Town Clerk

SHARPSBURG - Sharpsburg's town clerk has resigned her post due to time constraints, Mayor George Kesler announced at Monday night's mayor and Town Council meeting. Pat Holland resigned the part-time job effective Aug. 31, Kesler said. Holland, a freelance writer, said in a phone interview after the meeting that she had a new contract that would take much of her time in the coming months. Holland said she wants to remain on the town's archives committee, which collects items such as letters describing the town around the time of the Battle of Antietam, which occurred on Sept.

marlob@herald-mail.com KEEDYSVILLE - Amy Simmons said she can hardly believe she is coming up on her seventh year as town clerk for Keedysville, but she insists she is enjoying the job even more than when she first came on board. "When I started out in this job in January 1998, I was told the work would include collecting taxes and recording that information," Simmons said. "At that time, then-Mayor Ralph Taylor did everything else. " But shortly after Simmons, 31, started her new job, Taylor retired after more than three decades of serving as Keedysville mayor.

andrews@herald-mail.com A resident urged town officials on Monday to bring the former clerk/treasurer back to replace the current one. At a town council meeting, Regina Yohe read aloud a blistering letter accusing Clerk/Treasurer Bonnie J. Errico of being distracted, unfriendly and inaccessible. Yohe also said, not from her letter, that there have been problems with water and electric bills under Errico, such as residents getting billed twice in one month. Yohe - who ran for a council seat in March and lost - later said she is not certain of all the alleged problems.

BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. - The former municipal clerk for the Town of Bath has filed a lawsuit claiming she was unfairly fired for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing by town officials. In a complaint filed Tuesday in Morgan County Circuit Court, Dorthy Silvers asks for her job back, full payment of back wages and reinstatement of benefits, attorney fees and $100,000 for damages and emotional distress. She also asks that the mayor and members of the Town Council each be fined $500 for violating the "Whistle-Blower Law," a state law meant to protect people who report waste or wrongdoing by public agencies or officials, said Paul Taylor, her Martinsburg, W.Va.

WILLIAMSPORT - The town's Planning and Zoning Commission is looking for a few people to fill available posts. For more information or to volunteer, call James Castle, town clerk, at 301-223-7711.

The Funkstown mayor and Town Council canceled a work session that was scheduled for Tuesday, Town Clerk/Treasurer Brenda Haynes said Monday. The meeting will be rescheduled, she said.

CLEAR SPRING - Fire hydrants on the Clear Spring water system will be flushed today, according to Nancy Keefer, town clerk. Customers should be aware they may have low water pressure or see rusty water conditions while this is being done.

SMITHSBURG - The town of Smithsburg's audit report was approved Tuesday night, though Mayor Mildred "Mickey" Myers warned that some belt-tightening might be needed in the near future. "But the report showed the town is solvent and in good financial shape," Myers said. Still, the report did highlight shortfalls in the town's water and sewer revenues, prompting possible rate increases as soon as next year, according to Betsy Martin, town clerk/treasurer/manager. - Marlo Barnhart

FUNKSTOWN - In the first two weeks of a new contractual deputy program in Funkstown, deputies issued 17 citations and 52 warnings, Mayor Robert L. Kline told Town Council Monday night. "So, they're doing their job," Kline said. The council voted last month to participate in a contractual deputy program to provide 10 hours of deputy coverage a week. The deputy works Mondays through Fridays, town clerk/treasurer/tax collector Brenda L. Haynes said.

Cannons to be returned to historic site May 4 WILLIAMSPORT - Three Civil War cannons that are connected to historic Doubleday Hill in Riverview Cemetery will return to the cemetery May 4, said Scott Bragunier, a Williamsport native and local firefighter who has been working on the project. The tubes, or barrels, of the cannons were given to the town in 1896 to honor local men who fought during the Civil War. For more than 100 years, the tubes sat on Doubleday Hill, which was part of a western defense for the Union army that was established by Union Gen. Abner Doubleday.

Funkstown officials are considering traffic cameras to catch speeders after the issue of drivers speeding through town, particularly on Baltimore Street, came up during Monday night's Town Council meeting. Mayor Paul N. Crampton Jr. asked Town Clerk/Treasurer Brenda Haynes to find out more about speed cameras and whether the town would receive the revenue from them. “It's like a racetrack through here,” Donald Knodle, who lives on West Baltimore Street, said of traffic between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. It's also “terrible” in the evenings, he said.

Boonsboro Town Council members Monday night decided to join the town of Williamsport in organizing an all-day rock concert at Williamsport's River Bottom Park to help raise money for a Chesapeake Bay protection program. Counties and municipalities across the state are trying to figure out how to pay for a new state Watershed Implementation Plan, or WIP, to help protect the Chesapeake Bay by reducing nitrogen and phosphorus discharges. The plan is expected to cost Washington County and its municipalities $1.1 billion in the next 13 years in stormwater, wastewater and septic measures.

Faced with a large price tag on a government mandate, the town of Williamsport is trying to raise money through an all-day rock concert. Counties and municipalities across the state are trying to figure out how to pay for a new state Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) to help protect the Chesapeake Bay by reducing nitrogen and phosphorus discharges. The plan is expected to cost Washington County and its municipalities $1.1 billion in the next 13 years in stormwater, wastewater and septic measures.

Funkstown's March town meeting has been rescheduled, and the mayor and town council's annual meeting with the Washington County Commissioners also will be rescheduled, Town Clerk/Treasurer Brenda Haynes said Monday. The mayor and town council were not expected to have a quorum of members available for the monthly council meeting on March 12, so that 7 p.m. meeting has been rescheduled to March 19, Haynes said. A joint meeting between town officials and the county commissioners that was set for March 13 will be rescheduled because Mayor Paul N. Crampton Jr. cannot attend, Haynes said.

Warren “Bus” Seymour must have really loved his job because the former Williamsport town clerk and mayor can still be heard pecking away at a typewriter - though he died in 1985. “I've heard that,” daughter Elissa Slayman said of her father's benign haunting. “And they hear him walking and his keys rattling.” “He just loved that town,” Slayman said of her father, who served as town clerk for 42 years before being elected mayor and dying while in office. Legend has it - which is a great phrase to kick off any ghost story - there are some other spirits that roam the halls of Town Hall, as well as the streets and historic buildings, along with Doubleday Hill and Riverview Cemetery in Williamsport, which tour guide Alan Redding expounded upon during a chilly night's tour through the town.

Like many small towns, Funkstown is making do in a tight economy as town officials try not to raise property tax rates and cut back on regular infrastructure upgrades such as milling and paving some streets every year. Mayor Paul N. Crampton Jr. said Town Clerk/Treasurer Brenda Haynes does a good job seeking and applying for grants to help the town pay for projects such as the sewer treatment plant that, according to Maryland Environmental Service, went online in June 2008. But in tight times such as these, there are areas in which the town government has to scale back.

Six candidates, including two incumbents, are running for three seats on the Williamsport Town Council in the town’s municipal election Monday, according to town clerk/treasurer Donnie Stotelmyer. Incumbents James Kalbfleisch and Tearza D. Knode are running for re-election, but incumbent council member Larry Jessop is not running for another term, Stotelmyer said. The other candidates are William G. Green, Maya Haines, Jeffrey A. Redding and Nicholas T. Russell, Stotelmyer said. The top three vote-getters will win the three council seats, Stotelmyer said.

While sunnier, warmer weather has shown up recently, Funkstown's yard waste pickup doesn't begin until April 5, according to Town Clerk/Treasurer Brenda Haynes. Yard waste is to be set out Monday nights so it can be picked up Tuesday mornings, Haynes said. The yard-waste collection service will run through November. — Julie E. Greene