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Kipling classic takes a tour through South Asia. A-11
The Gazette DAMASCUS | CLARKSBURG
DAILY UPDATES ONLINE www.gazette.net
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
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County scrambles, rejiggers its snow waiver request Parents, students unclear when summer vacation starts n
BY
LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County Public Schools on Tuesday prepared a request to waive four days of instruction lost due to wintry weather, after its five-day request was denied Monday. State Superintendent of Schools
Lillian M. Lowery denied the school system’s original request in a March 26 letter because it “does not demonstrate an effort to modify the school calendar to make up for lost instructional time.” In a Tuesday letter, Starr submitted a modified, four-day waiver request that, if accepted, would involve the school system adding one day to the school year and changing Easter Monday from a holiday to an instructional day. Starr sent another letter to Lowery
on Tuesday asking for permission to make Easter Monday an instructional day. Lowery said in her March 26 letter that she would consider a modified request from the school system. The state requires school districts to hold 180 instruction days. While the school system built four snow days into its calendar, county students have had 10 days off this school year because of snow. In its first request, the school system
had asked the state to waive five days — the maximum number of days the state allowed school districts to request. The system had planned to add one day to its calendar if the waiver was accepted. Dana Tofig, a county school system spokesman, said the school system weighs the effect of adding school days when considering a waiver request. “It is a balancing act between wanting to make up meaningful instructional time and respecting the existing
Development capped by impervious surface limits
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County’s goal is to distribute antibiotics to 1 million people to treat anthrax n
BY
STAFF WRITER
See DRILL, Page A-10
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
VIRGINIA TERHUNE
The county’s public health scenario assumed a crop duster plane had flown low over Montgomery County, releasing deadly white clouds of anthrax spores in a bioterrorist attack. In response, officials organized teams of people to dispense antibiotics — doxycycline and ciprofloxacin — to 1 million people within 48 hours. The exercise involving about 100 county employees and volunteers Friday at Damascus High School was to test the logistics and timing of dispensing life-saving antibiotics to people in cars and on foot. “The winds take it and pretty much cover the whole county in a very short time, and it can infect you very quickly, but you can survive,” said Cindy Edwards, senior nurse administrator for the county’s Department of Health and Human Services. “We were trying to get the medicine into the hands of everybody.” The county distributed vaccine doses during the H1N1 swine flu spike in 2009 but had not simulated a drive-through
See WAIVER, Page A-10
Vote ends miles of debate over Ten Mile Creek
They know the drill in Damascus mock attack BY
schedules that our students, staff, families and communities already have in place, including jobs, internships, camps, and more,” Tofig said in an email. As of Tuesday, Lowery had responded to waiver requests from four counties, including Montgomery, Anne Arundel, St. Mary’s and Carroll, said William Reinhard, a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Educa-
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Nancy Reynaud of Gaithersburg assembles bags of medicine for other volunteers to hand out to drivers during Friday’s bioterror exercise at Damascus High School.
The Montgomery County Council voted unanimously Tuesday as expected to limit the footprint of proposed housing and retail projects to protect the relatively clean Ten Mile Creek watershed stretching from Clarksburg southwest through Boyds from significant further degradation, a decision that puts an end to debate over development in the upcounty. The approved amendment to the 1994 Clarksburg Master Plan strikes a balance between preserving the watershed west of Interstate 270 and allowing the remaining build-out of Clarksburg east of I-270. “Clarksburg will get rooftops and commercial development but in a less damaging way to the setting,” said Councilman Marc Elrich (D-At large) of Takoma Park. The vote imposes caps on impervious surface that limit plans by Pulte Holmes to build housing west of I-270 and plans by the Peterson Cos. to build a mixed-use outlet center on the
Miles-Coppola site east of I-270. Pulte Homes, which claims the caps violate its property rights, has said it will wait for the council’s related rezoning vote before it decides whether to contest the council’s vote. On sites east of I-270, the vote supports the development of the long-planned Clarksburg Town Center complemented by more opportunities to redevelop properties in the town’s historic district straddling Md. 355. The historic district is now exempt from the environmental buffers required on other sites in the watershed. “[Owners] can build larger and taller buildings, as long as they are consistent with the historical nature of the district,” said Councilman Roger Berliner (D-Dist. 1) of Bethesda, who, along with Elrich, led the push to scale back development in the watershed. Councilwoman Nancy Floreen (D-At large) of Garrett Park said the amendment provides the flexibility to allow the growth the area needs to become a fully realized community. “Clarksburg is full of people and full of expectations,” she said.
See VOTE, Page A-10
200 animals rescued from puppy mill n
Animals seized in Arkansas arrive in Gaithersburg for adoption BY JENN DAVIS STAFF WRITER
When Tia Pope visited a suspected puppy mill in Jefferson County, Ark., in late January she noticed a small, red 10-year-old Italian greyhound living in deplorable conditions. Pope, manager of the Puppy Mill Response for the Humane Society of the United States, said she wasn’t sure if the dog
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was going to survive. “At the time, it was 20-something degrees and she was outside in a chain link concrete pen with really no shelter,” Pope said. “For a dog of her size, she had no body fat and there was nowhere for her to stay warm. She was shaking.” Now, thanks to the efforts of the Humane Society, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and other organizations, the dog has been given a second chance at life. All of the animals at the mill — 121 dogs, 20 horses, 19 chickens, 11 exotic birds, and multiple bunnies, turtles and cats — were
seized Feb. 27 by the Humane Society of the United States. On March 26, 55 of the dogs, including the Italian greyhound, nine bunnies and three birds were brought to the society’s Gaithersburg office, where pet adoption agencies eagerly waited to pick them up and begin the process of finding them new, loving homes. The Gaithersburg office is at 700 Professional Drive. “It was nice to see that she was one of the ones who made it back to the Washington
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
See RESCUED, Page A-10
SPORTS
A RARE TYPE OF ATHLETE Hearing Olney baseball player thrives at a deaf school.
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Jen Koca of Herndon, Va., an intern for the Puppy Mill Rescue Campaign of the Humane Society of the United States, holds a 14-year-old Yorkshire terrier from a truck that had just arrived March 26 from a puppy mill rescue in Arkansas.
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