Town Attorney

After extensive work on the Small Town Planning Guidelines, a lease with the state for the Gatehouse and a preliminary review of charter amendments, Sykesville has run out of money for the town attorney."

SHARPSBURG - Hours before the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan came to this small town yesterday, before its imperial wizard paraded up a side street to the town's Little League field with seven men and one woman in tow, the Rev. Malcolm Stranathan went to church to pray. About 60 other people joined Stranathan for the 9:30 a.m. service at Dunker Church on Antietam National Battlefield, which borders the town. And just as people have done since a bloody Civil War battle here killed or wounded 23,000 soldiers Sept.

CENTREVILLE -- Town Attorney Jonathan Hodgson was fired last night by Centreville's council members -- the latest fallout stemming from apparent mismanagement of an aging wastewater plant that has routinely sent raw sewage into a Chesapeake Bay tributary and spurred a moratorium on building permits. "We felt that if we're going to clean the slate, we're going to clean it all the way," Councilman Norman Pinder told the two dozen residents who packed the tiny council office. "He got caught in the middle of it."

CENTREVILLE -- The sign says, "Welcome to Centreville. A town with a past and a future." But it's the present that seems to be putting this Eastern Shore community to the test. Already grappling with a surge of development that is altering the landscape of the 210-year-old Queen Anne's County seat, a widening probe of pollution at the local sewage treatment plant and allegations of lax oversight by the three-member Town Council have become the talk of the town. A criminal investigation, not to mention the news media scrutiny, seems out of sync in a place where parking meters still take nickels and phone numbers are given in four digits because pretty much everybody has a 758 exchange.

Sykesville officials said last night that they will consult the town attorney before they take action on a bond reduction request from the developer of Hawk Ridge Farm.The developer, Powers Homes, is asking the town to reduce its bond from $400,000 to $93,000 for Section III of the development, which eventually will contain several hundred homes.Town Manager James L. Schumacher said the town would not reduce the bond below $120,000."Normal policy says we don't have to take action immediately on the request," Mr. Schumacher said.

Despite lingering questions about who won Mount Airy's mayoral election last week, incumbent Mayor Gerald R. Johnson had himself sworn in for a fourth term yesterday morning by the clerk of Carroll County Circuit Court. Officially, Johnson defeated write-in candidate James S. Holt 492 votes to 311 in the election May 6, but Holt supporters say the town's Board of Elections discarded 259 votes for their candidate because the ballots contained only Holt's last name. Two of those supporters, Michael Boyer and Constance S. McKain, filed a lawsuit yesterday afternoon asking a Circuit Court judge to count all ballots containing the name "Holt" as votes for James S. Holt.

SHARPSBURG - Hours before the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan came to this small town yesterday, before its imperial wizard paraded up a side street to the town's Little League field with seven men and one woman in tow, the Rev. Malcolm Stranathan went to church to pray. About 60 other people joined Stranathan for the 9:30 a.m. service at Dunker Church on Antietam National Battlefield, which borders the town. And just as people have done since a bloody Civil War battle here killed or wounded 23,000 soldiers Sept.

New Windsor Mayor Jack A. Gullo Jr. and the Town Council will meet tonight to decide how to settle a tie between two candidates in last week's council election. Never before has the town of 1,200 faced such a dilemma, and the town code has no provision to address the situation. The state election code does not regulate municipal elections. Town election judges twice counted by hand the 320 votes cast in the council election May 11, and were surprised to find that incumbent Paul G. Garver and challenger Samuel Pierce each had 178 votes.

The Planning Commission and area developers agreed Monday night to work together to establish new planning guidelines that the panel hopes will help preserve a small-town flavor.David S. Thaler, whose Baltimore engineering firm, D. S. Thaler and Associates, has been hired to complete the 179-home Shannon Run development here, told the commission that he agreed in principle with the concept."This is a concept whose time has come," Thaler said. "I think you're on the right track, but the guidelines need to be balanced against the developers' needs."

After hearing from lawyers and election law specialists yesterday, New Windsor Town Council was working to resolve a tie in a municipal election last week that left a council seat in limbo.Incumbent Paul G. Garver and challenger Samuel Pierce got the same number of votes in the race for one of the open council seats.The council was deciding whether to hold a run-off election, or to declare the seat vacant and have the sitting council choose someone for the seat.The meeting, which began at 9 p.m., was still under way late last night.

CENTREVILLE -- Town Attorney Jonathan Hodgson was fired last night by Centreville's council members -- the latest fallout stemming from apparent mismanagement of an aging wastewater plant that has routinely sent raw sewage into a Chesapeake Bay tributary and spurred a moratorium on building permits. "We felt that if we're going to clean the slate, we're going to clean it all the way," Councilman Norman Pinder told the two dozen residents who packed the tiny council office. "He got caught in the middle of it."

During more than three decades as the attorney for the small town of New Windsor, Marker J. Lovell wrote almost all of the municipal code, and he stayed long enough to revise much of it. He was a court master, and he served on commissions that helped to shape development in Carroll County. As recently as last week, he was in his office on Court Street in Westminster. Even at age 88, "he never wanted to hear about retirement," said Dolores Bankert, his longtime secretary. Mr. Lovell died Saturday of congestive heart failure at Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster.

Despite lingering questions about who won Mount Airy's mayoral election last week, incumbent Mayor Gerald R. Johnson had himself sworn in for a fourth term yesterday morning by the clerk of Carroll County Circuit Court. Officially, Johnson defeated write-in candidate James S. Holt 492 votes to 311 in the election May 6, but Holt supporters say the town's Board of Elections discarded 259 votes for their candidate because the ballots contained only his last name. Two of those supporters, Michael Boyer and Constance S. McKain, filed a suit yesterday afternoon asking a Circuit Court judge to count all ballots containing the name "Holt" as votes for James S. Holt.

Despite lingering questions about who won Mount Airy's mayoral election last week, incumbent Mayor Gerald R. Johnson had himself sworn in for a fourth term yesterday morning by the clerk of Carroll County Circuit Court. Officially, Johnson defeated write-in candidate James S. Holt 492 votes to 311 in the election May 6, but Holt supporters say the town's Board of Elections discarded 259 votes for their candidate because the ballots contained only Holt's last name. Two of those supporters, Michael Boyer and Constance S. McKain, filed a lawsuit yesterday afternoon asking a Circuit Court judge to count all ballots containing the name "Holt" as votes for James S. Holt.

A former town clerk served the New Windsor mayor and Town Council last night with notice of a lawsuit that alleges a failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Sharon P. Nobles had made a written request last month to Mayor Sam Pierce asking to inspect public records. Nobles, who served as town clerk for nearly two years under former Mayor Jack A. Gullo Jr., asked for copies of checks from the general and water-sewer funds and from payroll. She was denied the payroll information.

New Windsor Town Council plans to meet soon to weigh a contention that one of its members has moved out of town. The residency of Councilman Paul G. Garver, a 50-year-old native of the Carroll County town, has been questioned by Sam R. Pierce, the man with whom Garver tied in the May 1999 town elections. Without a provision in the Town Charter to break the tie, the council - following its attorneys' advice - declared a vacancy and named the incumbent Garver to fill it. Garver "should step forward and resign his seat on the council," Pierce said, because the town code requires that "a councilperson shall maintain a permanent residence in the town during their term of office."

Despite lingering questions about who won Mount Airy's mayoral election last week, incumbent Mayor Gerald R. Johnson had himself sworn in for a fourth term yesterday morning by the clerk of Carroll County Circuit Court. Officially, Johnson defeated write-in candidate James S. Holt 492 votes to 311 in the election May 6, but Holt supporters say the town's Board of Elections discarded 259 votes for their candidate because the ballots contained only his last name. Two of those supporters, Michael Boyer and Constance S. McKain, filed a suit yesterday afternoon asking a Circuit Court judge to count all ballots containing the name "Holt" as votes for James S. Holt.

In an article in the July 5 editions of The Sun about a state prosecutor's investigation of Berlin Mayor Ron Bireley, Dan West was incorrectly named as the contractor with the winning bid for work done on Berlin's electric plant. Mr. West is a building inspector for the town.It also was incorrectly stated that Mayor Bireley is under 'N investigation for approving work at the electric plant without the town council's approval. Berlin town attorney Ray Coates Jr. said that the mayor is being investigated only for allegedly approving improvements to Town Hall without the council's approval.

Sykesville faces a $3 million lawsuit, brought by the daughter of a town councilman, over issues surrounding the town's Historic District Commission. In a suit filed in Carroll Circuit Court, Joy and Brad Baker say they were harassed when they tried to remodel their Main Street house for rental units. The couple has asked for damages that would be double the town's operating budget. Baker is the daughter of Councilman Charlie Mullins. He could not be reached for comment. Volunteer panel The suit comes in the midst of the town's efforts to revive its downtown and restore its 19th-century clapboard storefronts.

Since last week, visitors to Del. Donald B. Elliott's pharmacy have been asking him what he thought of the New Windsor Town Council's decision to break a tie in the recent election by appointing a councilman rather than allow voters to decide the winner in a runoff.He thinks it's wrong, he said, even if it turns out to be legal.If the council's decision Wednesday is legal, he wants to have the General Assembly draft a law that would allow a municipality to have a runoff election to break a tie."