Our Montgomery County Planning Board endorsees got appointed! So…what happens now?

On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Council appointed both of our endorsed Planning Board candidates, Democrat James Hedrick and unaffiliated voter Mitra Pedoeem, as well as Republican Shawn Bartley. This is great news – but let’s talk about how they made this decision, and how the council can make Planning Board appointments more inclusive in the future.

What just happened?

After last fall’s mass resignation, the County Council had to appoint three new members to fill the terms of their predecessors. Because of state laws about political party representation, that needed to include one Democrat, one Republican, and one unaffiliated voter. We sent questionnaires to each of the applicants, which you can find along with our endorsements on our 2023 Elections Hub.

The County Council voted unanimously for Pedoeem, former director of the Department of Permitting Services, and voted 8-3 for James Hedrick, the head of Rockville’s housing authority. Councilmembers Will Jawando, Kristin Mink, and Laurie-Anne Sayles voted for Cherri Branson, a former councilmember who was already on a temporary Planning Board appointed in October.

Councilmembers were split 5-5 between lawyer Bartley and David Winstead, who was the Maryland secretary of transportation in the 1990s. (We couldn’t endorse either of them, as neither filled out our questionnaire.) Councilmember Kate Stewart, who represents Silver Spring and North Bethesda, initially abstained, citing Bartley’s inflammatory statements about Democrats on social media. But East County councilmember Kristin Mink said she felt comfortable appointing him after speaking to people who knew him, which was enough to swing Stewart’s vote.

During the appointment process, councilmembers looked at finalists’ resumes and their professional or volunteer experience. Another, quieter consideration pertains to the applicants’ demographics: who they are, where they live, and to a lesser extent, what perspectives they bring.

Unfortunately, the 11 Planning Board finalists weren’t very diverse. Just three are women, four do not identify as white, and most appear to be over 50. Two of the appointees are a white man (Hedrick) and an Iranian-American woman (Pedoeem), both of whom live on the county’s more affluent west side. Councilmember Will Jawando was explicit about racial diversity as a reason to appoint Bartley, who along with Branson were the only Black finalists and the only ones from the county’s less affluent and more diverse east side.

What a diverse Planning Board means

Planning Board appointments were once very homogeneous: at one point in the 1980s, four of the five commissioners were white and all lived in Bethesda, and the County Council nearly appointed a fifth before the County Executive vetoed it. In the past 10 years, that’s changed dramatically: the board had its first gay, Asian, Latina, and Millennial members, and before Natali Fani-Gonzalez stepped down to run for County Council, the board had two members from immigrant backgrounds and three living on the east side.

Their work reflected the broad perspective of its members. In 2020 the Planning Board recommended opening up single-family zoning in Silver Spring, citing the unrest after the murder of George Floyd and connecting it to disparities in housing access. Under the board’s guidance, staff looked at the history of racial covenants in the county and made racial equity and climate change a main focus of Thrive, the county’s plan for the next 30 years. The board and the Planning Department have received widespread praise for their work, even if it made some residents uncomfortable.

As discussed in our Democratic endorsement, a more diverse board in age, race, wealth, or one of many other relevant characteristics is one that understands the immediacy of the problems Montgomery County faces and will act accordingly. It’s easy to say you support affordable housing and better transit when you’re comfortably housed and have access to a car, which insulates you from the actual outcomes of housing or transportation policies. If you’ve personally and recently struggled with finding a place to live, and you see your friends and family struggling with that, the Planning Board’s decisions can dramatically change your life. Isn’t that experience as valuable, if not more so, than years of career experience?

How to make the Planning Board more representative

In June, the County Council will appoint two additional members to full four-year terms who can be of any political party, meaning anyone can apply. One of them will be the chair, who sets the tone and direction of the Planning Board for the next four years. Here are a few things the council can do to ensure the new board best represents Montgomery County’s diversity:

More publicity. 128 people applied to be on the temporary Planning Board, perhaps because the Planning Board’s meltdown was so public and people felt called to help. For the permanent appointments, there were so few applicants the County Council extended the deadline, and it’s not the first time that happened. It doesn’t help that the job description is boring and jargony, especially considering how powerful and influential it is! The county should do more to raise awareness of the Planning Board: what it does, why it matters, how to testify, and what the job actually looks like. You shouldn’t have to be a nerd to apply!

More transparency. The Planning Board appointment process happens mostly behind closed doors and it’s hard for people to find out anything about the applicants, or how the County Council makes its decision. For example: when I was a finalist in 2017, the council discussed the appointment privately, then publicly voted 8-1 to appoint Tina Patterson. This year, the council agreed to discuss and vote on the appointments in public, which is a great start. The public should also be able to see all of the applicants’ materials, as well as how the County Council vets and selects the finalists.

In the long term: more money. Planning Board members are “part-time,” meeting one or two days a week, but they’re also responsible for reading lots of staff reports and appearing at outside events, which can be hard to balance with another job. For their trouble, they receive just $30,000 a year, which has not increased in over a decade. No wonder most applicants are wealthy or retired, demographics that are already overrepresented in local decision-making. The board chair is full-time and makes $228,000 each year, $21,000 more than four years ago; paying part-time members more and giving them raises would attract more people to apply.

Let’s not waste this opportunity

The County Council has a couple of months before the next round of Planning Board appointments. That’s a crucial chance to bring in the voices this county needs to start hearing from, but that starts with reforming the process to bring in a larger pool of candidates.

In the meantime: please thank the council for appointing our two endorsed candidates, James Hedrick and Mitra Pedoeem! You can click this link to pre-fill all eleven councilmembers’ addresses; from there, please write a personalized message, and if that doesn’t work, use this link from the Council website. It can be quick! If you don’t mind, cc Dan Reed at dreed[at]ggwash.org so we can track how many of you contact your representatives.