Council to Interview Five Applicants for Planning Board Chair

The Montgomery County Council will interview five applicants for the chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board on July 8.

As you may remember, Planning Board Chair Francoise Carrier’s term expired on June 14 and she did not apply for reappointment.

The Council received letters of interest from 18 applicants to fill the vacancy. Eight applied for chair only, two applied for board member only and eight applied for either chair or member.

The Council selected the following five applicants to interview for the position of chair, including:  Casey Anderson, Norman Dreyfuss, Mike Knapp, Rose Krasnow and Meredith Wellington. Both Anderson and Dreyfuss are currently members of the Planning Board.

The interviews will be held in the Third Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The public is invited to attend the interviews, which will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM—Cable Channel 6 on Comcast and RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon). The broadcast also will be streamed at: www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council/ondemand/index.html .

The interviews will be rebroadcast on Friday, July 11, as part of a rebroadcast of the Council’s complete activities on July 8, including its morning general session. The rebroadcast will begin at 9 p.m. Friday and will be available before that time on demand.

Council President Craig Rice said that the Council may make its selection of a new Planning Board chair as early as its meeting of July 15.

The resume of each applicant to be interviewed is available as part of the information packet on the interview process. That information can be viewed at:
http://montgomerycountymd.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=6&event_id=1678&meta_id=67608 .

The applicants to be interviewed were provided in advance with the questions that will be asked of each applicant.

Those questions are:

1. Why do you want to be chair of the Planning Board and what in your background qualifies you for this role?

2. What do you feel are the most important issues facing the Planning Board, and what would be your top three priorities as chair?

3. What is your understanding of the role of chair as it relates to other members of the Board and to the Council?

4. How do you think we should deal with future development and redevelopment issues, and what is the Planning Board’s role in supporting existing communities?

5. Many of the Council’s land use decisions require balancing the community’s desires for further economic development, neighborhood protection, and enhanced environmental protection. What factors would you look at in trying to achieve a reasonable balance in individual cases?

6. What is your view of the Planning Board’s overall responsibility for our park system, and what do you see as the chair’s role?

7. As you know, this position carries with it obligations for attending meetings, making appearances and other activities that include some nights and weekends. Will you make the time commitments required to fulfill these elements of the role? Have you engaged in community outreach activities? If so, what were they?

8. Are there any potential conflicts-of-interest of which we should be aware?

9. Are there other points about your interest in the chair that you would like to call to the Council’s attention?

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