Montgomery County Council President Gabe Albornoz said Monday that the council has questions about the county Planning Board’s ’s decision Friday to fire Planning Director Gwen Wright, and said he is “deeply troubled” by what has transpired in the Planning Department over the last several weeks.
“We have a number of questions regarding the personnel action taken by the Planning Board late last week. And we are following through on evaluating all of that,” Albornoz said during a press briefing Monday when asked by a Bethesda Beat reporter about the firing.
The Montgomery County Planning Board fired Wright three months before she was set to retire. According to Wright, the board voted 4-0 to fire her in a closed session Friday afternoon. Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson was absent. The other commissioners were Vice Chair Partap Verma, Carol Rubin, Tina Patterson and Gerald R. Cichy.
“I’m very sorry to end a long career on a very sour note, I worry about the agency,” Wright told Bethesda Beat after confirming that she was fired. “I worry about my staff … but it is what it is.”
According to a news release, the Planning Board has appointed Tanya Stern as acting director. Stern was deputy director under Wright since August 2018.
Albornoz said he is confident that Stern will be able to lead the department.
“I believe that there will be a seamless transition and that Ms. Stern is uniquely qualified to be able to help carry forward the important work of the planning department,” he said.
Wright’s termination is the latest in a series of controversies that have rocked the board and Planning Department recently.
First, a leaked report from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission’s Office of the Inspector General revealed that Anderson had a full bar in his office, and sometimes shared drinks with colleagues during non-business hours, which was against county rules.
After a County Council investigation, Anderson was fined a month of his salary, and Verma and Rubin were each fined a day’s pay.
On Thursday, WJLA first reported that, according to a confidential email, Anderson had contributed to a “toxic misogynistic and hostile workplace” because of comments he had made to workers. County officials are currently investigating those claims, which Anderson strongly denied on Friday.
Two sources — speaking anonymously to freely discuss recent circumstances at the board and Planning Department — said before the vote to fire Wright that Verma was leading efforts to oust Wright. They said he and other planning board officials were upset that Wright talked to a WJLA reporter about an email sent by someone else that was leaked to the TV station, in which there was a claim that Anderson was, in part, responsible for “toxic misogynistic and hostile workplace.”
Wright, who was set to retire at the end of the year, played an important role in the development of Thrive Montgomery 2050, the county’s proposed update to its general master plan.
On Monday, Albornoz also said he is not concerned about the path forward for the Thrive 2050 plan. The council is expected to vote whether to approve the update later this month.
“This has been a process that’s that has been underway for years and while we are deeply troubled and disappointed in what has transpired these last several weeks, it does not counter all of the hard work and the community engagement and the committee sessions and the public hearings that we have had over the years, deliberating and discussing this critically important document. And so I do not anticipate that the disruption in leadership in the short term will impact our ability to be able to move Thrive forward,” he said.
The council met in closed session at 3 p.m. Monday to discuss a “personnel matter concerning one or more specific appointees, employees, or officials,” according to the public notice.
It is unknown which county personnel were discussed during the closed meeting.
Wright had served as director of the county’s Planning Department since 2013, and had been with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission — a commission that serves both Montgomery and Prince George’s counties — from 1987 to 2008, according to her LinkedIn page. She also served in Alexandria’s Planning Department from 2008 to 2013.
She received an award last month from the American Planning Association National Capital Area Chapter for her leadership of the Planning Department, including for her work on Thrive Montgomery 2050.
Bethesda Beat reporter Steve Bohnel contributed to this story.
