thumbs up, thumbs down

October 01, 1999

Thumbs up! To the Hagerstown/Washington County Chamber of Commerce, for its pledge to raise $500,000 toward the new University of Maryland campus, no matter which site is chosen.

Thumbs up! To all the residents of the Brightwood Acres area whose determination convinced a developer to abandon plans to cram 230 dwellings onto a 36.7-acre tract on Hagerstown's Mt. Aetna Road. Involvement does pay off.

Thumbs down! To Lockheed Martin Astronautics, which acknowledged this week that its failure to convert English measurement units to metric ones may have doomed the $125 million Martian probe.

Thumbs down! To officials at Keystone Oaks High School near Pittsburgh who tried to assess students a $25-a-year fee to use special "honors" bathrooms, where visitors would pledge not to smoke or vandalize the facilities, leaving poorer kids to use old, crummy bathrooms.

Thumbs down! To Washington County transportation officials who claim it would be impossible to triple use of the bus service here in the next 20 years. When gasoline goes up, citizens will demand more routes.

Thumbs down! To all those officials who are saying that raising the state sales tax to help pay off Washington County's sewer debt is impossible because nothing like it has ever been done before. Twenty years ago, Internet commerce had never been done before.

Thumbs up! To Maryland House Speaker Casper Taylor, for agreeing to back the proposal to widen that portion of Interstate 81 that winds through Washington County. It's a project this area needs.

Thumbs down! To Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Body" Ventura, for the Playboy interview in which he destroyed the hope that his antics as a loudmouth pro wrestler were just a gimmick to promote an intelligent candidate. Sadly, it seems, what we see is what we get.

Thumbs up! To the Washington County Commissioners, for their decision to kick in $300,000 to finish improvements on a downtown parking lot, a project in the works for six years.

Thumbs up! To the Hagerstown City Council, for their decision to hire a new police chief who really and truly seems to like the job of fighting crime. Now it's time to give him the tools he needs to do the job right.

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