Parks Board

Prepaid College Trust to hold information session for parents The Maryland Prepaid College Trust and Carroll County public schools will hold an information night for parents at 7 tomorrow in the board room at school headquarters, 55 N. Court St., Westminster. The meeting is designed to help parents and grandparents learn how to make college more affordable. The trust is holding its open enrollment through Feb. 28. The Maryland Prepaid College Trust is a program that helps families save for a child's future by locking in current contract prices, based in part on the cost of Maryland public colleges.

Recreation and parks board gets new memberThe Sykesville Town Council appointed James C. Boyer to the Recreation and Parks board last week.Mr. Boyer, of Hawk Ridge Lane, will serve on the six-member board chaired by Councilman William R. "Bill" Hall Jr. During the next few months, board members will focus on planning Burkett Park, for which the town recently received a $18,600 state grant. Mr. Hall said about 30 residents had volunteered to help with the project.The council approved preliminary plans for the seven-acre site on Norris Avenue on July 12.Boat equipment reported stolenRichard C. Fryfogle reported the theft of $1,645 in marine equipment from a boat stored at his home in Sykesville, according to state police at Westminster.

Westminster City Council said no to letting the lights burn later on Jaycees Municipal Park ball fields before the City Parks Board gave the council a recommendation on a request for later hours.The parks board will discuss a request from two leagues for later hours on the lighted fields at its meeting Wednesday, board Chairman Jay Voight said. He said the board may draft a recommendation to the council despite the council's consensus not to change the hours.The fields on Johahn Drive in The Greens subdivision have been the target of neighborhood complaints about bright lights and noise.

Two somewhat controversial recreation facility proposals did not come to fruition in 1990.The Recreation and Parks Advisory Board shot down a plan to privatize and add several attractions to the Carroll County Sports Complex north of Westminster, and the Carroll County Equestrian Committee rejected two proposals for development of an equestrian center in the same general area.The privatization plan first came to light in late 1989, when two developers approached then-Commissioner president John Armacost about the possibility of privately operating the Sports Complex.

Although they deleted it from the budget, Westminster's mayor and Common Council have agreed to listen to dog lovers who might support fencing a piece of a park to let their animals run free.And that means financial support, not just joining a pooper-scooper brigade.Laurie Walters, a Park Avenue resident and civic activist, has been working on the proposal for a dog park for months. She asked the council to reconsider the idea during citizens' comments at the close of Monday night's meeting.

The City of Westminster and Carroll County government are planning to convert two tennis courts on the city playground into a park for skateboard enthusiasts.The County Commissioners authorized county Parks and Recreation Department Director Richard Soisson to work with Westminster recreation officials to create the park. The City Council has not yet acted on the proposal, but the city parks board favors it.The authorization comes after four months of talks between Soisson and interested elected officials in several Carroll towns.

After months of planning and prayer, Clergy United for the Renewal of East Baltimore (CURE) will join forces with Baltimore City and local businesses to improve city parks and recreation centers.With financial support and equipment donated by local businesses, the ecumenical alliance of 239 churches will begin its cleanup efforts of parks next month."Recreation has been lacking in Baltimore," the Rev. Melvin B. Tuggle II, CURE president and a Recreation and Parks Board Commissioner, said yesterday.

Carroll's top capital budget priority for recreation projects should be continuing to build the new Sykesville Park, the Carroll County Recreation and Parks Board agreed last night.The next two priorities should be continuing renovations at the Union Mills Homestead and building a concession pavilion at Watkins Park in Mount Airy, the board agreed.The board took an unofficial vote on a list proposed of capital projects for fiscal years 1995 through 2000 at its meeting at Morgan Run School.

The Westminster AeroModelers Club should be allowed to continue flying model planes at a site off Route 97 except on the first Sunday of every month, Carroll's Recreation and Parks Board has decided.The board voted 6-4 at its Wednesday night meeting to give neighbors who complained about noise from the radio-controlled planes one quiet day a month.The board voted to recommend that the county permit, which was issued Aug. 25 and expired Dec. 31, be renewed for one year with conditions about where and when the planes may fly and how loud the noise may be.Neighbors of the site near the closed John Owings Landfill said the noise from the planes was like that from "a Weed-Whacker," and they suggested the county find another site for the activity.

An indoor shooting range proposed by the Carroll County Recreation and Parks Board this week would serve the educational and training needs of sportsmen, the president of a Carroll sports group said yesterday."