AT ODDS School board, critics disagree about legal bill. A-10
ENTERTAINMENT: Oxymorons will be making a stop at Strathmore. B-4
The Gazette GERMANTOWN | CLARKSBURG
SPORTS: Northwest travels to Clarksburg for this week’s top football game. B-1
DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
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Ex-husband gets life sentence for murder of Germantown woman Victim predicted harm by husband in 2010 letter n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
In March 2010, Germantown resident Preeta P. Gabba wrote a letter that contained an ominous warning: if any harm came to her in the U.S., her husband, Baldeo Taneja, should be held responsible. Three years and one acrimonious divorce later, Gabba, 49 was shot and killed. On Wednesday, Taneja was sentenced to life in prison for the crime.
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Amber Johnson of Germantown and son Dorian, 6, look on as Bright Star Touring Theatre actors perform “Professor Parsnip’s Lab of Healthy Choices” at the Germantown Library on Friday, Oct. 17 in Germantown.
Learning with the ‘professor’ ‘Professor Parsnip’ comes to Germantown Library BY
SAMANTHA SCHMIEDER STAFF WRITER
The Germantown Library offered a fun, educational activity for children during their day off from school on Friday, Oct. 17, when “Professor Parsnip’s Lab of Healthy Choices” opened
its laboratory doors to audiences courtesy of Bright Star Touring Theatre. Bright Star is a touring theater group based out of Asheville, N.C., that performs mostly educational, curriculum-based or character-based plays for children, according to company manager Erin Schmidt. The
group has been in operation for 12 years and presents about 1,000 performances each year. “Professor Parsnip’s Lab of Healthy Choices” is geared toward children ranging from pre-K to fifth
See PROGRAM, Page A-11
BlackRock welcomes education director Ideas for more classes abound
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BY
STAFF WRITER
Silver Spring resident Jillian Levine-Sisson has only been education director at the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown for a month, but she’s hit the ground running. “I’ve got lots of ideas,” said LevineSisson, who previously served as the education and outreach coordinator at the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring for five years. “I thought it would be a really great next step,” said Levine-Sisson, who saw the opening at BlackRock as a chance to broaden her education work to include other arts. BlackRock also offers 80 classes spanning theater, music, dance and visual arts for all ages. Registration begins in mid-November, and the session starts in early January, she said. “There’s so much going on,” she said. “When it’s cold and snowy, you can do fun and cool arts.” After graduating from Walt Whit-
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See MURDER, Page A-11
County forming rapid transit advisory groups n
Md. 355 review includes Germantown groups BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County businesses and residents have another month to decide if they want to serve on one of seven rapid transit corridor advisory committees. “We want a forum for information sharing and for interaction among the stakeholders,” said Joana Conklin, rapid transit development manager for the county’s Department of Transportation. “They’ll act as messengers, going
back to their communities and sharing information,” said Conklin, who spoke at a meeting of the Upcounty Advisory Committee in Germantown on Oct. 20. The County Council approved a transportation master plan last year that proposes a bus rapid transit system along 10 major corridors, including Md. 355, Md. 97, Md. 29 and Md. 586. “We’re only looking at four corridors right now,” Conklin said. “It’s about 30 miles of a [proposed] 80-mile system.” Each corridor advisory committee will include up to 40 people — 30 that are directly affected by the proposed
See TRANSIT, Page A-11
Refugee tells her own story
VIRGINIA TERHUNE
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Taneja, 63, and his current wife, Raminder Kaur, 64, were convicted of first-degree murder, as well as firearm and conspiracy charges in Montgomery County Circuit Court in August. Taneja did not address the court at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, but his attorney, Andrew Jezic, described his client — a statistician with a Ph.D. — as a hard-working, decent man who spent many years as a single parent raising two sons, well liked by those who knew him. The prosecution described Gabba as a brave and determined woman who was raised in an Indian
Young survivor to speak at Germantown college Thursday n
BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Jillian Levine-Sisson, new director of educational programs at the BlackRock Center of the Arts in Germantown, watches a youth ballet class. man High School in Bethesda, LevineSisson attended Kenyon College in Ohio, where she immersed herself in Shakespeare and considered a career in directing. But after stints back home with Arena Stage and Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., and
Volume 27, No. 43, Two sections, 28 Pages Copyright © 2014 The Gazette
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a summer at the Imagination Stage children’s theater in Bethesda, she realized her true passion was arts education. “[I wanted to use] theater and the
See BLACKROCK, Page A-11
Clemantine Wamariya was only 6 years old when the Hutus in Rwanda began the genocidal murder of more than half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. “Our parents sent us to our grandparents in the countryside, thinking it would blow over, but it didn’t,” said Wamariya, now 26. After her grandparents’ house was attacked, Wamariya and her older sister escaped, eventually walking, sometimes crawling, their way to a refugee camp in neighboring Burundi. The sisters would spend the next six years in refugee camps in eight countries before the International Organization for Migration based in Switzerland brought them to Chicago in 2000. Now a resident of San Francisco
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FROM RWANDAN GENOCIDE TO YALE UNIVERSITY: A TALK BY CLEMANTINE WAMARIYA n When: reception at 6:30 p.m., Thursday; talk at 7 p.m., followed by Q&A n Where: Globe Hall, Montgomery College, 20200 Observation Drive, Germantown n Tickets: Free n For information: cms. montgomerycollege.edu/athenaeum
and a public speaker, Wamariya will be telling her story at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Montgomery College Germantown. Wamariya said when she visits a college, she talks about those early years, her experiences since coming to
See REFUGEE, Page A-11