Montgomery County

SILVER SPRING -- The studio is lighted by nine TV spotlights focused on the stage. In the control booth at the back of the room, the crew makes last-minute equipment checks.Floor manager Katherine Thalman preps the crowd, giving the signals for when to applaud and when to stop, then starts the countdown to air time. The upbeat instrumental theme music begins, the audience applauds on cue, and host Vicky Hush introduces today's guest, U.S. Rep. Constance A. Morella, R-8th."Personal Profiles" is like many other TV interview shows -- except for its creators.

Cellmark Diagnostics Inc., a DNA forensics firm that has worked on celebrated investigations including the JonBenet Ramsey and O. J. Simpson cases, said yesterday that it has decided to remain in Montgomery County and has signed a 10-year lease at its present facility.Howard County and Prince George's County competed to lure fast-growing Cellmark away from Montgomery.But the privately held forensics company was persuaded to remain in Montgomery County by a financial incentive package that included a $45,000 county grant to help offset expansion costs, said Mark Stolorow, Cellmark's director of operations.

ROCKVILLE - Two men were killed in separate car accidents in Montgomery County during the weekend, police reported yesterday. David Cruces, 17, of the 2700 block of Finley St. in Wheaton was killed early yesterday in a collision on River Road at Persimmon Tree Road. Cruces was traveling east on River Road about 2 a.m. when his car collided with a westbound vehicle. A third car also was involved. The other drivers suffered minor injuries, police said. Another accident about 10 p.m. Saturday killed Slawomir Kikolski, 30, of the 13600 block of Grenoble Drive in Rockville, police said.

ROCKVILLE -- The Montgomery County Council gave itself emergency powers yesterday and removed a spending limit for one year to take advantage of the robust economy.After a sometimes testy debate, the council voted 6-3 to ignore spending levels set last fall by a previous, and more conservative, council. It will set a new spending level April 20."This is an end run around the citizens," said council member Nancy Dacek, a Republican. "They wanted restraint on the process. They wanted us to think about what we are doing with their money."

After several months of political static, Montgomery County has pulled the plug on buying a Rockville radio station to broadcast traffic reports full time.Instead, the county will augment its traffic control operation -- considered by highway experts to be one of the most sophisticated in the country -- by buying time on WINX-AM to alert commuters to road conditions.County Executive Douglas M. Duncan had hoped to add the 1,000-watt AM radio station to a traffic system that includes rush-hour coverage on a cable channel and a Web site.

Anne Arundel County's financially troubled pension plan for elected and appointed officials, which has come under fire recently for its generous benefits, is one of only three such funds among Maryland's larger subdivisions.The other two, in Montgomery County and Baltimore, have separate plans for elected officials, but neither includes political appointees as Arundel does.Moreover, Montgomery County's elected officials plan is so unattractive that it has only one member. And while the plan in Baltimore is more generous than the one in Anne Arundel County, it is in great financial shape, according to Tom Taneyhill, deputy administrator for the Baltimore Retirement Systems.

A Montgomery County woman and her two children died and her husband was critically injured in a fire that swept through a townhouse in Gaithersburg early yesterday, fire officials said. Alba Herrera, 34, and her children, Caleb, 5, and Dairicha, 23 months, died at area hospitals. Israel Herrera, 31, was in critical condition with burns and severe respiratory damage last night at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Gaithersburg. Officials said the fire started about 6:30 a.m. yesterday at 7211 Millcrest Terrace, in a townhouse development off Muncaster Mill Road.

Howard County Republicans unanimously chose Gail H. Bates for appointment to a vacant seat in the Maryland House of Delegates last night, but the insurgent campaign of 28-year-old conservative Anthony C. Wisniewski has thrown the process into disarray. Although Montgomery County contains just a sliver of District 14B - and none will remain after redistricting - Wisniewski won a majority of the Montgomery County Republicans to his side at a Tuesday night meeting, creating a split between Republicans in the two counties.

Filling an 11-month vacancy, County Executive Charles I. Ecker yesterday named as economic development administrator a political castoff from the state's biggest economic engine, Montgomery County.Eckerselected Dyan Lingle Brasington, who left her job as Montgomery County's economic development director when her boss, Executive Sidney Kramer, was voted out of office last fall."Their loss is our gain," Ecker said. The executive said he had talked to Kramer, who had "the highest praise" for Brasington's work under his administration.

A Montgomery County measure intended to protect transgender people appears headed to a voter referendum, setting up a potentially divisive debate over how far anti-discrimination laws should extend. The recently passed law protects transgender people from discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and taxi and cable service, and was supposed to go into effect yesterday. But it is on hold after opponents gathered 32,000 signatures in a bid to put it on the ballot this fall.