Cumberland

The Maryland Public Service Commission has postponed a decision on a proposal for a controversial power plant in Cumberland, urging the opposing sides to reach a compromise."

"I live in the Grand Hotel," jokes Mark Baker, the Cumberland-born actor who plays the dying bookkeeper in the touring company of "Grand Hotel," currently at the Mechanic Theatre.The vivacious, curly-haired actor isn't entirely kidding -- because he's constantly on tour, the hotel he's most familiar with is the one on stage.But there's another reason "Grand Hotel" feels like home; in a sense this tour represents a theatrical homecoming. Four years ago, the 44-year-old Mr. Baker stepped out of the limelight and resettled in Cumberland.

CUMBERLAND -- Tough economic times are not getting in the way of a vision in Cumberland for a proposed two-lane highway and park along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal.Despite the financial climate, a committee of local, state and federal government officials, preservationists and business leaders is forging ahead with plans to study a roadway and park along the canal in this Western Maryland city.It's a project that officials are reluctant to put a price tag on yet, as four proposals are under consideration.

CUMBERLAND -- A Virginia developer whose proposal for an Indian-run gambling casino atop a mountain overlooking Cumberland seemed dead only eight weeks ago is resurrecting the idea.The developer, James L. Silvester, abandoned the project less than two weeks after it became public knowledge in October, blaming political opposition, particularly from Del. Casper R. Taylor Jr., a Democrat who represents both Allegany and Washington counties and is speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates.But Mr. Silvester said now that he believes the multimillion-dollar casino plan can overcome such political opposition, although he offered no reason for his renewed optimism.

Arthur H. Bremer, who shot and paralyzed former Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1972, is living in an apartment in Cumberland as he begins the transition to life in the outside world after 35 years behind prison walls, an Allegany County official said yesterday. "He is in Cumberland. ... It's really not a big deal," said Allegany County Administrator Vance Ishler. In an effort to avoid media attention, Bremer, 57, was released from a state prison in Hagerstown on Friday before dawn. Prison system officials declined to say where he would be living but had previously said they would try to find a place for him in a rural part of Maryland.

Harry Stegmaier Jr. celebrated teen-age birthdays with rides on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from Cumberland to Grafton, W.Va. -- trips that awed passengers with Potomac River crossings, long tunnels, sharp curves and steep grades up and down the Allegheny Mountains.Nearly 40 years later, Mr. Stegmaier, professor of U.S. military, diplomatic and transportation history at Frostburg State University, relives those "incredible" trips of his youth on once-a-year excursions during Maryland Railfest.

CUMBERLAND -- Crime, taxes and schools are the usual campaign fodder in municipal elections, but in two Western Maryland cities the burning topic this spring is one long ago settled in most communities without debate: fluoride. Barring a last-minute court ruling, Cumberland voters are to decide May 16 whether to repeal a decade-old ban on putting the cavity-fighting chemical in the city's drinking water. In neighboring Frostburg, candidates for mayor and council are squaring off over the fluoride issue as their June 6 election nears.

CUMBERLAND -- Being the best wasn't good enough to keep Jim Stratton from losing a job.Back in 1974, managers at Pittsburgh Plate Glass, one of Cumberland's industrial ghosts, told workers -- including Mr. Stratton -- that they were among the best around but the plant had to be shut down. This left him without a job after 13 years with the company.Now, at age 47, Mr. Stratton and nearly 150 other Western Marylanders working at the Schmidt Baking Co. plant in Cumberland are getting the same pat on the back, all the way out the door.

ENDING the geographic isolation of Maryland's swath of Appalachia is costly but essential. Without solid transportation links to the Baltimore-Washington region, companies are reluctant to locate in Western Maryland's Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties. The completion of the National Freeway (Interstate 68) greatly enhanced east-west connections by car and truck. Now the state is reestablishing airline links to the area's biggest cities, Cumberland and Hagerstown. Thanks to a $2.25 million subsidy, daily flights will resume between those cities and Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

CUMBERLAND -- John A. Miller IV, described by prosecutors as a "highly motivated predator" who lured a Carroll County girl to her death, was convicted yesterday of murder and sexual assault, setting the stage for a death penalty hearing next week. Miller, 27, was found guilty of first-degree murder, a first-degree sexual offense, robbery and false imprisonment in the strangling of 17-year-old Shen D. Poehlman in Reisterstown in July 1998. The defense had conceded that Miller killed the girl but had fought the sexual-assault and robbery allegations, knowing that prosecutors needed those convictions to pursue the death penalty.