The "Tower of Planning" in Wheaton, where the Planning Board meets. Photo by Montgomery Planning.

This month, the Montgomery County Council will appoint two new members to the Planning Board, which has a very powerful and influential role on everything from transportation to housing to parks. One of the two new commissioners will be chair, who will shape the board’s agenda over the next three years. It’s a big deal!

It’s also hard to find publicly available information about the applicants. That’s why we reached out to all 25 applicants and sent them a questionnaire. We’re sharing the responses we received here as a service to the public. Questionnaire responses also inform our applicant endorsement decisions, which we’ll announce ahead of the County Council’s vote.

Wait, how does this work?

In February, the County Council appointed three people to finish the four-year terms of Planning Board members who resigned last fall. (We endorsed two of the three successful applicants: James Hedrick and Mitra Pedoeem). Now the council will fill the two remaining seats, which were already going to be open since their terms had ended. In keeping with an old state law that says no more than three Planning Board members can be of the same political party, these two seats are open to anyone regardless of affiliation since there’s already a Democrat, a Republican, and an unaffiliated voter on the board.

As we wrote in February, the actual appointment process is not super transparent, and last Thursday the Council released its list of finalists, who they’ll interview Tuesday. This year, Council President Evan Glass has promised to conduct this year’s appointment process completely in public.

Here’s what the applicants had to say

Below, we are excited to share the questionnaire responses we received, organized by applicants seeking to be chair, a commissioner, or both. Next to their name is their political party. Click on a linked name to view that applicant’s questionnaire. Names without links are applicants who did not complete the questionnaire, but we’ll add new ones as they come in.

Finalists

Chair Commissioner

Applicants who did not become finalists

Chair Commissioner Both
  • Robert Love (D)
  • Denine Fernandez (D)
  • Rita Ferrall (R)
  • Faramarz Mokhtari (R)
  • Richard Peppin (Green)
  • Roberto Piñero (D)
  • Lisa Shanley (Unaffiliated)
  • Jim Zhao (D)
  • Joseph Micallef (D)
  • Emil Nusbaum (R)
  • Brian O’Looney (D)
  • Alexander Ratner (D)
  • Avital Zenilman (R)

If you have a few hours to spare, you can watch the County Council interview applicants for chair and commissioner on YouTube. We will announce our endorsements later this week, and we’re told the County Council will vote on which finalists to appoint May 11.

And don’t forget, our Elections Hub is your one-stop shop for questionnaires, endorsements process details, and our endorsements themselves. Access the hub anytime from the “2023 Elections” link in the upper right corner of our webpage.