Buffington named to Olney town center committee

Businessman will represent small property owners in downtown

Buffington, 33, who owns an interest in the Buffington Building located adjacent to the historic Olney House, fills the committee seat recently designated for a small-business property owner located within the center of town.

Based on requests from the business community, the Olney Town Center Advisory Committee agreed that small-business property owners should have a representative on the committee.

‘‘I am happy to see the make-up of the committee change to add a small property owner,” Buffington said. ‘‘A lot of the town center is made up of small property owners, and they have a different outlook than some of the other business representatives — not necessarily a competing outlook, just different.”

Olney Town Center Advisory Committee Chairman Jim Smith said there were two nominees for the position.

‘‘We were fortunate to have two very well-qualified candidates and the committee would be very fortunate to have either of them fill the seat,” he said.

Two other representatives of the business community sit on the committee. Those seats are held by the Olney Chamber of Commerce, represented by Paula Khala, owner of Paula’s Boutique, and the Carl M. Freeman Companies, which holds more than one-third of the land area in the town center.

Nine other members on the 12-member committee represent homeowners associations, civic groups and county service agencies.

Olney Town Center Advisory Committee Vice Chairwoman Sunita Bhatia led the nominating committee to fill the position that she was vacating. Bhatia represented the Olney Coalition, an organization that is currently dormant.

Bhatia said that since the small property owners do not have a specific organization to represent their interests, Buffington would be asked to develop a plan in the next three to six months to get suggestions from other small property owners in the town center.

‘‘I am going to reach out to all the small property owners,” he said. ‘‘They have never had an organization to represent them, and I hope to get them involved.”

Smith acknowledged the contributions of Bhatia.

‘‘Sunita has played a key role as co-chair during the first two years of this committee’s existence,” he said. ‘‘She has led the nomination process on six different occasions, always providing thoughtful recommendations to the committee. She’s provided leadership at key times and has provided valuable insight on many of the issues we faced during our formation and in preparing our illustrative concept of the master plan.”

Bhatia plans to remain active in the new subcommittee for high priority pedestrian crossings within the town center.

if you go

The Olney Town Center Advisory Committee will present its concept plan at 7:30 p.m. today at the Buffington RE⁄MAX Building’s Community Room.

For more information on the advisory committee, visit www.olneytowncenter.org.