caleb.calhoun@herald-mail.com

HAGERSTOWN — Labor Day might be an American holiday, but Hagerstown resident Jack Martin, who has traveled to every state in the country except for North Dakota, will be leaving the country for part of the holiday weekend with his wife.

“We’re going to Nova Scotia (in Canada) to see the Bay of Fundy,” he said. “We’re going up to New Hampshire, check in there, and then we’re going to drive from there up into Maine, and go across and drive the back side into Nova Scotia.”

FULL STORY

Published 04/10/12

In one of the strangest endings to a General Assembly session in modern history, there was no confetti dropped at midnight on Monday, and the feuding legislature went home without passing a funding bill to support the budget it adopted.

Also left on the table were bills to create a casino in Prince George’s County and to authorize an off-shore wind farm near Ocean City.

The upshot is that Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to call a special session for lawmakers to come back and complete their unfinished business.

If they don’t, then a default budget with deep spending cuts passed Monday will go into effect at the start of the budget year on July 1.

FULL STORY: www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2012/04/10-01/No-celebration-at-end-of-General-Assembly-session.html

By EARL KELLY and PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writers

Published 04/08/12

The 2012 General Assembly has not been kind to Maryland’s county governments or their checkbooks.

This year’s session, which is scheduled to end Monday night, has been a deal-changer for the state’s relationship with its counties. Bills have passed to direct more education costs to the counties and place greater burdens on them to clean up the environment.

Now it is up to the counties to determine how to pay for their new obligations.

FULL STORY: www.hometownannapolis.com/news/TOP/2012/04/08-38/Legislative-session-produces-profound-changes.html

Published 03/10/12

WASHINGTON – When the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area logged a population increase last decade, the most dramatic changes came in outlying counties like Charles and Frederick counties — and county leaders said they know why.

In these counties, a long-held rural character is giving way in some places to the spread of the D.C. suburbs, as people are willing to travel farther for their jobs in order to take advantage of well-regarded school systems, lower crime rates and relatively inexpensive housing, they said.

FULL STORY: www.hometownannapolis.com/news/reg/2012/03/10-13/Metropolitan-sprawl-puts-urban-in-suburban.html

Published 03/05/12

BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland’s requirement that residents show a “good and substantial reason” to get a handgun permit is unconstitutional, according to a federal judge’s opinion filed Monday.

States can channel the way their residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms carried outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, infringing upon residents’ rights, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote.

FULL STORY: www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2012/03/05-37/Maryland-gun-law-found-unconstitutional.html

Published 03/05/12

A union representing members of Anne Arundel County’s police force called for County Executive John R. Leopold and Police Chief James Teare to resign Monday.

Leopold was indicted last week on misconduct charges that allege he used his police security detail for personal and political gain, and that Teare did not take effective steps to stop it.

FULL STORY: www.hometownannapolis.com/news/TOP/2012/03/05-33/Police-union-Leopold-Teare-should-resign.html

Join other counties to protest costly change

By ERICA MITRANOStaff writer

Joining other Maryland counties, the Charles County commissioners and school officials held a press conference Tuesday to denounce a proposed budget that would pass on half the costs of public school teacher and other pensions to local governments.

“If approved, this proposal will have profound fiscal impact, $240 million, on counties statewide, and that figure is rising fast,” commissioners’ President Candice Quinn Kelly (D) said of a fiscal 2013 budget proposed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).

FULL STORY: www.somdnews.com/article/20120302/NEWS/703029673/1055/commissioners-blast-plan-to-shift-pensions&template=southernMaryland