Council elects two new Planning Board members - Business Gazette

Presley and Alfandre chosen to fill open seats

by Margie Hyslop and Janel Davis | Staff Writers

The County Council elected two new members for the county’s Planning Board on Tuesday — a prominent developer and an activist who played a key role in uncovering hundreds of building violations in Clarksburg.

Their appointments fill out the five-member board which has been without a full complement since the death in January of one of its newest members.

Joseph L. Alfandre, a Democrat from Potomac, developed the Kentlands, a nationally renowned ‘‘New Urbanist” community in Gaithersburg.

Councilman Roger Berliner (D-Dist. 1) of Potomac, praised him as sensitive to the needs of communities and said he will provide knowledge of the industry to the panel.

Alfandre replaces the late Eugene ‘‘Gene” Lynch, founder of the development firm, Smart Growth Investments, which focuses on building projects that take advantage of existing infrastructure such as nearby transit. Lynch was a former state and county official; he died just seven months after being appointed to the seat.

‘‘I think [Alfandre] is the rightful heir to the Gene Lynch seat,” said Berliner.

Amy Presley, a Republican from Clarksburg, is a strategic planning and marketing consultant and a founder of the Clarksburg Town Center Advisory Committee, whose research uncovered hundreds of overlooked building violations in that community and led to reforms at the planning agency. She replaces Allison Bryant, a consultant, who served on the board since September 1997 when he was appointed to finish the term of Ruthann Aron, who was removed after being charged with trying to hire someone to kill her husband. Bryant then was appointed to two terms of his own.

Bryant’s departure leaves just one board member, John Robinson (whose term expires in June 2009), from the panel that presided when Presley and other activists pushed the board to overhaul procedures and give the public more access to the development process.

There were 19 applicants for the Democratic seat and 10 for the non-majority party seat, including eight Republicans and two unaffiliated candidates.

The five-member panel includes three seats for people who are affiliated with the majority party and two for people who are not.