Aberdeen City

ABERDEEN -- A 27-year-old night clerk at the Econo Lodge Motel on Route 22 near Interstate 95 was today listed in critical condition after being shot late last night during a robbery, said a city police spokesman.Maj. Harry Gruber said Glenda Darlene Wyatt, a resident of Joppa, was behind the desk shortly before midnight when a man dressed in dark clothing and armed with a 9 mm handgun entered the lobby and announced a holdup.While Ms. Wyatt reached for the money, the gunman ordered two other female employees onto the floor after firing two warning shots into the ceiling.

With its second new city charter in two years, Aberdeen holds a municipal election Tuesday that offers the century-old community the potential to make a fresh start after the embarrassment of a contentious, petty governance since 1992.Two City Council members and a mayor will be elected for two-year terms.The campaign is dominated by the ongoing battle between Mayor Ruth Elliott and at least three other members of the council, including Councilman Charles R. Boutin who is her challenger.That deep-seated enmity has clearly harmed the city, in issues ranging from personnel management to annexation questions to daily office operations, even though the mayor and council have agreed on some matters to keep the wheels rolling.

Council Move On Jolley A DisgraceThe latest action, or perhaps I should say, inaction, by the Aberdeen City councilmen with regard to the misconduct of the chief of police, Jack R. Jolley, is deplorable.The recent 4-1 vote by the council to give the city administrator, Peter Dacey, the responsibility for taking disciplinary action against Chief Jolley is, at best cowardly; at worst downright crooked, yet a clever move on their part.It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see through the council's plan -- by unloading their responsibility onto Mr. Dacey, the councilmen not only protected their friend, Chief Jolley, but they also preserved his position as chief of our police department.

A witch hunt was what Aberdeen Councilman Charles Boutin called it. We presume he meant that the supposed target of the hunt was a witch, not the official conducting the hunt. But we can't be sure, given the open revolution at Aberdeen City Hall.In an episode evocative of Al Haig's megalomaniacal White House declaration that "I'm in charge here," Mayor Ruth Elliott escalated her battle with the City Council last week by suspending the police chief against council objections, accusing him of fixing parking tickets.