide to County Executive Neal Potter (D) from 1990 to 1994. He runs Smart Growth Investments, a development company; Glendening serves as chairman of the board.

· Robert L. Mitchell, 70, of Rockville, a developer and civil engineer, and formerchairman and chief executive of home builder Mitchell Best and Visnic. He is a member of the University System of Maryland's Board of Regents.

· Tedi S. Osias, 61, of Chevy Chase, director of legislative and public affairs for the county's Housing Opportunities Commission and former staff member for County Council member Howard A. Denis (R-Potomac, Bethesda). She was executive secretary to the county's Board of Appeals from 1988 through 2000 and has worked as a development consultant.

Republicans

· Jean B. Cryor, 69, of Potomac, who lost her reelection bid for the House of Delegates last year. She represented District 15 for 12 years and is a former journalist who worked for Gazette Newspapers, a subsidiary of The Washington Post.

· Independent

· John Low, 42, of Kensington, a Green Party member, an auctioneer and antiques dealer in Kensington. He is a standup comedian and disc jockey and a former financial adviser.

Heading for the Exit

Bill Mooney, a longtime county employee who most recently served as acting deputy director of the parks department, is joining the private sector. He will work for Smart Growth Investments, a company run by Gene Lynch, a candidate for a vacancy on the planning board, which oversees the agency Mooney is leaving.

Mooney, 56, began his career as a county police officer and served former executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) as an assistant administrative officer who helped guide Silver Spring's revitalization. Known as something of an insiders' insider, Mooney worked on the transfer of Department of Parks golf courses last year to the county's revenue authority.

That plan didn't sit well with two planning board members, Meredith Wellington and Allison Bryant, who complained they had been kept in the dark about the project. The planning board's top lawyer at the time, Michele Rosenfeld, criticized it as an ill-conceived project that masked the golf courses' true financial status. Rosenfeld resigned last spring. She said she had been marginalized by planning board Chairman Derick P. Berlage over the golf courses and other matters on which they had disagreed. Berlage stepped down about a month later after he could not overcome critics who said the agency under his leadership had failed to properly monitor development at Clarksburg Town Center.

Mooney insisted that the golf courses were a money-losing proposition. County budget documents and documents from the parks agency paint a mixed picture, making it difficult to ascertain whether the county golf courses all were losing money or whether the debt on some courses, such as Little Bennett, has been dragging down the others.

Mooney is among the last of the top Berlage staff members to leave the agency.