Allegany County

Revenue at the state's casinos climbed to nearly $69.2 million in May, the first full month of table games at Maryland Live Casino as well as the initial days of the state's newest casino in Allegany County, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency reported Wednesday. Revenue at Maryland Live in Anne Arundel County, which celebrates its one-year anniversary Thursday, totaled $55 million in May for its 4,319 slot machines and 122 table games. The latter were introduced April 11, and officials accurately predicted they would raise the facility's revenues by more than 20 percent.

Revenue at the state's casinos climbed to nearly $69.2 million in May, the first full month of table games at Maryland Live Casino as well as the initial days of the state's newest casino in Allegany County, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency reported Wednesday. Revenue at Maryland Live in Anne Arundel County, which celebrates its one-year anniversary Thursday, totaled $55 million in May for its 4,319 slot machines and 122 table games. The latter were introduced April 11, and officials accurately predicted they would raise the facility's revenues by more than 20 percent.

An 82-year-old Allegany County man was fatally struck by a car early yesterday as he walked along railroad tracks in his hometown of Westernport, state police reported. Police said the victim, Marvin Zais Sr., was struck at a rail crossing on Route 36 by a southbound Oldsmobile Cutlass driven by Richard Davis, 40, of LaVale. Zais stepped in front of the car, police said.

The day after Christmas morning commutes are flowing smoothly with just one traffic incident reported throughout the greater Baltimore metro area. A disabled car was affecting traffic on the Interstate 695 outer loop just before the Jones Falls Expressway in Baltimore County but it was cleared up by 8:45 a.m., the Maryland Department of Transportation reported. The Maryland State Police declared precautionary "snow emergencies" for Allegany and Garrett counties at 8:15 a.m. Once a snow emergency is declared, state law requires that drivers take certain precautions including no parking on roads and streets designated as snow emergency routes and the required use of chains or snow tires, which includes all-weather tires, the Maryland State Highway Administration website said.

LONACONING -- Despite rain this week, a water shortage looms for about 5,500 residents in the coal-mining region of western Allegany County, county officials said yesterday.Wally Finster, director of environmental health at the county Health Department, said a months-long drought has lowered reservoir and ground water levels in the Georges Creek Valley, prompting bans on outdoor water use and laundry in some communities.Lonaconing is by far the most populous area threatened. Many )) of the 500 or so people in most danger of losing water live in remote areas of the mountainous region.

Saying that Allegany County residents need "immediate relief," Gov. Parris N. Glendening declared a state of emergency there yesterday because of severe drought conditions that have led to a water supply crisis throughout much of the Western Maryland subdivision.Authorities report that the water shortage is most severe in the Georges Creek and Mount Savage watershed, with the last significant rainfall -- 1.5 inches -- occurring in mid-September.ZTC Virtually no rain fell west of Cumberland in November.

Jodie Goldsworthy Gordon, president of the Allegany County school board, was charged with driving while intoxicated and negligent driving Thursday evening in Cumberland after driving her pickup truck into a concrete bridge with her friend's 11-year-old daughter in the passenger's seat, police said. Gordon, who is up for re-election Nov. 7, suffered minor injuries and was taken to Memorial Hospital, where she was treated and released, a hospital spokeswoman said last night. The passenger, whose name was withheld because she is a juvenile, was picked up at the scene by her father.

WESTERNPORT - If Wisha Guinn follows in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother, she'll live in rural Western Maryland her whole life, have a baby in her teens and forgo prescription medicine so she can spend the money on food instead. She might find a job, but she'll be lucky if she receives good benefits. And she will have will little or no chance to set anything aside for retirement. Six-year-old Wisha lives in rural Allegany County, where nearly 50 percent of the children, like her, qualify for free and reduced-price lunches in school.

WESTERNPORT - As firefighters mopped up the remains of a wind-driven brush fire that scorched the steep slopes southeast of this Western Maryland hamlet for two days, another broke out yesterday about 25 miles away, near Corriganville. The second blaze - like the first stoked by dry leaves and grasses that have received little more than a sprinkling of rain in the past month - was burning out of control over 55 acres of steeply wooded terrain, said Dick Devore, the acting emergency management director for Allegany County.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS when gambling gets its tentacles around a community: The local prosecutor refuses to crack down on those who are breaking the law for fear of political retribution.This isn't hypothetical. It is reality in Maryland's Allegany County. Illegal slot machines are all over the place in bars, restaurants and fraternal clubs, with illegal payoffs of $10 to $300. And what is the top prosecutor's reaction? "It would be sending all the wrong messages" to go after violators, says Lawrence V. Kelly, the county's elected state's attorney.

More than 2 feet of snow fell in parts of Garrett and Allegany counties as the remnants of Hurricane Sandy collided with a cold front backed by polar air, closing east- and westbound sections of Interstate 68 in Western Maryland until late Tuesday morning. John Darnley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Pittsburgh office, said disruptions to telephone service were hampering efforts to put together a complete picture of the snowfall. But in Oakland, at 2,500 feet above sea level, the service measured 24 inches, with more coming down Tuesday evening.

Frostburg and the mountains of western Allegany County are under a freeze warning Monday night into Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. It is one of Maryland's first freezes of the season, as the coming winter cold marches east and into gradually lower elevations. The timing is just about right on schedule. Temperatures are expected to reach 30-32 degrees overnight along a slice of Allegany County and the West Virginia panhandle. They won't be the first freezing temperatures seen in Maryland so far this season. Garrett County Airport hit 32 degrees early Monday morning and has barely risen warmer than that, at 36 degrees as of 2 p.m. According to a Utah State University database of frost and freeze dates, the cold temperatures are arriving more or less on time.

Comptroller Peter Franchot on Wednesday denounced a revised deal that allowed the company licensed to operate a casino at the Rocky Gap resort in Allegany County to reduce the scale of the project as a "complete bait and switch" on the part of the company. Franchot had questioned why the modified deal, which cut the number of slot machines at the resort from 850 to 500, did not have to be brought back to the Board of Public Works for approval. "Don't you get the sense we're being played for fools here?"

Western Maryland Democrats may get a preview of the 2014 gubernatorial race Saturday as the likely contenders for the party's nomination converge on the Rocky Gap resort in Allegany County. While much of the official agenda is focused on this November's election, all of the most-mentioned hopefuls to succeed Gov. Martin O'Malley will have speaking roles  at the Western Maryland Democratic Summit. Lt. Gov.  Anthony Brown, Attorney General Doug Gansler, Comptroller Peter Franchot, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman and Montgomery County Del. Heather Mizeur -- all of whom have signaled an interest in a State House run -- will each get  a chance to impress Democrats from one of the most heavily Republican parts of the state.

A 15-year-old girl from Allegany County has died after being struck by a car Tuesday along Coastal Highway in Ocean City , police said Wednesday. The driver of the car that struck her, a 17-year-old boy from Worcester County, was not charged and was released by police at the scene. Neither have been identified due to their ages, police said. Police first responded to the intersection of Coastal Highway and 21st Street about 5:45 p.m. for reports of a pedestrian struck by a vehicle.

My letter to Del. LeRoy Myers, (a Republican who represents Allegany and Washington counties) in support of Governor O'Malley's Civil Marriage Protection Act was returned with the comment: "Marriage has a long history in the religious world. In the religious world, marriage is almost exclusively the committed union between a single man and a single woman. " The our Allegany County commissioner, Mike McKay, who has been using his bully pulpit at publicly funded meetings, stated that "My faith is based on the holy word, and any change to that foundation I find offensive.

FIRST, DO NO HARM." This instruction from the Hippocratic oath should also guide the Maryland Racing Commission as it steps into the minefield of granting a racetrack license in Western Maryland's Allegany County. The commission's prime duty is to encourage and support the state's racing industry, a tremendous generator of jobs and revenue for the Maryland economy. But a new track could threaten the health of existing ones, including Pimlico. Ironically, it also could help Maryland's prime racing rival at Delaware Park.

The state planning department announced today that it will join with opponents seeking to block a 4,300-home planned community near a state forest in eastern Allegany County. Maryland Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall said his department will file a brief in the case, now on appeal before the state's high court. The lawsuit seeks a review of whether local officials acted properly in approving the project, called Terrapin Run, in a rural and environmentally sensitive area that is adjacent to Green Ridge State Forest.

The annual Maryland bear hunt ended Thursday night after a total of 65 bears were killed, the largest being a 372-pound male shot by a 12-year old boy. Colton Lucas of Kitzmiller in Garrett County brought down the biggest of the bears, which averaged 154 pounds, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Most of the bears — 59 of them — were killed in Garrett County. The other six were killed in Allegany County. Nearly 70 percent of the bears were killed on private property.

The black metal bars on the front door and window at Kelly's Tavern mark how life has changed in Allegany County these past few years. Antoinette Kelly put those up in the spring, after someone broke in through the door, stole about $200 in cash, a bottle of Captain Morgan rum and a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey and left — apparently in haste. Must have been some kid, she figured. It was. She paid a few hundred dollars to install the bars, something she'd never figured on doing.