Maryland Department

No right to speed through school zones To the editor: I am surprised at how many people think they have a constitutional right to speed through school zones. In the few last weeks, several writers have voiced their displeasure at having to pay speeding fines for this previously “routine” behavior.  Mostly, they justify their careless and unsafe actions on the grounds that a heartless mechanical Robocop has caught them (on camera and red handed) and is completely uninterested in their flimsy excuses.

Miss Maryland 2006 Brittany Lietz, 21, was recently honored with a send-off celebration Jan.7 at the Elks Club in Hagerstown. About 135 family, friends, pageant officials and other supporters gathered as Miss Maryland left to compete for the crown of Miss America. Lietz is a cancer survivor having been diagnosed with stage two melanoma in 2005. She has worked to bring awareness to the prevention, detection, treatment and research of this disease. Guest speaker was Robert Nicolay from the Joanna M. Nicolay Melanoma Foundation.

The outgoing executive director of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra was honored Wednesday with a citation from Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. Andrew Kipe was presented the award Wednesday night at the MSO office in downtown Hagerstown. Kipe resigned in November to become general manager of The Phoenix Symphony in Arizona. April L. Dowler of Williamsport has been appointed interim executive director until a successor to Kipe is hired. The search committee hopes to have an executive director in place by July 1.

AMVETS, Department of Maryland, will present the PNC A. Leo Anderson Memorial Free State Award of Excellence to CSM Bran Thompson, president of the Maj. Gen. Boyd Cook Memorial Foundation Inc., at a ceremony April 2 at Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Md. The award honors Thompson’s more than 10 years of advocating for veterans and 9/11 military personnel and for those of their family members. Thompson spent more than 38 years in the U.S. Army Air Force Reserves and Army Reserves before retiring.

The construction of a proposed Washington County senior center again dominated the discussion at a meeting Thursday at Girls Inc. in Hagerstown. The keynote speaker at the event was Maryland Department of Aging Secretary Gloria Lawlah, who told the about 15 seniors in attendance that they deserved a place to get information about their benefits and gather for fellowship. “I think it's going to be built. I think it's going to be fabulous,” Lawlah said. Susan MacDonald, executive director of the Washington County Commission on Aging, said after the meeting that county officials have discussed building a senior center on the Hagerstown Community College campus, but the project has been stalled for some time because of budget problems.

tarar@herald-mail.com The Maryland Department of the Environment issued the Western Maryland Hospital Center a citation last week charging the chronic-care hospital with spraying herbicide that killed thousands of fish and crayfish in Hamilton Run, a state spokesman said Tuesday. State Department of the Environment spokesman Rich McIntire said 2,000 to 3,000 minnows, dace and sculp were killed, along with 6,000 crayfish and four salamanders. Hamilton Run, a tributary of Antietam Creek, runs behind the Western Maryland Hospital Center on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Juvenile crime in the United States has followed a generally downward trend since the early 1990s, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. From 2008 to 2009, juvenile arrests for violent crime fell 10 percent and overall arrests were down 9 percent, to the lowest rate in two decades, according to a report released by the Justice Department in December. "That's been the trend, not just in Maryland, but nationally," said Reginald Garnett, executive director for residential operations for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, which oversees juvenile detention and residential treatment facilities in the state.

Washington County leaders will have a chance to discuss transportation project priorities with state officials during the Maryland Department of Transportation's annual visit to the county in October, county Public Works Director Joseph Kroboth III said Tuesday. The meeting with the Washington County Board of Commissioners is scheduled for Oct. 6 at 10 a.m., Kroboth said. A list compiled by Kroboth of potential projects to discuss at the meeting included 35 pedestrian, bicycle, highway, mass-transit, aviation and park-and-ride-related projects.

The unit block of West Antietam Street in Hagerstown could reopen to traffic early next week after it was closed almost two weeks ago to let engineers examine the structural integrity of a building that was gutted by a fire, a city official said. Hagerstown spokeswoman Erin Wolfe said the street is expected to be reopened Monday or Tuesday. “They're in the process of doing the demolition work and stabilizing the remains,” Wolfe said Wednesday. She said workers were in the process of removing the top floor of the building at 19-21-23 W. Antietam St., where a fire was set Feb. 7 by a homeless man who was living in the vacant structure.

Nearly three out of four employees who work full time for the Washington County government will earn more this year than the average income for workers in the county, a Herald-Mail analysis of county salary data shows. • LINK: Washington County government salaries database   Fiscal year 2011 salaries for Washington County’s 751 full-time, salaried employees range from $22,848 for a landfill attendant to $120,228 for the county administrator. The average salary for full-time county employees is about $46,800.