Garrett County

A 40-year-old Pennsylvania woman who went to Western Maryland to buy flowers came away March 29 with more than just a bouquet -- she won $1,000 a week for life in a new Maryland lottery game.The woman, identified by lottery officials as "S. Fike," bought a "Win for Life" $2 scratch-off ticket at Chestnut Ridge Liquors in Grantsville, Garrett County, the officials said.Pub Date: 4/09/97

A former chief administrative officer for Garrett County pleaded guilty to state income tax charges in Carroll County Circuit Court yesterday.Robert J. Fousek Sr., 49, now lives in Berlin on the Eastern Shore. He will be sentenced Jan. 22 after facing criminal charges of felony theft and misconduct in office, State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli, who oversees Maryland's prosecution of income tax evasion cases, said yesterday.Montanarelli said a review of Fousek's tax payments for the 1993 tax year by the state comptroller's office showed that Fousek understated his income by about $30,000 and did not file a tax return or pay income taxes for the 1994 tax year.

The first time Pansye Atkinson drove past the road sign on U.S. Alternate 40 in Garrett County, she did a double take. Does that really say Negro Mountain? It sure does, and the name has stuck - with occasional objection - for more than 200 years. "It's a head-turner," said Atkinson, a former Frostburg State minority affairs administrator, about the name of a ridge that extends 30 miles from Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County to the Casselman River in Pennsylvania. The Garrett County portion of the ridge is the highest along U.S. Alternate Route 40, (3,075 feet at its peak)

GRANTSVILLE -- The otter slowly emerges from the wooden box, sniffs the snow-covered ground and slides down the bank into the muddy, rising waters of the Casselman River.Transported from a pond near Vienna on the Eastern Shore, this 20-pound male is one of three otters to be released on this particular day in the Youghiogheny River basin of northern Garrett County."We have two males and a female. It's really unusual to set three free in one day," says Leslie Johnston, a Maryland Department of Natural Resources wildlife manager in Garrett County, who is overseeing the release of the river otters.

OAKLAND -- The group that led the effort to change rural Garrett County's form of government appealed to voters' patriotism with images of drum- and fife-playing American Revolutionaries in print and radio ads."They had to fight!" exclaimed a flier promoting change from commission to charter home rule. "We have only to vote. Make July 7 Independence Day for Garrett County."The opposition also used a patriotic message, warning residents in a radio ad that "120 years of Garrett County history are on the line" and that the potential for higher taxes and bigger government would be "staggering" if charter was approved.

Much of Maryland's westernmost county remained largely inaccessible on Wednesday afternoon, a result of superstorm Sandy's meeting a cold front and dumping more than 2 feet of heavy, wet snow on the region. About 80 percent of Garrett County residents - or about 24,000 people, according to recent census data - remained without power, and secondary roads remained "completely inaccessible," according to Brad Frantz, the county's emergency services coordinator. "This is as bad as I've seen it, and I've been in public safety for 38 years," Frantz said.

OAKLAND -- After a weekend meeting, Garrett County interests have decided to defer to state government in efforts to buy Deep Creek Lake from GPU Energy, an electric utility that has put the lake -- along with the hydroelectric dam that created it -- on the market.A local advisory panel had backed a bid for the power plant and 3,900-acre lake -- a recreational resource accounting for more than half of Garrett County's tax base -- by a consortium composed of county government, lakefront property owners and an independent power producer.

Most roads were cleared of snow and fallen trees in Garrett County as of late Sunday, and most federal and state emergency officials who'd responded there following superstorm Sandy's damaging blizzard had departed. Still, thousands remained without power. "The only thing that's still lacking, as far as I understand it, is power restoration, and that's a slow, tedious process because of the damage that's been done and because of the vastness of Garrett County," said Jim Raley, chairman of the county's Board of Commissioners.

People tend to hold less disdain for fees than for taxes in general. It's not hard to understand why. Paying a fee - to get a driver's license, for instance - often feels like an equitable transaction. You know you're getting a return on investment. But user fees don't always allow for such tidy bargains. And that's causing problems in Maryland's westernmost county, where taxpayers are in veritable revolt over Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s "flush tax." The $30 annual fee was approved last year as a means to upgrade Maryland's wastewater treatment plants and failing septic systems.

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.