Howard County Council votes to remove appeals board chair, reigniting controversy

A yearlong feud between some of Howard County’s elected leaders and the county’s Board of Appeals reignited this week after three council members voted to remove the board’s chair, sparking furious reactions from members of both bodies.

Council members Deb Jung and Liz Walsh have long taken issue with how some appeals board members conduct themselves, and have criticized their decisions in high-profile cases. They did not, however, have enough support among their fellow council members to remove any of the appointees on the appeals board.

That changed Wednesday morning when council member Christiana Rigby initiated a closed-door meeting on short notice to discuss the matter and joined Jung and Walsh in voting to immediately remove appeals board chair Gene Ryan.

Ryan said he intends to fight the decision and suggested the board’s independence was under attack.

Appeals board members have clashed with council members over several cases in the past year, including a go-kart track built on a western Howard County property without permission and W.R. Grace’s plan to build a plastics recycling plant in Columbia.

Ryan and two other appeals board members, Vice Chair Lynn Foehrkolb and Felita Phillips, announced their resignations in protest in the fall of 2025, saying that council members’ conduct and criticism had interfered with the board’s independence and its handling of appeals. They later rescinded their resignations and remained on the board.

County Council Chair Opel Jones slammed the speed with which Wednesday’s meeting was convened and said he did not have enough time to see the messages inviting him, and neither did council member David Yungmann, who was attending a funeral. Yungmann did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

“I’m chair of the County Council, for Christ’s sake, and I did not receive proper notice,” Jones said.

Rigby said some of the miscommunication stemmed from technical issues she had with messages not syncing between her phone and a new personal laptop that was not with her when she called the meeting.

“Transparency increases trust, and that’s one of the most important elements in a community for both local government and the people they serve,” she said. “The meeting was given as much notice as possible, and it is my preference that we always have meetings scheduled far in advance.”

In February, the council passed a bill barring it from hindering, obstructing or disrupting the deliberations and decisions of the county’s boards and commissions. Jones introduced the bill, and Rigby and Yungmann sponsored it.

Rigby said that, following conflict over the winter, an internal investigation into the appeals board was opened after complaints from county staff. The accusations were deemed unfounded, but Rigby said there were “other elements of conduct” that led her to call for Ryan’s removal.

Ryan said the county hired an investigator, who contacted him in March and said a complaint of sexism and racism had been lodged against him concerning interactions with a county law office staffer. Ryan denies the allegations and cooperated with the investigation, but never saw a final report.

Rigby said she wrestled for a while over the decision to remove the appeals board chair and that the timing this week was important. The board was not in the middle of any decision-making but had a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

The four remaining appeals board members — Foehrkolb, Phillips, Robbyn Harris and Marisa McCurdy — convened that hearing for just five minutes.

Foehrkolb and Phillips said they could not “in good conscience” participate in the hearing and suggested Ryan’s removal was illegal before walking off the dais and out of the meeting. Without a quorum of board members, Harris and McCurdy said they were unable to continue and apologized to the citizens in attendance.

The rift between council and appeals board members has implications for Howard County property owners. The Board of Appeals mainly deals with disputes related to zoning and land use, which are major issues for a county valued for its proximity to the Port of Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Interstate 95 and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

A letter notifying Ryan of his removal, obtained by The Banner, says he’s entitled to request a public hearing before the County Council within 10 days.

In the meantime, Phillips said she’s not sure what comes next for the board, but said she would not step down in protest.

“I’m not resigning,” she said. “You’re going to have to remove me.”