Following is the press release from the County Council.
Francoise Carrier Named New Chair of Montgomery County Planning Board
County Council Votes Unanimously for Rockville Resident
ROCKVILLE, Md., May 18, 2010—The Montgomery County Council on May 18 voted unanimously to name Francoise Carrier of Rockville to a four-year term as the new chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board. She will fill the seat of Royce Hanson, whose term will expire on June 14. Dr. Hanson did not apply for reappointment.
The appointment will now go to County Executive Isiah Leggett for approval. If approved, Ms. Carrier will take office on or after June 14.
Ms. Carrier is a director and hearing examiner with the Montgomery County Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings. She has worked for that office since 2001, carrying out the functions of an administrative law judge in land use and human rights cases, presiding over approximately 15-25 trial-type hearings per year and managing pre-hearing procedural matters. She issues detailed recommendations in cases decided by the County Council or another agency, and opinions in cases decided directly by the County’s hearing examiner.
A graduate of Stanford Law School with a background in economics and land use law, she previously worked for three Washington, D.C., law firms over a period of 17 years.
“This is a tremendous honor,” Ms. Carrier told the Council following her appointment. “I am excited about serving the County in this challenging position.”
Prior to appointing Ms. Carrier, the Council set the salary for the position at $160,000.
A total of 16 people originally applied for the position. In addition to Ms. Carrier, the Council also interviewed Peter Fosselman of Kensington, Tedi Osias of Chevy Chase and John Robinson of Kensington.
No more than three members of the Planning Board may be from the same political party, and all members must be residents and registered voters of Montgomery County when appointed. Members serve four-year terms and are limited to two full terms. The position could have been filled by a Democrat, a Republican; a voter who declined to affiliate with a party; or by a member of another party officially recognized by the Montgomery County Board of Elections.
Ms. Carrier is a Democrat. Other members of the Planning Board are Joseph Alfandre, Democrat; Norman Dreyfuss, a Republican; Amy Presley, a Republican; and Marye Wells-Harley, a Democrat.
The Planning Board serves as the Council’s principal adviser on land use planning and community planning. Planning Board members also serve as Commissioners of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
The Planning Board’s responsibilities with regard to planning include preparation and amendment of County General Plan; preparation and amendment of Master Plans and functional plans; formulation of subdivision regulations; preparation of or recommendations on text amendments to the County Zoning Ordinance; implementation of the subdivision process by reviewing and approving all preliminary plans, site plans and other plans for development; advice on the planning implication of capital facilities and programs of the County government, Montgomery College, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and Montgomery County Public Schools; commenting, under its Mandatory Referral authority, on plans for public facilities of local, state and federal agencies; and approval of the work program and the annual operating budget for the Planning Department and the Commission’s bi-county offices.
The Planning Board sits as the Park Commission and approves the annual Parks Department operating budget and Capital Improvements Program (CIP) budget; land acquisition contracts and major development contracts for parks; development plans for individual park facilities; policies for park operations; and park user fees.
The Montgomery County Planning Board meets all day every Thursday and often meets on one other evening a week. The entire Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission meets the third Wednesday of every month.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Francoise Carrier Named as Next Planning Chair
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Carrier Aces Interview, Likely to be Next Planning Chair
Multiple council building sources report that Francoise Carrier, the Director of the county’s Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings, hit a home run in the interviews for Planning Board Chair yesterday. One Council Member said she was "head and shoulders" above the other three candidates, who are former Planning Board Member John Robinson, Kensington Mayor Pete Fosselman and Housing and Opportunities Commission Member Tedi Osias.
"People are going to like her," said another Council Member. "People will see that the Planning Board will be in good hands." Yet another Council Member said, "It was off the charts how good she was." This person praised Carrier's offer to provide alternatives to the council along with master plan drafts, something which has not been done before. "She demonstrated that she would be our partner in that. She knows her job is to work with us."
At the moment, we believe Carrier has at least eight of the council's nine votes. The council will select the next Planning Chair on Tuesday.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Next Planning Board Chair will Likely be a Woman (Updated)
Five candidates are vying to succeed Royce Hanson as Montgomery County’s next Planning Board Chair. We can not predict who will win, but our sources in Rockville lead us to believe that the County Council will make history by appointing the first woman ever to lead the Planning Department next month.
The two leading candidates at the moment are Tedi Osias, who is a lobbyist for the county’s Housing Opportunities Commission and has worked as Chief of Staff to former Council Member Howie Denis and with the Board of Appeals, and Francoise Carrier, who is the Director of the county’s Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings. Both have experience with one of the most critical duties of the Planning Chair: dealing with community members on land-use issues. Both are well-known to Council Members because they have worked directly with them.
The other three candidates – Planning Board member and developer Joe Alfandre, former Planning Board Vice-Chair John Robinson and Kensington Mayor Pete Fosselman – have been lobbying the council for the job for months. Robinson has wanted it for years. If any of these three had five votes, the council would not have extended the deadline in March.
Part of the reason for the council’s delay is that no one is seen as an ideal candidate to replace Hanson by many Council Members. When your author asked one Council Member who was looking good for the position, this person replied, “No one – on any level.” Another remarked, “None of the candidates have broad management skills which is a challenge with a $120M, 800+ person operation that has been operating too autonomously for too long.” Osias and Carrier are not managers while Fosselman hired a town manager to run Kensington.
Both Osias and Carrier have supporters but neither has locked it up. We believe that neither Alfandre nor Robinson has any support. Council Members are divided as to whether Fosselman is in the mix. Two said he was, another called him a “possible dark horse” and a fourth said, “Pete doesn’t stand a chance although he thinks he does.” Fosselman’s testimony on the Purple Line, which called for continued study of alternative routes to light rail on the Georgetown Branch, was spotlighted by rail opponents and may be a problem for some Council Members. Slow-growth civic activists have begun emailing the council on behalf of Carrier, which will bolster her in the eyes of some Council Members but hurt her in the eyes of others.
We believe the council is split down the middle between Osias and Carrier. At the moment, one Council Member favors Carrier, one favors Carrier with Fosselman as a second choice, two favor Osias, two see the job as between Osias and Carrier, one sees it as between Osias, Carrier and Fosselman and two have not indicated an opinion. That is about as up in the air as it gets.
Whoever gets the job as Planning Chair may regret it. The Department faces years of budget cuts, continuous demands for master plans, project reviews and growth policy reviews, a possible merger of its Parks Department with the county’s Department of Recreation and the ever-complicated relationships on the County Council. The council could very well make history by picking a woman as the next Planning Chair, but that does not mean the next chapter in the Department’s own history will be an easy one.
Update: We made a mistake in this post. One of our sources tells us that Caroline Freeland was Planning Chair from 1963 through 1971. So Osias or Carrier would be the first female chair in thirty-nine years.
