Town Budget

Union Bridge will help residents with spring cleaning, but every household will have to fend for itself in the fall.A semiannual free trash collection is straining the town budget, said Mayor Perry L. Jones Jr.The fall cleanup day fell to the budget ax when Councilman Bret Grossnickle said "once a year is enough."The Town Council voted unanimously Monday to cancel the service, usually scheduled for a Saturday in October. Spring cleanup is safe for now and remains on the municipal calendar.

The Hampstead Town Council unanimously approved a $1,210,060 budget Tuesday and, for the first time in the town's history, passed a long-term capital improvement plan.The four-year $1,962,893 capital budget includes unspent town revenues dating to 1990 and allocates money to pay for road repairs, water system improvements and expansion of town facilities."We do have money sitting around and we do have problems and we're in a good position to throw money at these problems," Hampstead Mayor Christopher M. Nevin said at Tuesday's Town Council meeting.

Sykesville's long road to common sense I am surprised that Sykesville Councilwoman Jeannie Nichols expressed impatience with the new board ("Carroll officials work for harmony," Dec. 1) Her dictum, "Actions count more than words," has not been followed by her own Town Council. I knew nothing about Ms. Nichols until I attended a pre-election candidates' forum where she made her presentation. If elected commissioner, she promised "common-sense and open-government," purportedly Sykesville's hallmarks.

A local citizens band radio operator is giving some Manchester residents static.That's what several residents of Sutton Court and Bachman Avenue told the Manchester Town Council at its regular meeting last night.Melissa L. Glorioso, who lives on Bachman Avenue, said a neighbor with a CB radio tower was causing interference with her phone, television and computer.She said the situation was becoming intolerable, and speaking with the radio operator hadn't resolved it.She said she works at home for a construction company and has lost computer files, had phone calls interrupted and had to unplug her television.

If the nasty weather over the past few days is any indication, winter definitely is here to stay. I wish it wasn't here at all because I just can't deal with ice and snow. Hurry summer, when the humidity hovers at 98 percent and the temperature at 95 degrees. Now, that's what I like.*Crofton, get ready for an invasion by French high school students April 8-16. The youngsters need places to stay. Valerie Humen, community coordinator for International Education, is looking for families to play host to the students.

Hampstead residents got a first look last night at the proposed town budget for 1994-1995, but the numbers are almost guaranteed to change after the Town Council holds a work session April 26, Mayor C. Clinton Becker said.The current draft calls for an 11.3 percent increase in the total budget, to $806,007. This year's budget is $724,307, with a tax rate of 50 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.To raise the same sum next year, the town would need a tax rate of 47 cents, called the constant yield, because of the increase in the value of property in town.

The recent action by the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners to join a mutual emergency agreement with other communities is a reasonable effort at coming up with an administrative framework to account for doing something that already happens. As a practical matter, in times of emergency like blizzards, floods and tropical storms, various governments are fairly generous in offering assistance to each other for things like snow removal, directing traffic, helping with evacuations, providing shelter for displaced people and the like.

For the 6,500 residents of Taneytown, Monday's election is an automatic reaffirmation of the current direction of their municipal government. Three seats on the five-member council are up for grabs, but only one person has decided to challenge the three incumbents running for re-election.The three incumbents -- Thomas J. Denike, Henry C. Heine and James L. McCarron -- are standing on their records. Challenger Roger Keller concurs with the basic initiatives of the council but complains that the body hasn't related well enough to residents.

The Carroll commissioners don't know how badly last weekend's snowstorm will overwhelm the county's snow-removal budget, but the county's budget director said yesterday that emergency funds should be able to cover the cost without wreaking financial havoc. But the county's eight municipalities - many with total budgets of a few million dollars - have less wiggle room, and several plan to seek relief from state and federal coffers. The county had spent about 80 percent of its $780,000 snow-removal budget before the storm, said budget director Ted Zaleski.

Sykesville faces a $3 million lawsuit 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. The couple has asked for damages that would be double the town's operating budget. The suit comes in the midst of the town's efforts to revive its downtown and restore its 19th-century clapboard storefronts. Its historic commission, a panel of volunteers appointed by the Town Council, has banned vinyl from its historic district, which includes most of Main Street.