Meade Village

The Board of Appeals will meet tonight to continue deliberations on a rubble landfill near Crofton.Board members could make a decision at this meeting on the Chesapeake Terrace project, which was the subject of the longest series of hearings ever before the panel.The Silver Spring-based Halle Co. wants to put the landfill on 150 acres of a 480-acre parcel off Conway Road near Route 3. The company also wants to operate a sand and gravel operation on 35 acres.The project is opposed by many community groups, including Crofton, and the county.

A team of officers from five county police units swept through three Severn neighborhoods Wednesday and arrested three men and a woman.The goal was to increase the presence of police and crack down on illegal activity in Pioneer City, Stillmeadow and Meade Village.Patrol officers teamed with officers from four specialty units for the effort, which began about 7 p.m.The first arrest came when an officer stopped Melissa Goliday, 23, of the 1700 block of Richfield Drive, checked her license, found she was wanted in Annapolis on a battery charge and arrested her.About 8: 30 p.m., patrol officers tried to stop a reportedly stolen car in Meade Village, but the driver sped off and crashed into a car in the 1700 block of Meade Village Circle, police said.

Two county police officers pulled over a driver Tuesday for running a stop sign in Meade Village, then wound up chasing him into an apartment where they arrested him.Keith Lamont Martin, 35, of the 300 block of Highland Drive in Glen Burnie was charged with assault, drug possession, trespassing, reckless endangerment, burglary, failure to stop for a stop sign, fleeing and eluding police, and driving on a suspended license.Officers Robert Vane and Thomas Kohlmann were in Severn about 12: 30 a.m. when they saw a 1994 Geo fail to stop at a sign at Meade Village Road and Circle Road.

Third-graders take 1st, 2nd place in King contestTwo West County third-graders have been awarded first and second place in a countywide essay contest on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Natasha Wright, a student at West Meade Elementary School at Fort Meade, won first place with her answer to the question: "What would Dr. King say if he visited your class?""I think Martin Luther King Jr. would say . . . I know everyone in here works together and you all have a dream maybe to be a doctor, teacher or even a minister," Natasha's essay reads.

An Annapolis teen-ager said yesterday that he wants custody of the infant tossed from the window of a third-floor Meade Village apartment Saturday if the child is his."Yeah, I would take it," said Dwayne McGhee, 17, who believes he might be the father.Mr. McGhee said he had a sexual relationship last spring with Michelle Elizabeth Savage, who police say is the baby's mother. Ms. Savage, also 17, lives in an apartment in the 1800 block of Meade Village Circle, above the one where Mr. McGhee visited his father and stepmother.

POLICE LOG* Severn: Burglars broke into a home in the 1500 block of Monard Ave. between 8 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 a.m. Friday and stole money and a videocassette recorder valued at $500.* Meade Village: A kitchen table and chairs were stolen from TC home in the 1700 block of Meade Village Circle between midnight and 10:30 a.m. Sunday. The value of the property was not known.* Crownsville: Burglars broke into a barn in the 1700 block of Severn Chapel Road sometime between March 15 and Saturday and took several saddles and other animal equipment valued at $2,805.

A 16-year-old Meade Village youth was arrested on drug charges Tuesday after a brief foot chase, county police said.Two officers on routine patrol about 10:30 p.m. saw a group of young people loitering on a corner in the first block of Meade Village Circle, police said. When the officers approached, the youths ran off.The officers caught one youth and asked for identification. The youth said he had no identification and gave the officers several home addresses, police said. The young man ran off again, but police caught him near the area's community center.

It was hard to lock up the police substation in Meade Village at nights this summer because of one 9-year-old girl and her penchant for reading."It was fun," said Vera Pack, who came in second place in a police-sponsored contest and won a red mountain bike and helmet. "When you didn't have anything to do, you could go and read in the library.""We almost had to pull you out of there at night," said Officer Arthur G. Foote Jr., one of several officers who works in Meade Village as part of a neighborhood anti-drug program.

School redistricting plans always turn ugly. A proposal to move Severn Elementary pupils to the Meade Senior High feeder system is no exception.Severn Elementary parents are bitterly opposed, and, in many ways, their feelings are justified. Switching schools can be a disruptive, upsetting experience for children, and inequities between schools are a fact. These are sensible reasons for fighting redistricting.Unfortunately, redistricting usually devolves into emotional turmoil until all rational arguments are lost in irrational panic.

County police have moved their highly touted foot patrols out of some high-crime neighborhoods despite rising violence and complaints from residents.Out of the seven PACT, or foot patrol, officers, three have been assigned to work on the anti-drug DARE program, leaving the unit with four members."