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EDITORIAL
Poor choice
(Published May 5, 2003)
D.C. City Council appears poised to rubber-stamp yet another poor choice by Mayor Anthony A. Williams to fill an important position in the city government. This time especially, there are sound reasons for the council to reject the mayor's nominee.
Cleveland Park resident Ruthanne G. Miller's recent appointment to take over the chairmanship of the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) is a mistake of grand proportions. It threatens to cripple the council's ability to provide effective oversight of a regulatory body whose decisions can change the character of residential neighborhoods.
By most accounts, Miller is a personable lawyer who gained most of her knowledge of zoning matters through her service as an advisory neighborhood commissioner in an area facing many contentious development issues. Miller's support of several construction projects, despite strong neighborhood opposition, often is cited as a primary reason that 61 percent of her neighbors voted last fall to replace her after only one term as their ANC representative.
She also is married to Robert Miller, legal counsel to Council Chairman Linda Cropp. As Mrs. Miller's husband's boss, Cropp also chairs the committee with jurisdiction over the BZA's appointments, budget and operations. Among the ways that Robert Miller employs his expertise in land use issues is his service as the council chairman's representative on the powerful National Capital Planning Commission. The commission has enormous impact on land use issues in the District of Columbia and interacts intimately with the city's zoning officials.
Mrs. Miller's intellectual ability and professional skills are not the issue. Her qualifications and her willingness to serve the public make her an excellent candidate for vacancies on many other boards and commissions awaiting mayoral appointments.
But surely, in a city of more than 500,000 people, the mayor could have found a qualified person to chair the Board of Zoning Adjustment whose appointment will not cripple the ability of both the board and the council to do their jobs.
Mrs. Miller, addressing conflict-of-interest concerns during a council confirmation hearing on April 30, pledged to recuse herself from several pending BZA cases and told Chairman Cropp she would remove herself from participationin other future BZA cases "if you want me to." During the same hearing, Cropp repeatedly fended off citizens' conflict-of-interest complaints and vowed that her longtime aide would not participate in council oversight involving his wife's appointment.
BZA decisions affect the general mood and social environment of the city's neighborhoods; they are too important to be relegated to the status of close-knit "family business" decisions. This is important public business.
Both Cropp and Mrs. Miller said they fail to see any conflict of interest in the appointment.
Therein lies the major issue with this nomination, which the full council should not ignore. Denying a conflict of interest does not make it go away. Must the city council lose Robert Miller's expertise on land use issues – and perhaps need to shell out more tax dollars at a time of budget restrictions to replace that expertise – because the mayor made a bad choice?
Copyright 2003, The Common Denominator