'Unconscionable dereliction'

The County Council's development scandals are partially the result of "an unconscionable dereliction of responsibility" by successive planning boards, and that the Council itself was had failed to monitor development.

That's what former County Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson, a nationally-recognized planning expert at George Washington University told council members.

"There is no disciplined system through which either the council or the board establishes priorities or assesses performance," he said in comments covered by the Washington Post.

Many top staffers have left the planning agency in recent years, and those who remain "report little or no sense of common purpose or comprehensive context for their work." Hanson based his report on a six-week investigation that included interviews with politicians, planners and developers.