“We have a lawsuit.” With those four words, a Calvert County commissioner tried to stop the county from filling its Board of Appeals before the case is over. The effort failed. At the Sept. 29 meeting, the Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to seat Ronald Scott and Barbara Warner as members and Miriam Gull as an alternate, filling every open seat on a panel that, by one commissioner’s account, the county is currently fighting in court.
The commissioner, whom staff addressed as Commissioner Grasso, said the three appointees had been vetted and that Grasso was “very happy” with them. The objection was to the board itself. Existing members, Grasso said, voted to add “tolling” to a property dispute, and “tolling was never part of our rules or regulations.” In Grasso’s view it was “a breach of the scope of the work” the members are supposed to do. In land-use cases, tolling generally means pausing a deadline, such as the clock on a development approval, while a dispute plays out. Grasso did not name the property, the case or the court, and no one else described the lawsuit on the record. The Board of Appeals hears requests for zoning variances and special exceptions and appeals of zoning officials’ decisions, which Grasso said is why it “should have no conflict of interest.” Grasso asked the board to pause all appointments until the court case is resolved. A second commissioner agreed, saying the next board should get to shape appointments to a panel this important.
County staff pushed back on the practical risk. Planning and Zoning Director Jason Brinkley told the commissioners that only three of the board’s five regular seats are filled, that the two alternates are “not always available,” and that some regular members have had health problems that kept them from serving. The panel has managed to reach a quorum so far, he said, but he urged caution about waiting for a court case to finish, “because sometimes those could take years.” Without a quorum, he warned, projects could be delayed, “and if you’re delaying projects for a significant period of time, that could also open up legal challenges.”
One commissioner was not persuaded, saying the county should never have been in this position with the existing board and that a panel the county is in court with “doesn’t have to meet.” Another floated a middle path: if something urgent came up, the Board of Appeals could push a hearing to January so the incoming commissioners could vote on new members at their first opportunity. Brinkley said the board, which normally meets the first Thursday of each month when there are cases to hear, can shift an item forward or back a month without trouble, but he cautioned against an indefinite delay. The motion to appoint carried on a voice vote. Two commissioners were heard voting no; the meeting audio does not make clear who they were.
The terms differ for each appointee. Scott, who staff said currently serves as an alternate, was named to his first term as a member running through Sept. 30, 2029. Warner takes the remainder of the term held by Thomas Brisco, who resigned, which runs to May 31, 2028. Gull’s partial term as an alternate runs through July 31, 2028. The motion as first read gave Warner the wrong dates, a commissioner pointed out, and staff then clarified the end date at the table. Board of Appeals members are among those who receive meeting stipends in Calvert, $500 per meeting and $600 for the chair, according to figures staff gave later in the same meeting during a separate discussion of an ethics commission pay request.
The vote came at the end of an outgoing board’s tenure. Commissioners Todd Ireland, Mark Cox and Buddy Hance lost their primaries in June amid a backlash over data centers, and voters choose a new board Nov. 3. The lame-duck board has spent recent meetings making decisions the incoming members will inherit. During public comment, Kenneth Lee, a candidate for commissioner, said the day’s decisions put the next board in the position of having its hands forced, and he pointed to the Board of Appeals picks specifically.
More vacancies are coming. Brinkley said Robert Carpenter, the board’s current chair, has a term that expires at the end of November, and Gerald Clark’s term ends at the end of January 2027. Both can seek reappointment alongside any other applicants, and those decisions will land with the commissioners seated Dec. 15 if they are not made sooner. They will have a new county attorney to lean on: Bradley Neitzel, appointed at the same Sept. 29 meeting, starts Oct. 19. What the court eventually says about “tolling” could shape how the next board thinks about the panel it just filled, but the case itself remains a blank: the parties, the court and the claims were not described at the meeting, and the Chronicle has not yet confirmed them independently.
The same meeting also produced the final terms of the county’s $78.9 million bond sale and the approved purchase of 215 Lore Road for the Calvert Marine Museum.
