Tag Archives: Casey Anderson

Montgomery County Council, Montgomery County Planning Board

Planning Board Resigns

The entire Montgomery County Planning Board has resigned at the Council’s urging. Daniel Wu and Katherine Shaver over at the Post have the story. They were going to face removal proceedings if they didn’t resign.

It’s a start but more work needs to be done.

High level staffers seem way too invested in the political outcomes and agendas rather than providing separate information and insight. Senior staff also need remedial training on how to deal with harassment claims, as they clearly don’t know or abide by accepted practices.

No outgoing councilmember should be appointed to any temporary or full-term on the Board. That it got to this point was a failure of oversight, a core function of the Council, and occurred despite the Board sending up numerous flares about its dysfunction. Too many cozy relationships are part of the problem.

Instead, the Council should appoint citizens who are not professional planners but represent the community and know something about the related issues. There is entire staff of planners, so let the Board exercise informed judgement separate from them.

No doubt there will be more recriminations but I’m more interested in seeing how the Council can continue to untangle this morass that goes well beyond the Board’s self-immolation.

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Montgomery County Planning Board

Scandal, Drama Enveloping the Planning Board

On October 6, WJLA reported that Planning Board Vice Chair Partap Verma sent an email accusing Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson of creating a “toxic misogynistic and hostile workplace.” The Montgomery County Council appoints and oversees the Planning Board, which is part of M-NCPPC and an independent agency.

Lots of questions remain to be answered beyond the veracity of the allegations directed at Anderson. For starters, when did Verma learn about these problems. Is Verma a required reporter who must report allegations like these immediately and cannot keep them confidential? Did he report them to Human Resources or other appropriate personnel in a timely manner?

Commissioner Partap Verma sent his letter only to Carol Rubin and Marlene Michaelson, so who leaked the allegations to the press? These matters should be kept confidential to protect everyone involved, including Casey Anderson.

Planning Director Gwen Wright issued a statement defending Anderson: “There may be people who have concerns with Casey, but they are not my employees.” Except that there is no way for her to know the experience of every staff person at Planning. Wright’s definitive statement could discourage other employees who might want to come forward with similar experiences.

It’s a sign of how gone wrong matters are at the Planning Board that Wright also thinks it’s appropriate for staff to lobby the Council in support of Thrive, rather than providing information when requested. It gives credence to views that staff joined Anderson in skewing this process to a pre-determined outcome. In any case, Thrive is now supposed to be with Council staff.

In a shocker, the Planning Board voted 4-0 to dismiss Wright on October 7. Casey Anderson recused himself from the vote. Wright is an at will employee, so the Board did not have to give a reason for her dismissal. It’s also a personnel matter, so they may be constrained in discussing it. But it’s still stunning to see a longtime, highly experienced senior staff person fired just a few months before her retirement.

The commissioners voting to remove Wright included Carol Rubin, who worked 16 years at M-NCPPC as an attorney and special projects manager, prior to her appointment to the Board and thus knew Wright from both the perspective of a staff member and planning commissioner. Like Verma, Rubin was caught in the undertow of Anderson’s office bar scandal. The County Council reprimanded and docked one day’s pay from both Rubin and Verma.

On Facebook, Wright said that she suspects that she was “fired because I showed support for Casey and attempted to protect my staff from being dragged into the Board’s conflicts.” But the Planning Director should not be taking sides in Board decisions or intervening in investigation of these and other serious allegations beyond relaying what she knows to the appropriate people and ensuring that proper processes are followed.

Meanwhile, at least some defenders of Anderson are already parading “locker room talk” excuses for his alleged inappropriate statements. Here are several tweets from former Council Candidate John Zittrauer:

And now the County Council has scheduled a meeting for later today to discuss a personnel matter:

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Casey Anderson, Montgomery County Planning Board

Verma Accuses Anderson

The rumored internal turmoil at the Montgomery County Planning Board has burst into the open. Last night, WJLA reported that a confidential informant—revealed to be Planning Board Vice Chair Partap Verma—sent an email accusing Chair Casey Anderson of creating a “toxic misogynistic and hostile workplace.”

You can read the details of the accusations on WJLA’s website but we’ll keep them out of this family publication. The email doesn’t portray Anderson as someone open to hearing, let alone incorporating, ideas at odds with his own. Planning Director Gwen Wright defended Anderson.

Anderson and Verma had previously been very tight. Verma has been a staunch supporter of Anderson and clearly hoped to succeed him as Chair. But that alliance had fallen apart by September 22nd, when Verma purged Anderson from a Facebook photo of him and the governor:

Originally posted on August 18th
By September 22nd

All of this drama could have been avoided if either the other members of the Planning Board or the County Council had exercised proper oversight and taken action much earlier on the other numerous issues over at M-NCPPC.

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Hans Riemer, Thrive 2050

He Blinded Hans with Science

Tuesday’s Thrive Worksession

Councilmember Hans Riemer became strangely animated at Tuesday’s Thrive 2050 worksession over urban heat islands. Or rather that they shouldn’t be called “urban” heat islands as the above clip reveals. Once again, Riemer showed his ideological fervor while simultaneously making clear he doesn’t know his brief.

Riemer referred to Tom DiLiberto, the claimed source for his ideas, as the head of climate.gov. Except he’s not.

Then Riemer went on at great length about how heat islands aren’t really “urban” heat islands because tall buildings provide a lot of shade and shield people from the sun. If there is more heat, it shows we need taller buildings.

That’d be news to NY1, which reported earlier this year that New York—the city with by far the greatest concentration of tall buildings in the country—is the country’s third hottest urban heat island with temperatures 8 degrees above the surrounding area.

Riemer lays much of the blame on roads, which along with buildings trap and then radiate heat. But it’s hard to have a city without roads even in a place with as much public transit as NYC. Riemer likes and doesn’t mention sidewalks and bike lanes but they trap and radiate heat too.

After sharing his empirically false views, Riemer then asked to remove “urban” from urban heat islands. This nomenclature fetish is mainly about protecting urbanism, Riemer’s ideological church, from the slightest negative taint. This is the sort of zealotry that can’t acknowledge issues are complicated. That, for example, NYC is hotter and more polluted than most places yet also has far less environmental impact. Instead, density solves all problems.

This waste of time and the rest of the Council’s bored acquiescence with this balderdash perhaps wouldn’t be so bad if the Council were meaningfully engaged with either the issues or the community. After poring over the privileged submissions of two lobbyists, far less attention is being given to the 1500 pages of input from community members with less access.

One issue, for example, that merits more scrutiny is telecommuting. This supposedly forward thinking visionary plan the next 30 years gives no thought to how already skyrocketing telecommuting rates will reshape living, working or transportation patterns. Presumably, it will also influence where people want to live and in what housing types.

The Council instead chooses to focus its limited attention on Riemer’s dotty notion to rename urban heat islands. Meanwhile, Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson and pals continue to hold court and dictate the plan despite the ever growing laundry list of troublesome behavior by this highly paid public official: flouting rules for community consultation, routine violations of the Open Meetings Act, failure to register lobbyists, and an open office bar.

Urban heat islands. It’s exam time for the Council. Time to engage more deeply with the community and the issues. But it feels like they’d rather punt than study. If Thrive is to have any scrap of legitimacy, this needs to change.

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Casey Anderson, Montgomery County Planning Board

No Need for Casey Anderson to Drown His Sorrows

In a blow to Montgomery County’s increasingly debatable reputation for clean government, the County Council gave Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson a slap on the wrist earlier today for his open bar in his M-NCPPC office. Planning Board Vice Chair Partap Verma and Commissioner Carol Rubin were also reprimanded. Apparently, Anderson didn’t feel badly about it as he was all smiles and business as usual around the Council building yesterday. How this compares to punishments for others one can only wonder. The Council statement is below.

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Thrive 2050

When You Know the Fix is In

The staff report to the Montgomery County Council for its next discussion on Thrive includes only two detailed letters from the many submitted by the community. Incredibly, the only two are from Jane Lyons for the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Dan Reed for Greater Greater Washington. Both have been ardent Thrive cheerleaders.

This occurred even after Councilmember Sidney Katz noted back in February:

I believe part of the problem becomes that people believe, rightly or wrongly, that you are only listening to the one side rather than both sides. This is such an important plan. This is such an important document that we need to make certain people are comfortable that they believe—that they know—that we are listening to all sides.

The old saw that “just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me” applies well. You’ll recall that Councilmember Hans Riemer touted Jane Lyons for “chairing” the discussion on Thrive. Dan Reed has vociferously criticized anyone who disagrees with his vision for Thrive.

Note also that the closed session to discuss possible discipline for Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson, the architect of Thrive, will occur after the Council work session. No one with a contrasting perspective is given any platform before the Council.

Sadly, all the rhetoric about doing better seems just rhetoric. Sure looks like the fix is in.

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Casey Anderson, Montgomery County Planning Board

Council Discussing Anderson Today

Today at 3:30pm, the Montgomery County Council is meeting in closed session to consider the latest problems surrounding Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson.

Specifically, despite a zero tolerance for alcohol and drugs policy, Anderson had a full bar containing “over 32 bottles of hard liquor in his office where he routinely creates mixed drinks and distributes them on a significant scale.” This occurred even though Anderson acknowledged that he “was aware that the planning commission generally prohibits alcohol in the workplace.”

Anderson tried to partially excuse his actions by explaining that the drinking occurred at “the end of the workday, after regular business hours.” In response to whether he had pressured anyone to drink, Anderson told the Office of the Inspector General “Absolutely not.” Except that Anderson’s office remains a place of work even if we trust that no one ever drank during the workday. People could feel pressured to join in since he is the top boss at both the Commission and Planning Board.

The Council will be hard pressed to avoid disciplining or firing Anderson if actions have been taken against other employees for violations of the alcohol policy. As the person who is supposed to set an example and enforce rules as the Commission Chair, Anderson should receive greater rather than lesser penalties. And I’ll bet that none of the other rule breakers had a fully stocked bar with over 32 bottles of alcohol.

Unfortunately, the Council has had a penchant for ignoring Anderson’s violation of serious rules with impunity, including regular and serious violations of the Open Meetings Act, failure to register lobbyists, and inappropriate use of the consent agenda. If the Planning Board did not make serious decisions that have enormous financial impact, it might not matter so much. But they do, and Anderson’s response has been to excoriate the compliance board.

And why shouldn’t he? Despite his past violations and arrogant contempt for the law, the Council hasn’t taken meaningful action. With his tight relationships on the Council, they’ll probably do the equivalent of slapping him halfheartedly with a Nerf baton.

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Casey Anderson, Montgomery County Planning Board, Open Meetings Act

Anderson Excoriates Compliance Board after Caught in (Another) Open Meetings Act Violation

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) just can’t stop violating the Open Meetings Act. This time it involves the Commission, its Executive Committee, the Commission’s Retirement Board, and several of the Retirement Board’s committees. Trustees include MoCo Planning Board member Gerald Cichy and Carrie McCarthy of the MoCo Planning Department. Casey Anderson is currently chair of the M-NCPPC as well as of the MoCo Planning Board.

Their latest decision is linked and posted at the bottom of this post. Here is the summary of the Open Meetings Act Compliance Board’s decision:

As we explain below, we conclude that the Commission and its Executive Committee failed to make sufficiently detailed disclosures to the public before and after meeting in closed sessions. The Commission also violated the Act by engaging in closed-door discussions that exceeded the scope of the statutory provisions that the Commission claimed as authority for excluding the public.

As Chair of the MoCo Planning Board and M-NCPPC, Casey Anderson has been the recipient of an inordinate number of adverse decisions by the Compliance Board. The Montgomery County Council President Gabe Albornoz has also upbraided Anderson and the Planning Board for abuse of its consent agenda and failure to register lobbyists as required by law.

In a letter to the County Council replying to Albornoz’s concerns, Anderson stated “Whenever anyone points out gaps in our procedures, we never hesitate to make improvements.” His contemptuous response to the latest finding by the Compliance Board shows this to be false.

Instead of leading M-NCPPC into figuring out how to comply properly with both the spirit and the letter of the Open Meetings Act, Anderson gave a lengthy diatribe excoriating the Compliance Board for their decision (starts a little before 39 minutes into the video). He says that complying with the Act “would not serve the public well” or “serve the interests of open government.” Anderson even accused the Compliance Board of undermining “public confidence in open government” — a rather bizarre accusation when you’ve just been found in violation of the Open Meetings Act. Again.

I’ve tracked several slap downs of M-NCPPC and the Montgomery County Planning Board here on Seventh State. The Montgomery County Council has also made clear their concern. Anderson, the Planning Board and M-NCPPC don’t care and continue to show contempt for the law. No one on M-NCPPC said a word in response to Anderson’s denunciation. The Planning Board continues to support his approach.

The question now is whether the Council is going to do anything about it or if Anderson is going to continue to ride roughshod over the law, the Council and the public.

Here is a link to the complaint.

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Open Meetings Act

Planning Loses Yet Another Open Meetings Act Case

They do work at it.

Louis Wilen filed a complaint on January 31 that the Olney Town Center Advisory Committee (OTCAC), “a public body chartered by the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission” is not adhering to the requirements of the Open Meetings Act.

Notwithstanding Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson’s claim that “Whenever anyone points out gaps in our procedures, we never hesitate to make improvements”, it remains business as usual over at Planning and they fought the claim. In its response to the Open Meetings Compliance Board, it stated that:

[T]he OTCAC is not a public body as defined by the Maryland Open Meetings Act as defined by the Maryland Open Meetings Act, Title 3, General Provisions Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland (2002) (the “Open Meetings Act”), and therefore not subject to its requirements and restrictions. (emphasis in original)

The Open Meetings Compliance Board did not agree, stating “we conclude that the Committee here is a public body subject to the Act” in its opinion explaining how its previous decisions along with the history of OTCAC make this clear. I’ve posted the full opinion below and you can also read it by clicking on this link.

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Thrive 2050

More on “If They Zone It, They Will Come”

On March 7, I wrote a post pointing out that Montgomery County has roughly 36,500 approved but unbuilt residential units, which attracted some interesting responses.

WAMU’s Ally Schweitzer tweeted “Residential development pipelines are best understood as a glimpse into the hopes and dreams of developers. They reflect housing applications that have been approved. Much of this housing will never get built, for all kinds of reasons.” She further added: “It’s also important to understand that regional housing targets set by [the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments] emphasize *where* new housing should be built. The targets stress affordably priced homes near jobs and transit.”

Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson liked both tweets, so presumably they reflect his point of view well.

More broadly, thoughtful critics like these argue that (1) these units may not get built, (2) they may not be where housing should be built, and (3) they’re not enough new housing.

I’m surprised that people argue that approved projects may not be where housing should be built. Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson liked both tweets, but virtually all these new projects were approved by the Planning Board under his leadership. The Thrive document he authored isn’t terribly constraining on where building should occur. If it’s denser, Anderson seems to like it.

As Schweitzer indicates, projects may not get built for a variety of reasons. At the same time developers will move ahead of there is demand and they perceive a profit. They’ll slow down when there’s a glut or demand isn’t growing fast enough. If these projects don’t get built, there is little reason to expect that either approving tons more projects or changing zoning will magically cause builders to see a gap in the market where one didn’t previously exist.

Some took my statement that we have many unbuilt units as an argument that additional projects should not be approved. That’s not what I meant. My point was merely that there is already quite a bit of housing in the pipeline notwithstanding claims to the contrary even without the heavy upzoning proposed in Thrive.

We have quite a bit more existing capacity for residential development beyond what is already approved. According to the Residential Development Capacity Analysis from January 2021, Montgomery has “capacity for 65,000 housing units on 3,733 parcels” and “most of the capacity is concentrated near transit.” It further explains “The greatest volume of capacity is on sites zoned for high density housing in the Commercial Residential (CR) family of zones.” So existing capacity exceeds even highly ambitious new residential construction targets for the next decade and is overwhelmingly located in high density areas near transit.

Even these numbers don’t consider that each Master Plan review under our existing general plan has inevitably resulted in substantial increases in residential capacity. Though much of the existing capacity remains unused, the current Silver Spring Master Plan review is projected to add much new capacity.

The barrier to new housing construction is not the lack of approved projects, or capacity to approve more projects, but market demand to build them. And if the market demand arrives and more construction occurs, prices are unlikely to decline unless there is a recession leading to a glut—as occurred in the building spate prior to 2007 economic crisis.

Other critiques of my post were doxing or attacking me based on some perceived flaw, such as where I live or the color of my skin. I can’t take these complaints seriously, as they confuse personal attacks with making an argument. One person asserted that I want to keep new development away from my home, which seems odd since I praised a major high-density development planned adjoining my neighborhood as part of post on the good points in Thrive.

Despite the critics, thoughtful and otherwise, I was heartened not to see people arguing against my point that we should protect existing naturally occurring affordable housing. I also didn’t see a hue and cry in favor of bribing developers to build new housing with either tax abatements or other subsidies. No one seemed to suggest, as does Thrive, that housing produces jobs, rather than the reverse. I hope the Council takes these points on board as they review Thrive.

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