On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Council interviewed candidates for temporary Planning Board commissioners after the entire board resigned.
On Oct. 12, all five county Planning Board members resigned after weeks of scrutiny. The council announced it lost confidence in the board and accepted resignations from Chair Casey Anderson, Vice Chair Partap Verma and Commissioners Gerald Cichy, Tina Patterson and Carol Rubin.
The 11 finalists interviewed Tuesday were Raj Barr‐Kumar, Cherri Branson, Francoise Carrier, Norman Dreyfuss, Barbara Goldberg Goldman, David Hill, William Kirwin, Vincent Napoleon, Roberto Pinero, Amy Presley and Jeff Zyontz.
The candidates were interviewed in three panels and the council plans to make appointments on Thursday, per council agenda.
Council President Gabe Albornoz emphasized appointments will be temporary. Acting members can still apply for the full-term position.
“But being on a temporary position does not give them a leg up. It will be the next council that will determine who this next body will be. This is just a bridge to get us through this challenging time,” Albornoz said.
Barr‐Kumar is an architect and urban planner who was the 1997 National President of the American Institute of Architects. Branson was an interim county councilmember in 2014 and was the director of the county’s Office of Procurement from 2015 to 2018. Carrier was Planning Board chair from 2010-2014 and is a land use and zoning attorney. Dreyfuss served two four-year terms on the Planning Board until 2019 and is the Executive Vice President of real estate developer IDI Group Companies. Goldberg Goldman is founder and co-chair of The Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County and President of staffing agency B&G Regal Domestics, Inc.
Hill was a planning commissioner for the City of Rockville for 10 years and is now a senior systems analyst with Westat. Kirwin, an architect and planner, was on the Montgomery County Maryland Historic Preservation Commission for 10 years, including five years as chair. Napoleon is an attorney who served as general counsel to public companies and a senior legal executive involved in infrastructure projects in Philadelphia. Pinero is a member of the Montgomery County Board of Appeals. He was a Senior Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office from 1997 to 2016 and served on the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County for 12 years. Presley served two terms on the county Planning Board from 2008-2016 and is a managing partner for Trusted Estate Partners. Zyontz, an attorney, was a legislative attorney/senior research analyst for the county council until 2020.
Following the interviews Tuesday afternoon, councilmembers held a closed session to discuss the appointment of Planning Board members.
Last week, the Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County said that they obtained a list of 128 applicants for the five open positions.
Annual salary for board members is $30,000 and salary for the chair is $227,891.46.
