Policy Man Redefines His Role

Peter V.R. Franchot is not your father’s comptroller.

Nor has he ever said he would be.

Franchot (D) has never made a secret of his intention to use the Maryland comptroller’s office as a platform for advancing policy initiatives, including those he championed in his five terms as a delegate from Takoma Park representing District 20.

At his January inauguration, Franchot pledged to work to strengthen the state’s economy by promoting investments in life sciences and in the environment and by opposing slot machines. His membership on the state Board of Public Works — along with Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp — has given Franchot a platform to do just that.

His sometimes-fiery, always-earnest speeches at public works board meetings have led some to wonder whether Franchot has ambitions of higher office.

‘‘I think a lot of people misunderstand me because they say ‘Oh, he’s visible. He wants to be something other than what he is,’” Franchot said in an interview with The Gazette editorial board Thursday in Laurel. ‘‘I’m an issue-based politician. I enjoy substance. I enjoy policy. I enjoy debate. ... I would much rather be comptroller than a U.S. senator.”

On the Board of Public Works, Franchot has pushed for green buildings and has been a hawk for compliance with the state’s goal of awarding 25 percent of contracts to minority businesses, and for better oversight on two land deals under Program Open Space.

‘‘Two big Program Open Space purchases ... I have raised strong objections,” Franchot said.

Two weeks ago Franchot questioned plans for the board to spend $7.2 million to buy more than 70 acres of waterfront land and then lease part of it back to an industrial marina on Kent Island that is a dumping ground for dredged material and other refuse.

Franchot said $97,000 per acre was too much to spend. As a result, the proposed deal with Langenfelder Marine is still under review.

In May, the board denied a wetlands permit, the last piece in the approval of the 1,350-unit Four Seasons residential development on Kent Island. Franchot said he was concerned about the impact that stormwater runoff from the project would have on the Chesapeake Bay’s largest stretch of environmentally sensitive shoreline, and by a legal agreement with developers that kept Queen Anne’s County commissioners from testifying about the project.

‘‘That also was an issue that I raised and the governor came along as the second vote, and it was crucial because you need two votes to prevail,” Franchot said.

But Franchot was late in voicing concerns over Queen Anne’s County’s purchase of the 127-acre Kudner Farm in Grasonville.

In a letter sent earlier this month, Franchot reportedly asked county commissioners to hold off on the $5 million deal for the land so that the public works board could consider it at its July 11 meeting.

The purchase, for several hundred thousand dollars more than the land’s appraised value, was approved unanimously by the board in June for purchase from a company headed by a man who served on O’Malley’s transition team.

The deal cleared its final hurdle with the board’s approval, despite Franchot’s objections.

Franchot said he does not mind asking the tough questions during board meetings, he said.

‘‘It may be uncomfortable to raise concerns about issues that the governor’s own agency is supporting before us, but I am perfectly willing to do that, primarily because I am issues-oriented,” he said. ‘‘And so I don’t mind if there’s a little bit of conflict. I just attribute that to leadership as opposed to ‘Gee, I want to be governor’ or ‘I want to be a U.S. Senator’ or ‘I want to be something other than who I am.’ I’m very happy being who I am.”

Franchot, who said repeatedly that he was ‘‘very happy being where I am as comptroller,” has not been shy about reminding people of his title.

Soon after being sworn in, his media office began firing off news releases about a variety of actions taken by the comptroller’s office — from raids for illegal gambling machines to news of Franchot reuniting a former WNBA player with her championship ring through the comptroller’s unclaimed property campaign.

So is all this press a sign that Franchot wants to be governor someday?

‘‘You know, I’d really have to think about that, because I’m 59,” Franchot said. ‘‘The comptroller has — if it’s properly leveraged — an incredible amount of influence and power, similar in scope, but not in angst, to the governor’s position. And it’s because of the Board of Public Works, where my vote is just as strong as the governor’s, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction to be derived from being comptroller.”

The power and influence that Franchot has asserted on the board lends to criticism.

House Minority Leader Anthony J. O’Donnell said that while having one of three votes on the board gives Franchot some influence over policy issues, the degree of attention the comptroller has paid to policy issues is not appropriate for his job.

‘‘I think maybe — and this is not a partisan thing — it diminishes his credibility with the legislative branch of government,” said O’Donnell (R-Dist. 29C) of Lusby. ‘‘I don’t believe the position was intended to be a co-governor.”

Still, ideas that Franchot has promoted have caught on with help from former colleagues in the legislature and from the governor’s office.

He is working with lawmakers and the Tech Council of Maryland to hold a life sciences summit in the fall, fulfilling a pledge he made in his inaugural address.

At a bill signing ceremony in April, O’Malley announced that the state is working, along with Franchot and delegates Dan K. Morhaim (D-Dist. 11) of Owings Mills and William A. Bronrott (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda to establish the Maryland Green Building Council. Franchot suggested the council in February in a letter to O’Malley and Kopp as a way to promote energy efficiency by reviewing projects that come before the public works board.

While he is reticent to offer his opinion on tax proposals for lawmakers to consider in addressing the state’s $1.5 billion budget gap — a gasoline tax is an option he supports to raise revenue for the Transportation Trust Fund — Franchot remains adamantly opposed to one possible revenue source: slot machines.

‘‘I’ve got a very clear record,” he said. ‘‘I think it’s the wrong direction for the state to go in.”

State lawmakers must get over their fascination with the slots debate before they can find a long-term comprehensive solution to the budget problem, he said.

‘‘For five years, the ‘open sesame’ key to the legislature has been slots,” he said. ‘‘Unless you deal with that issue, you can’t get behind the curtain to the other substance,” he said.

That includes modernizing the state tax code, which remains a goal of Franchot’s even as tries to make the comptroller’s office in his own image — an image he sees as that of an Annapolis outsider.

‘‘To this day, I’ve not slept a single night in Annapolis,” he said.

That is not to say that he does not think of his predecessors in the comptroller’s office.

Franchot said he emulates the legendary Louis L. Goldstein, who held the office from 1959 to 1998, for his independence, and William Donald Schaefer, who Franchot defeated in last year’s primary, for ‘‘the feisty way he approached state agencies — the watchdog role.”

But Franchot makes no attempt to hide his political stripes. ‘‘I’m a liberal Democrat,” he said.

O’Donnell said he considers Franchot ‘‘a personal friend,” adding, ‘‘he’s no Louis Goldstein and he’s no William Donald Schaefer.”

It’s too early to say where Franchot will rank with his predecessors, O’Donnell said.

‘‘Louis Goldstein was fairly conservative in relative terms and an icon in Maryland political history,” O’Donnell said. ‘‘William Donald Schaefer obviously was a mayor and a governor and a statewide luminary for many years in and of his own right. Comptroller Franchot comes to statewide office from relative obscurity ... and is still in the formative years of his legacy.”