Suburban Hospital plan up for review

Montgomery County’s Board of Appeals begins its review June 30 of recommendations for revisions of Suburban Hospital’s $200 million expansion plan, taking up a proposal last week from a hearing examiner to redo substantial sections of the plan.

The board is also expected to examine a request for its chairman, Catherine Titus, to recuse herself from handling the matter because of potential conflicts of interest.

Norman Knopf, the attorney for a neighborhood group that has opposed the scope of the expansion plan, has asked Titus to withdraw from the case because her husband, Roger Titus, now a federal judge, served on the hospital’s board for 14 years, three as chairman. The couple also donated to the hospital a sum between $1,000 and $4,999 in 2007, according to a motion Knopf filed with the board.