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Council presidency

should be public business

The Oct. 28 edition of The Gazette contained some disheartening news regarding the performance of the Montgomery County Council. Rather than working together to solve the many problems facing the county, some council members are jockeying to prevent the current council vice president, Roger Berliner (District 1) from becoming the next council president. Why change the normal procedure whereby the vice president has always succeeded the retiring president in a non-election year?

Any change in the council's usual procedures would encourage additional rivalry between council members and destabilize the council at the very moment when clear thinking and mutual respect are required to face extremely difficult budget decisions. The council has already been labeled by some as "dysfunctional." In fact, council member Berliner has worked hard to overcome existing divisions by emphasizing common ground and a civil approach.

District 1 spent years in the wilderness by electing Republicans (1990-2006). Has District 1 ever held the council presidency? Having at last elected a first-rate Democrat, Berliner, District 1 voters would be severely disappointed to have their council member denied his term as council president.

Adam Pagnucco's blog "Maryland Politics Watch" says council member Nancy Floreen (D-at large) wants to be council president. When The Gazette asked Floreen, council member George F. Leventhal (D-at large) and council member Valerie Ervin of Silver Spring (D-District 5) how they would vote, they said the matter was private. Leventhal added, "I think this a discussion among colleagues and friends."

Really? It seems like public business to me.

Margaret Greene, Bethesda

District 1 deserves

County Council president

The most balkanized and divided County Council in recent memory now proposes to abrogate and breach its 40-year solid precedent of annually rotating the County Council presidency. As a resident of District 1 in Montgomery County, I am deeply concerned with both the motivation and the effect of the proposed change. Excessive internal politics exist within the council in the yearly election of its vice president. No interest of residents of Montgomery County is served by the proposed action and the only explanation for aggressively upsetting the sound precedent of raising its vice president to president at this time appears to be raw personal ambition.

The existing tradition affords each district a periodic brief opportunity to have its local concerns receive sharper focus through having its elected council member preside over the council, if he or she chooses to seek the presidency. The one-year term limit built into the annual rotation of the president has a prophylactic effect; it inhibits overreaching and assures post-presidential future congeniality. Ultimately the president returns to the fold and must live as an equal among his or her peers.

The proposed action is cynical, premature, and permanently politicizes and poisons the independence of all the council members. It will become a persistent council distraction that will lead to internecine conflicts, backroom politics and perpetual campaigns for president. Cultivating peer votes will become a full time endeavor, leading to vote swapping, commitments, deals and mutual back scratching, power blocs and cronyism. It will undoubtedly abuse and violate the public interest and the expectations of Montgomery County residents.

Moreover, the present action is shortsighted and undemocratic as well. It will fail to afford the opportunity for each district eventually to have its issues focused on for the short presidential term of one year out of eight.

This action negatively affects the residents of District 1 and frustrates our expectations. Our former council member Howard Denis was denied the presidency because he was the only Republican on the council and was politically outnumbered. The election of council member Roger Berliner, a Democrat, gave District 1 residents a realistic opportunity in the expectation they would, for one year, have their resident council member serve as president. As a Democrat, I am frustrated and furious that the council proposes to prematurely violate its precedent.

This action, if necessary, could easily have been held off for at least one year beyond the term of the existing incumbent vice president — obviating present strife and frustration. Doing it now deliberately denies District 1 voters their reasonable expectation for 2010. This expectation was a key factor in electing a Democrat to represent this District.

The action is bad for the council, bad for the county, bad for all the residents of District 1 and reflects badly on the Democratic Party. This issue has already permeated and poisoned the atmosphere in the council and it will continue to lead to more bitter and personal divisiveness. I hope that reason will prevail and that the council will drop it in the interests of good and fair governance.

Charles Kauffman, Bethesda