Town Budget

In what should be surprising to few of this town's 2,800 residents, a full-time manager will be hired by July.As the Town Council draws up its budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, it will wrap up all of the necessary legal, bureaucratic and practical details of paying a professional manager to run the day-to-day operations of this227-year-old North Carroll town.Since the departure of former Mayor Elmer C. Lippy, now a county commissioner, two years ago, the council has been grappling with the idea of hiring somebody to take charge of the nearly $1 million-a-year business of running the town.

January Missing Mussari: Kenneth F. Mussari, Carroll's longtime school personnel director and a former English teacher, dies on a tripto Florida, where he and his family had traveled to see Penn State play in the Blockbuster Bowl. The makeup of the current school system staff is the contribution of the 56-year-old Mussari, who was involved in recruiting, recommending and processing applications for the past 14 years.

Budget session may be postponedA Manchester Town Council work session on the proposed fiscal 1994 town budget, scheduled for tomorrow night, will probably be postponed, Town Manager Terry Short said yesterday.The work session may be re-scheduled for April 7, he said.Manchester Mayor Earl A. J. "Tim" Warehime Jr. was called out of town yesterday to work on the cleanup of a major diesel fuel spill in Herndon, Va., Mr. Short said.Mr. Warehime works as a technician for Atlanta-based Colonial Pipeline Co., which owns the ruptured pipeline.

Manchester Councilman Robert C. Kolodziejski returned home Wednesday after heart surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore."I really don't know how long I'll be out," he said."

The town of Manchester has received approval of a state grant of up to $20,000 for a facility to recycle yard waste into usable compost and mulch.Town Councilman Geoffrey S. Black said yesterday that the amount of the final grant, from the Maryland Department of the Environment, will depend upon how much the town puts up in matching funds. That, in turn, will depend upon what comes out of the town's budget process, which has just begun, he said."It's very much in the early planning stages," Mr. Black said.

When a court slapped a $3 million liability judgment against South Tucson, Ariz., the desert community of 6,000 offered a few court papers in return: It filed for municipal bankruptcy.A policeman had been shot in the back while working for South Tucson and, according to Town Manager Bill Ponder, won a liability judgment that was about the same size as the town budget."Basically, it was the only way out," said Mr. Ponder. "But it's something you have to live down, and you've got to build up people's trust in you again."

One month into the winter season, Sykesville already has amended its public works budget twice to provide snow removal money.The original town budget set $3,000 for road materials. In December, the town clerk asked for an additional $2,500. Monday, he asked for another $1,000."I don't think $5,500 will get us through the winter," said Vincent J. Diffenbaugh, the clerk-treasurer. "The salt bill alone is $2,000."The Town Council approved Mr. Diffenbaugh's request at its meeting Monday.The money will pay for another 40-ton load of salt.

A slate of three newcomers won seats on the Sykesville Town Council, ousting three incumbents in a nonpartisan election yesterday. Pharmaceutical representative Frank Robert, accountant Scott D. Sanzone and attorney and real estate agent Leo J. Keenan III received the most votes among seven candidates vying for three seats.

Columbia residents will go to the polls tomorrow to elect members to the Columbia Council and to their respective village boards. Unless some last-minute enthusiasm erupts, the turnout will be astonishingly low -- verifying a running debate about apathy in the planned city. Many villages require votes from only 10 percent of homeowners to validate an election. Still, often a quorum isn't met. Three villages even scrapped that requirement for lower thresh olds. And one village -- Long Reach -- requires that but 50 people vote to legitimize the returns.