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Area favorites Fink and Marxer throw a musical pajama party in Takoma Park. A-13
The Gazette GERMANTOWN | POOLESVILLE | BOYDS
DAILY UPDATES ONLINE www.gazette.net
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
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Verizon’s antennas may see higher rent
A clutch win
Nextel removing cell equipment in Poolesville n
BY
SYLVIA CARIGNAN STAFF WRITER
Poolesville’s commissioners want to raise the rent on Verizon’s cell antennas while another cell service provider makes plans to leave town. The commissioners voted to set the terms of their contract with Verizon, which wants to add three antennas to the nine that top the town water tower. Verizon, which was paying $2,500 per month for its water tower lease, will now pay $3,240 if it signs the new contract. According to Town Attorney Jay Gullo, $3,200 is the market price for cell antenna leases in Poolesville. The higher lease “brings everyone in town into line,” Yost said at
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Northwest High School quarterback Mark Pierce hugs his father, coach Scott Pierce, after defeating Paint Branch in Friday’s Class 4A state semifinal football game in Burtonsville. Northwest (11-2) plays the winner of Saturday’s 1 p.m. Meade (10-2) at Suitland (12-0) game at 7:30 p.m. Friday at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. For more on Northwest, see Page B-8.
Community meeting to be held Dec. 10
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Alcohol measures on tap for upcoming General Assembly
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BY
KATE S. ALEXANDER STAFF WRITER
A Montgomery County lawmaker will try again to give archery hunters more room to help cull the county’s growing deer population. Del. Eric Luedtke again has proposed a local bill to shrink the safety zone around Montgomery County buildings from 150 yards to 50 yards for bow hunters. Current state law prohibits
shooting any firearm or deadly weapon, like a bow, within 150 yards of an occupied home, church or other building or camp. Around schools, the safety zone is 300 yards. Under Luedtke’s proposal, Montgomery County would be lumped with Carroll and Frederick counties, which have a 50-yard safety zone. With the exception of Harford County, which has a 100-yard buffer, the rest of the state must follow a 150-yard safety zone. Luedtke (D-Dist. 14) of Burtonsville proposed a similar bill in the 2013 legislative session that became a point of
significant debate among the delegation and did not advance. Few solutions are effective for deer management in Montgomery, but about a dozen citizens who testified in favor of the bill at a delegation hearing Monday say giving archers more room to hunt will go a long way in controlling the deer population. Many who testified told of complications suffered from Lyme disease, a debilitating disease carried by ticks that often feed off the blood of deer. Others spoke of the many deer killed
See DEER, Page A-9
See ANTENNAS, Page A-9
County is set to restore historic Poolesville store n
County bill would open land to deer hunting
the commissioners’ Monday meeting. But Nextel, which currently pays $3,700 per month for its cell antennas on the water tower, will remove its equipment, Yost said. Sprint, which merged with Nextel, will keep its own antennas on the water tower. A Sprint spokesperson said the company is shutting down the Nextel network, but it is not yet clear if Sprint will need to add antennas to replace the lost capacity. According to Yost, the town will lose about $3,800 in monthly revenue when the Nextel antennas are removed. Gullo said he anticipates further negotiations with Verizon about the terms of a study the town is asking the company to fund. In the lease, the town is asking Verizon to pay for a new third-party assessment of the
SYLVIA CARIGNAN STAFF WRITER
Montgomery’s parks department wants to hear from the public about turning the historic Poole’s Store in Poolesville into a heritage tourism destination. A community meeting on the proposal is scheduled for Dec. 10. The store is at 16315 Old River Road in Poolesville in the county’s Seneca Landing Special Park. The parks department wants to rehabilitate the building and revive it as a functioning general store with a new tenant. Poole’s Store was a family-run business that closed on the last day of 2010. The Poole family operated the business for 45 years. The structure was built in 1901.
In 1972, the county’s parks department bought the building after a hurricane left a foot of water in the store and the owners were unable to pay for repairs. The general store once sold state hunting and fishing licenses, livestock feed and gardening supplies, and had a deli counter. The store is now closed to the public, but the park and a nearby agricultural supply store remain open. A 2011 study of the site showed sagging floors, water damage, stuck windows and code violations. According to Eilleen Emmet, the parks department’s project manager for Poole’s Store, the department decided to try to restore the property after seeing “strong interest from the community” in 2011 to keep it a retail store. Since the study was conducted, the county parks department has
See STORE, Page A-9
Some companies find Cyber Monday bargains Rockville company had employees looking for deals n
BY
KEVIN JAMES SHAY STAFF WRITER
When it comes to Cyber Monday — which this week stretches through Friday for many retailers — some company executives get concerned that workers are spending too much time on the job hunting for online bargains. But not Robert Epstein, president and CEO of AboutWeb. In fact, the Rockville information technology company
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— which focuses on Web application development, mobile applications and system integration and design — had some employees searching on Monday for deals on laptops and other electronic products for the company itself to purchase. “It’s a great opportunity for us,” Epstein said. “We find the prices are really good on this day.” He was not the only one. More than 131 million Americans shopped online during Cyber Monday, up from 129 million a year ago, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation. But only 12 percent — some 16 million
— said they used a work computer, with most shopping at home or on a mobile device. Increased online sales has been a big trend in recent years, affecting bricksand-mortar stores, said Patrick Donoho, president of the Maryland Retailers Association. “It’s not just online retailers like Amazon, but traditional retailers — Best Buy, Walmart, Target — have stepped up their online operations,” he said. Some smaller retailers, such as Route One Apparel, a Hunt Valley cloth-
Residents tour the closed historic Poole’s Store in January 2011.
See CYBER, Page A-9
HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL PREVIEW
County leaders are seeking state permission to celebrate local brews.
Region becoming a hotbed for schools that specialize in developing top college basketball players.
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