Town Manager

Within the past several weeks, two town managers in Carroll County have announced their resignations.Terry Short, Manchester's first and long-embattled manager, has resigned. Meanwhile, in Sykesville, much-loved manager James L. Schumacher is leaving in March to operate a consulting business. The timing of these resignations may be coincidental, but the reasons behind the departures of these municipal managers vastly differ.After almost three years of continual battles with a implacable faction on Manchester's council and a clique of residents, Mr. Short threw in the towel.

The Sykesville Town Council voted Monday night, Nov. 26, to maintain the town's contract for a U.S. Post Office, and the town will plan to hire at least two new employees to operate it. The decision does not guarantee the post office's future, however, as the council plans to address its fate again during next year's town budget talks. It was a decision that pleased the full house, where many stated the importance of the post office to the town for not only its services, but also for its atmosphere.

Hampstead's Town Council returned one of Carroll County's best known environmentalists to public life last night.Neil M. Ridgely, former county landscape and forest conservation program manager, starts work Monday as Hampstead's newest town manager.An unsuccessful candidate for county commissioner last fall, Mr. Ridgely resigned from his county position in January and has been general manager of Clear Ridge Nursery in Union Bridge since February.The town manager position has technically been vacant since John A. Riley retired last spring.

SYKESVILLE — After moving a building called the Norwood Avenue House from Norwood Avenue to the William "Mac" McElroy parking lot on Oklahoma Avenue, refurbishing it, then spending more than a year trying to recruit a bank to open a branch there, the town of Sykesville is now entertaining the possibility of selling the structure. The house was initially moved to make way for an improved parking lot between Norwood Avenue and Main Street. The move and renovation were paid for with grant money the town received from the state.

Manchester's mayor and Town Council named a college professor and retired elementary school principal as town manager last night.Philip L. Arbaugh, 50, of the 400 block of Cobb's Choice Lane in Westminster will succeed David M. Warner, who is retiring.Arbaugh was chosen from among 32 applicants, an increase from an earlier pool of 17, said Mayor Elmer C. Lippy Jr., who makes the appointment with council approval under the town's strong-mayor system."I'm happy to report after a start, and restart, that the mayor and Town Council have approved a new town manager after we sifted out four of the best of 32 candidates," Lippy said last night.

The recent dismissal of Taneytown town manager Joseph A. Mangini is symptomatic of the tension that has been building between the part-time elected officials and the full-time appointed managers in Carroll County's towns.Just look at Manchester, where relations between the town manager and town council have been rocky for months. Or over in New Windsor, where the clerk-treasurer, who had 45 years of service and acted as the town manager, was replaced due to differences with the newly elected mayor.

Hampstead Town Manager John A. Riley will retire March 17 from his longtime job, but not from public service, he said yesterday."I would like to still stay in local government work of some sort," said Mr. Riley, who lives in Manchester. He will be 66 Tuesday.The talk in both towns has been that Mr. Riley is planning a run for mayor of Manchester. The election is in May."Time will tell," he said. "It's a possibility."The current mayor, Earl A. J. "Tim" Warehime, is a distant cousin of Mr. Riley's, and Manchester Councilwoman Kathryn Riley is his sister-in-law.

A petition from some Manchester residents to fire the town manager has no legal significance for the man's contract, Town Attorney Charles O. Fisher Jr. said.And Councilwoman Charlotte Collett said the problems the petition lists are the fault of the divided council, not Town Manager Terry Short."I think the Town Council needs to be able to make a decision and tell [the town manager] what to do," Mrs. Collett said."The big issue is our Town Council at the time does not know government," she said.

In 1986, during Oliver Davis' first year as a Mount Airy councilman, the town's trash collectors didn't show up for work one day.As head of the town's sanitation committee, Mr. Davis was responsible for solving the problem."

Jordan L. Harding, the town manager who helped move Crofton from isolation into the Anne Arundel mainstream, has resigned, effective the end of April, to pursue other job opportunities.While the 62-year-old Potomac resident said yesterday he simply wants to face new challenges, he conceded that he has faced criticism in recent months from members of the Crofton Civic Association board who, he said, second-guessed his decisions.But he said the complaints, which he called "petty," had no bearing on his decision, which he announced to the board during a closed meeting Monday.

Baltimore police Sgt. Craig Gentile retired this month after 22 1/2 years, half of that with the vice squad. After some 5,000 prostitution arrests and 1,000 gambling busts, he has a few stories to tell. He says he's saving them for the book. But keep him on the phone long enough and he starts talking. "I did carry a stripper over my shoulder into the station one night, yeah, that happened," he volunteered. "I did dress up as Santa, yeah, that happened. I did get a city vehicle one night and close the street and say I was out there working for the water department.

Barbara L. Swann, who recently retired as Crofton's town manager after nearly four decades as an employee of the Anne Arundel County community, died from complications of brain and lung cancer Tuesday at her home there. She was 72. Mrs. Swann had been town manager since 1993. She unofficially stepped down from her job in September, because of failing health, and retired at the end of the year. "She was a real institution in the Crofton area. She and her husband had been active in community affairs and she was a faithful worker for the special benefits tax district," County Councilman Edward R. Reilly said yesterday.

After working for Crofton for 36 years, Town Manager Barbara Swann is officially stepping down Sunday. Unofficially, Swann left her job of the last 13 years in September, when she became too sick to work. Swann, 71, has been getting radiation and chemotherapy on and off for two years for brain and lung cancer. Until this year, she attended every community Easter egg hunt since 1985. She organized the Fourth of July parades, Christmas tree lightings and town cleanups. "She really is Ms. Crofton," said David Lombardo, a former board member and president of the Crofton Civic Association from 1984 to 1988.

Just as Westminster's new city manager took office last week, Mount Airy voted to hire its former planner as the town's first administrator. These day-to-day administrators come on board as Carroll County's two most populated municipalities struggle to balance residential development with limited water resources. Margaret "Marge" Wolf, the deputy housing secretary under former Gov. Parris N. Glendening, started as Westminster's new manager on Monday. She managed the borough of Kennett Square, Pa., and also previously served as Hyattsville's city administrator.

Sykesville, a town of about 4,500 on the border between Carroll and Howard counties, has a vibrant downtown, a rich railroad history and a charming riverfront. Trading on those amenities should help the town draw its residents and visitors to its varied businesses, restaurants and attractions. Town officials have started the Warfield Corporate and Culture Center, a $20 million business enterprise in former state hospital buildings along Route 32. They have worked to restore a one-room schoolhouse as an African-American museum, a companion to the Gatehouse Museum, which houses town memorabilia.

Sykesville breaks ground tomorrow on nearly $600,000 in additions that will create a spacious meeting room in its Town House and double the size of its police station. The town hopes to keep construction costs down by serving as its own general contractor with Mayor Jonathan Herman overseeing the work. "We are getting local subcontractors to bid individually on the various aspects of this job," said Herman, who owns a building restoration business. "This way we can lower the costs in segments."

Town managers in Crofton used to be the quiet people in the corner of the room who stood up at meetings, gave reports and sat back down again.They were discouraged from driving the community car outsidethe special tax district and were not supposed to spend time in Annapolis unless the issue had a direct bearing on local affairs.Crofton was a self-contained community, an island surrounded on three sides by major roads that resembled neutral zones between the tax district and the rest of the county.

Manchester had been considering whether to re-create the position of town manager, but it decided instead to get two for the price of one. Daniel C. Riley and John A. Riley, two brothers with extensive experience in town government, will fill two part-time positions, said Mayor Christopher B. D'Amario. "We get more bang for the buck ... [with] so much experience," D'Amario said. Daniel Riley will be project administrator, and John Riley will be town planner, D'Amario said. The town had about $40,000 in its budget for a town manager position, said Kelly J. Baldwin, the town's finance director.

While Hampstead's municipal swimming pool has been reduced to mounds of dirt and busted concrete and Taneytown's has remained closed for another season, pool attendance jumped this summer in Manchester and Westminster. And in Sykesville, officials are looking forward to the 2007 opening of a municipal pool. A 2003 referendum showed about 55 percent of town residents favored the pool project, estimated to cost $500,000. The town will lease the pool site, below market rates, to a developer willing to build and manage the pool.