Charles County

Parts of Charles County's Zekiah Swamp are every bit as inhospitable as the name suggests, choked with tick-infested woods and boot-sucking wetlands. But as archaeologists are discovering to their delight, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries Zekiah was a growth center for the young Maryland colony. The site of a 1674 courthouse was found last summer. Excavations this month have uncovered what might be traces of the "summer house" that Gov. Charles Calvert built to dodge his political enemies.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has said he isn't running for re-election in 2010, but that pledge is meeting growing skepticism from colleagues as he gears up to host his second fundraiser in a month - a fete this week at his sprawling Chesapeake Beach home. With Miller's latest push for cash, many in Annapolis are speculating that he is not simply restocking his campaign coffers to help Democrats in swing districts win tough contests in coming years. Miller, they say, could be using the latest fundraising drive to reassert his political dominance at just the moment several of his colleagues are starting to work behind the scenes to launch efforts to succeed him as president.

LA PLATA -- Aiming to ease Charles County's growing pains by building more upscale housing, local officials are considering an unprecedented size requirement for new homes -- a move that is drawing fire from developers and community activists.The commissioners of the rapidly growing Southern Maryland county have proposed requiring that detached, single-family homes have at least 1,650 square feet of floor space if they are to be built in the northern fifth of the county, which is designated for development.

The Maryland Jockey Club will take over the Poor Jimmy's off-track betting parlor in Cecil County and spend more than $250,000 to upgrade what it views as a crucial link in the state's simulcast betting network.Martin Jacobs, general counsel of the Maryland Jockey Club, outlined the plan yesterday at the monthly meeting of the state's racing commissioners at Laurel Park. They approved it unanimously.Jacobs said the Maryland Jockey Club has signed a 15-year agreement to lease Poor Jimmy's so that "we can make this facility into one our commission and industry can be proud of."

Two people were killed on Maryland roads yesterday -- a jogger in Cecil County and a motorcyclist in Charles County -- bringing to five the number of traffic fatalities so far this July Fourth weekend, state police reported.By contrast, police last year reported no fatal accidents over the Fourth of July weekend, said state Trooper Frank Troska.In addition to the fatal accidents yesterday, two 19-year-old men were killed in separate road accidents Saturday and a teen-age girl was killed Friday night, state police said.

The developers of a Columbia-style planned community in Charles County pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to illegally filling in wetlands as they were building one of the neighborhoods and agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine, the largest assessed in such a case in Maryland.In a parallel civil suit, the developers, Interstate General Co. (IGC) and its subsidiary, St. Charles Associates, also agreed to place 157 acres in a conservation easement and pay a $367,000 fine.The plea in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt occurred 3 1/2 years after a federal jury convicted ICG's chairman, James J. Wilson, and the two companies of illegally filling 70 acres of wetlands in four tracts around the community -- St. Charles -- on the southern edges of Waldorf between 1983 and 1993.

Arson is believed responsible for a three-alarm fire that caused part of a Charles County Board of Education storage building to collapse yesterday morning, the state fire marshal said.The one-story block building, the former Pomonkey Elementary School on Metropolitan Church Road in Bryans Road, housed school furniture and supplies.Damage is estimated at $300,000. There were no injuries.The fire began about 3: 30 a.m. Eighty-five firefighters from 12 departments in Charles and Prince George's counties, including firefighters from Andrews Air Force Base, spent two hours bringing it under control.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening's senior legal adviser, Andrea Leahy-Fuchek, will leave her post to become an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore, the governor's office announced.Leahy-Fuchek, whose work with Glendening goes back more than a decade to his time as Prince George's County executive, will begin work in the civil division of the U.S. attorney's office June 1.Glendening credited the 37-year-old attorney with a leading role in his gun-control efforts and the state's purchase of Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County and Chapman's Landing in Charles County.

CREDIT THE strong economy for the state's $25 million commitment to block the planned 4,600-home community at Chapman's Landing in Charles County. The governor last week signed an agreement to buy 1,850 acres of prime forest and Potomac River shore, which would prevent Legend Properties Inc. from building the community.Now nonprofit environmental groups must come up with several million dollars to buy the remaining 375-acre parcel to prevent a smaller project by the landowner. That will test the financial resolve of private groups that lobbied hard to kill the large development, despite its approval by the county commissioners.

EASTON -- Standing at the end of Brant Court in this Eastern Shore town, it's hard to imagine a retirement village sprouting here.Oblivious to the grumble of nearby traffic, a pair of mallards glides across a foot-deep pool of stagnant water in the woods. Unseen frogs -- fooled by springlike weather -- fill the soaked pines, oaks and gum trees with a chorus of mating calls.A developer has proposed building about 60 homes for the elderly here, bulldozing nearly seven acres of freshwater wetlands.

A married Charles County man charged with trying to kill his pregnant girlfriend in a murder conspiracy was jailed Friday, after Anne Arundel County prosecutors told a judge that he had intimidated a witness who was also a girlfriend of his. Charles Brandon Martin, 32, told the other girlfriend to change her testimony to say that she had kept "a drill for him, not a gun," according to prosecutors' emergency request to jail Martin, filed Thursday....

Arundel police plan weekend drunken-driving checkpoints Anne Arundel County police will conduct a drunken-driving crackdown this weekend in the southern part of the county. A checkpoint is planned for Friday night on Route 4 at Lower Pindell Road in Lothian. At the same time, the Calvert County Sheriff's Office will have a checkpoint on northbound Route 4 near the county line. Police said they also plan to have additional officers in the area south of Annapolis for extra drunken-driving enforcement.

Sara L.J. Highby, a retired Charles County public school educator, died Friday at Union Memorial Hospital of complications from a stroke. The former longtime Pomonkey, Charles County, resident was 90. Sara Louise Jameson, the daughter of a chemist and a homemaker, was born in Parlin, N.J., and raised in Charles County, where she graduated in 1935 from Henry E. Lackey High School in Indian Head. She earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1939 from Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College, and a master's degree in education from the University of Maryland.

ARC home for disabled in Howard wins top LEED certification 3 A private nonprofit group's home for people with disabilities in Howard County is the first in Maryland to qualify at the highest level of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, according to County Executive Ken Ulman. The ARC of Howard County's new home, the Awake House in the 9300 block of Torrent Row in Columbia, won the platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, which evaluates buildings in five categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and indoor environmental quality.

A 19-month-old boy left unattended in a Charles County home Tuesday wandered into the backyard and apparently drowned in a pool, police said. Jason Daniel Burke Jr. was discovered by his mother just after 8:30 p.m. Tuesday lying unconscious in an above-ground pool in the 4300 block of Middletown Road in White Plains, said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Charles County Sheriff's Office. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said. Richardson said the mother had left her house to run an errand, telling the toddler's 15-year-old cousin, who lives in the house, to watch over the boy while she was gone.

In the summer of 1776, more than a year after the start of the Revolutionary War, Maryland was among the last holdouts among the 13 colonies in authorizing a declaration of independence from Great Britain. The colony's major landholders, who dominated political affairs, were reluctant to take that step, but tradespeople, merchants and common citizens became increasingly convinced that reconciliation with England was impossible and agitated for a formal separation. The state's convention finally agreed to support independence on June 28, but communications in those days were slow.

Parts of Charles County's Zekiah Swamp are every bit as inhospitable as the name suggests, choked with tick-infested woods and boot-sucking wetlands. But as archaeologists are discovering to their delight, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries Zekiah was a growth center for the young Maryland colony. The site of a 1674 courthouse was found last summer. Excavations this month have uncovered what might be traces of the "summer house" that Gov. Charles Calvert built to dodge his political enemies.

A Charles County creek regarded as one of the Chesapeake Bay's best remaining fish spawning areas has been ranked among the nation's most endangered rivers because of plans for a highway and development across the creek's watershed. Mattawoman Creek, a mostly forested Potomac River tributary that also harbors rare plants, abundant waterfowl and bald eagles, made the list published Tuesday by the environmental group American Rivers. "The river's really at a turning point," said Katherine Baer, a top official with the group, which annually puts out a list of the 10 most endangered waterways.

As a kid growing up in Bowie, Richard Arnold's heroes included Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson, undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau and the Apollo astronauts who landed on the moon. He realized quickly that he did not have the makings of a major league ball player. So he set his sights instead on science. And now, after teaching in middle and high schools for 15 years, Arnold, 45, is preparing to follow the astronauts into space. He and another former science teacher will be on board the shuttle Discovery tonight, ready for a scheduled 9:20 p.m. launch on a mission to the International Space Station.

So now that we've made it through one major holiday, with all of its attendant traffic woes, we've got another two staring us in the face. My first advice about holiday travel is: Don't. My backup advice is: Don't try to drive south on Interstate 95. With the traffic on I-95 in Northern Virginia, you'll be lucky to reach Richmond in less time than it took General Grant's army. Last week, this column explored the only even theoretically viable route: U.S. 301 through Southern Maryland.