A restructuring in the Montgomery County House Delegation could make it easier for bills affecting Montgomery and Prince George’s counties to make their way to the General Assembly faster come next session in Annapolis.
Del. Brian Feldman, D-Montgomery County, who chairs Montgomery’s House delegation, announced this week that the Bi-County Committee, which previously governed both the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, is being split into two separate committees.
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The Sanitary Commission will be handled under a committee chaired by Del. Kathleen Dumais, D-Rockville. Meanwhile, the Park and Planning Commission will be folded into the existing Transportation Committee, which will be renamed the Land Use and Transportation Committee and chaired by Del. William Bronrott, D-Bethesda. Doing so should make the process for legislation having to do with either large agency much more streamlined, according to Bronrott.
“It makes a lot of sense,” he told The Examiner on Wednesday. “Previously the bicounty committee was overloaded with work, and by separating WSSC issues from MCPP issues, we’ll cut down on that a lot.”
Bronrott said he anticipates that the marriage of Park and Planning with general transportation matters is especially logical and could result in more coordinated smart growth initiatives at the state level.
Bicounty bills face a much longer battle to get passed than standard legislation. They must pass through both Montgomery and Prince George’s delegations before being assigned to the appropriate committee within the General Assembly. For that reason, it took nearly all session this past spring for WSSC and Park and Planning bills to pass. Perhaps the most-debated was a piece of legislation concerning park fees and whether county residents in unincorporated cities such as Rockville should have to foot the bill
