Archive: Frederick
Politician Won't Be Charged for Striking Son
[The following item was submitted by Washington Post staff writer Aruna Jain] The Frederick County State's Attorney's Office will drop charges against a county politician arrested last month for hitting his 13-year-old son shortly after the boy and two friends were picked up for joyriding and crushing mailboxes with a baseball bat. The county sheriff's office said that Ronald A. Terpko (D), a commissioner for the town of Thurmont, was arrested after deputy officer said Terpko punched the boy with a closed fist while the boy was in handcuffs. But another deputy contradicted that account, saying said Terpko slapped his son with an open hand. Terpko, 42, was quoted in the Frederick News-Post as saying he slapped the boy. He was charged with second degree assault and child abuse. Maryland law allows corporal punishment as long as it is not excessive or unreasonable under the circumstances, said state's attorney Scott...
By Terry Neal | July 26, 2006; 04:27 PM ET | Email a Comment
Frederick's New Mayor Sounds Off
Water rates. Fame. Making nice with the Board of Aldermen and taking potshots from the former mayor. . . It's all in a day's work for Frederick Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger. Holtzinger, a political novice who surprised everyone last year with his upset victories in the city's primary and general elections, has just clocked about six months on the job. What follows below is an edited transcript of a wide-ranging interview with the mayor, who was profiled today in the Washington Post....
By Fredrick Kunkle | July 5, 2006; 03:12 PM ET | Comments (3)
Mute Dissent In Frederick For Memorial Day
"Good art doesn't tell you what to think. It impacts you however you're going to be affected," Beth Willis, a member of Frederick Women in Black, said. www.wibfrederick.org.
By | May 12, 2006; 10:33 AM ET | Email a Comment
New Market Redux in Frederick
Will Frederick County give the go-ahead to an expansive plan for development in the New Market region? Will Winchester Hall be as packed tonight as Lake Linganore High School two weeks ago? Will Commissioner Lennie Thompson, who presides as president over the Fredrick Board of County Commissioners, once again be decked out in a blindingly white suit? (Asked about his sartorial choice at the meeting two weeks ago, Thompson said he was trying for the Huey Long effect, as in the popular, populist Louisiana governor and U.S. Senator of history and legend....More later....) And the key question: will the five commissioners actually be listening to the public tonight? Or have the commissioners already made up their minds on their way to a 3-2 vote for a plan that could bring as many as 14,000 homes to the fields and country roads around New Market? "It's a done deal," said James...
By | May 9, 2006; 12:24 PM ET | Email a Comment
Fight Over Da Vinci Code Comes to Frederick
The bright scarlet capes grabbed people's attention, and so did the bagpiper. But passersby really came to a dead halt yesterday when the group of Roman Catholic protesters explained that they had come to downtown Frederick to protest the upcoming release of "The Da Vinci Code," the Hollywood movie based on the Dan Brown's wildly popular thriller. "We're rallying support and banding together with other right-minded people, Catholics and others who feel the Da Vinci Code is blasphemous," said John E. Ritchie, director of student action for Hanover, Pa.-based American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. "It's a pretty hot button issue right now". . ....
By | May 2, 2006; 09:00 AM ET | Comments (42)
Congressman Bartlett's Lawsuit Dismissed
A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett against Frederick County that challenged the county's refusal to provide water and sewer access to a proposed retirement community on the congressman's property. Bartlett, 80, whose conservative and occasionally iconoclastic views have resonated among voters in western Maryland's rural counties over seven terms, argued that a 1996 contract allowing the county to build public water and sewer lines across his property also guaranteed that he could tap those lines for future development. Not so, said Judge William M. Nickerson......
By | April 27, 2006; 10:20 AM ET | Email a Comment
Frederick Gadfly Goes After Mayor Stung by Ethics Lapse
"Me and my big mouth," she says. "Now, I'm so opinionated, most people would like to see me move."
By | April 6, 2006; 10:55 AM ET | Email a Comment
