{"id":10836,"date":"2018-06-15T09:30:44","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T13:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10836"},"modified":"2018-06-15T00:40:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T04:40:21","slug":"the-county-executives-least-known-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10836","title":{"rendered":"The County Executive\u2019s Least Known Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Montgomery County\u2019s Charter lays out the County Executive\u2019s powers and responsibilities.\u00a0 The best known include nominating department heads, drafting recommended operating and capital budgets, vetoing legislation, representing the county in public and in Annapolis and directing the operations of county government.\u00a0 It\u2019s a powerful office.\u00a0 But the least known, and one of the most interesting, powers of the Executive doesn\u2019t appear in the charter and has not been used in more than thirty years.\u00a0 If it is exercised by the next Executive, its use could have a significant impact on the county\u2019s future direction.<\/p>\n

Land use is a huge issue in county government.\u00a0 It is largely the province of the County Council and the Planning Board.\u00a0 The board makes many recommendations to the council on master plans, zoning, impact taxes, transportation projects, its own agency budget and numerous other matters.\u00a0 In serving in its advisory capacity, the board\u2019s recommendations are subject to final action by the council.\u00a0 But the board has its own powers too, especially in deciding preliminary plans, site plans and other development applications.\u00a0 Individual projects need to conform to applicable master plans, statutes and regulations but it is the board that decides how and whether they do.\u00a0 That\u2019s an enormous amount of authority resting with the board.<\/p>\n

The five Planning Board Members are appointed to staggered terms by the County Council.\u00a0 Because of the board\u2019s power and influence, these appointments are taken very seriously by the council and everyone else with an interest in land use decisions.\u00a0 But here is something that relatively few people have known about until now:<\/p>\n

The County Executive can veto Planning Board appointments.<\/p>\n

Maryland Land Use Code Ann. \u00a7 15-103, which we reprint below, lays out the process by which Planning Board appointments are made.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that SEVEN of the nine votes on the County Council are required to override an Executive\u2019s veto of an appointment.\u00a0 Under the county charter, six votes are required to override an Executive veto of a bill or budget item.<\/p>\n

The last time we know of an Executive vetoing a Planning Board appointment occurred in 1986.\u00a0 At that time, the council appointed Rosalie Silverberg, a civic activist from Bethesda, to the board.\u00a0 County Executive Charles Gilchrist vetoed the appointment because the other four board members were also from Bethesda and the Executive desired geographic diversity on the board.\u00a0 So the council appointed attorney Nancy Floreen<\/a>, who then lived in Silver Spring, to the board instead.\u00a0 (That turned out to be a momentous decision as Floreen would later go on to be a hugely influential four-term County Council Member and chair of the council\u2019s Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee.)<\/p>\n

The Executive is not commonly regarded as a major player in county land use decisions as the County Council and the Planning Board have direct authority over them.\u00a0 But a determined Executive would only need three allies on the County Council to exert control over the Planning Board through his or her veto power.\u00a0 Such control would not be absolute; the Executive can only veto whereas the council alone can nominate.\u00a0 But it\u2019s easy to see how Planning Board appointments could be high stakes, political confrontations in such a scenario.\u00a0 And when politics gets involved, well\u2026 who knows what could happen?<\/p>\n

The point here is that an Executive\u2019s land use views matter and he or she has the power to make them stick.\u00a0 Whatever your views on the subject, that is worth remembering in the voting booth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Montgomery County\u2019s Charter lays out the County Executive\u2019s powers and responsibilities.\u00a0 The best known include nominating department heads, drafting recommended operating and capital budgets, vetoing legislation, representing the county in public and in Annapolis and directing the operations of county government.\u00a0 It\u2019s a powerful office.\u00a0 But the least known, and one of … Continue reading The County Executive\u2019s Least Known Power<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,492,44,40],"tags":[1545,1627,1478,874,1950],"class_list":["post-10836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-county-executive","category-nancy-floreen","category-planning","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-county-executive","tag-nancy-floreen","tag-planning-2","tag-planning-board"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2OM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10836"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10839,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10836\/revisions\/10839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}