STUDENTS OUTRAGED UM response over racist email draws anger. A-3
SPORTS: DeMatha High School shines during college basketball’s March Madness. B-1
The Gazette
NORTHERN AND CENTRAL PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNT Y DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Laurel woman drops weight, earns crown BY
25 cents
Plastic bags out for county recycling bins
Her loss is her gain
n
KIRSTEN PETERSEN STAFF WRITER
Mary Sanchez, 58, of Laurel has been an exercise instructor for nearly 30 years and is now a health educator at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. But you wouldn’t have guessed it when she weighed 254 pounds in 2012, she said. “Underneath all of my weight, I have a really fit person.” Sanchez said. “In the pictures there was no denying I was fat, but when I’m moving around, I don’t think about it.” Now, Sanchez said she practices what she preaches. After losing 94 pounds and reaching her goal weight of 160 pounds last February through the nonprofit program Taking Off Pounds Sensibly, or TOPS, she’ll be crowned the TOPS Queen of Maryland on Saturday. “I feel like I’m going to be more effective in my job,” Sanchez said. “They look at me and think of me as a healthy person, so listening to me is going to be that much more meaningful.” TOPS is a weight-loss support group for individuals who struggle with maintaining a healthy weight, said TOPS president Barbara Cady. Every year, the female and male TOPS members in each state who achieve the biggest weight loss are crowned king and queen. “It’s such an honor to be the queen. I’m very excited about it,” Sanchez said. She said she tried “every weight loss program known to man” before she returned to TOPS, which she had signed up for with her mother in the 1970s but did not continue when she went to college. After joining the Laurel chapter of TOPS
See CROWN, Page A-10
Proposal features no tax increases, improved revenues
BY JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER
Greenbelt’s financial situation is rosier than it has been in seven years, according to city
Items will no longer be accepted July 1
BY JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER
Prince George’s County is trashing plastic shopping bags. Adam Ortiz, director of the Department for the Environment said that plastic shopping bags will no longer be accepted for recycling starting July 1. “We’ll be phasing in enforcement. If there’s a contaminated toter, it won’t get picked up,” Ortiz said. “It will be considered a contaminated load.” Ortiz said plastic bags pose a
hazard to the equipment used in sorting recycling. “The plastic bags easily get caught up in the cogs of the machinery, causing us to shut down the facility several times a day,” Ortiz said. “It increases maintenance costs, and ultimately, the bags can’t be recycled when they become dirty anyway.” Ortiz said recent changes in the market, including a drop in oil prices and the availability of “clean stream” recyclable plastic bags from grocery stores, has also dried up demand for the plastic bags. Ortiz said the department is beginning a public roll-out cam-
See PLASTIC, Page A-10
Update sought for Laurel Armory Dance, exercise rooms could be upgraded to bigger spaces in basement n
BY BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Laurel resident Mary Sanchez and her daughter, Stevie Sanchez, 18, fit into a pair of pants that Mary Sanchez wore before she lost 94 pounds, on Friday. Mary Sanchez will be crowned the “Queen of Maryland” Saturday for her weight-loss accomplishment through a national weight-loss strategy that focuses on portion control and exercise.
Greenbelt eyes brighter budget future n
NEWS: Berwyn mural returns in the form of Greenbelt artist’s painting. A-4
officials. “I think we’ve been looking for several years at when things were going to turn around, and I hope that this is the beginning of the U-turn,” said City Councilman Edward Putens. City Manager Michael McLaughlin presented the $26.4 billion Fiscal 2016 budget during the council’s March 23 meeting, stating that revenues have shown significant
improvement for the first time since 2009. McLaughlin said this is the first year the budget has risen above the $24.5 million to $25.5 million budget the city has had since 2009, and revenues are 3.3 percent higher than in the previous fiscal year. McLaughlin said the increase is driven primarily by four factors; an increase in the value of existing apartments,
new apartments at Greenbelt Station set to open this year, a $150,000 increase in income tax revenues and an increase in speed camera revenues, which are $110,000 higher than was originally estimated for this year. McLaughlin said that after the FY15 budget was adopted, the city received permission
KIRSTEN PETERSEN STAFF WRITER
Betsey Dixon said the dance room at the Laurel Armory is a far cry from the exercise paradise she tries to create during her Hot Hula fitness class. “It’s not enough space. It’s too small. The mirrors, they’re disjointed,” Dixon said. “It’s hard for all the students to see themselves in that room the way mirrors are situated.”
That could change next year as city officials hope to rearrange exercise spaces in the Laurel Armory’s basement, but it all depends on whether they can get approval and $250,000 from the state. “It just makes sense to continue upgrading and renovating the facility so it can be used by residents,” said Mike Lhotsky, Laurel’s director of parks and recreation. After repairs are made to damaged pipes and walls in the basement, Lhotsky said the dance room could be converted
See ARMORY, Page A-10
See BUDGET, Page A-10
Principal cleared on assault, abuse charges Administrator was accused of punching Laurel Middle School student n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
A Prince George’s County Public Schools principal accused of punching a student multiple times was cleared by a jury April 2 of assault and child abuse charges.
INDEX Automotive Calendar Classified Entertainment Opinion Sports
“My God is awesome,” Dwight Jefferson of Fort Washington exclaimed in the courtroom after a juror read the verdict. During the three-day trial, prosecutors argued that Jefferson punched a seventhgrade student in the stomach and face while he was principal of Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Laurel on Sept. 23, 2014. The student testified that he’d been caught in the hall when he was supposed to be in class and sent to the school’s office, where Jefferson hit him.
Other witnesses, including a school administrator and a police officer, testified that they saw the student with swelling under his eye after the alleged incident. But the defense argued that the attack never happened, and that the only eyewitness was the student himself, who was not credible. An assistant principal at the school and a community detention officer from the state Department of Juvenile Services tes-
See PRINCIPAL, Page A-10
NEWS B-10 A-2 B-7 B-4 A-11 B-1
BACK IN ACTION
Downtown College Park Farmers Market returns for fifth year.
A-5
SPRING CLEANING, DOWNSIZING, SIMPLIFYING?
Volume 18, No. 15, Two sections, 24 Pages Copyright © 2015 The Gazette Please
RECYCLE
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Laurel residents (from left) Enoh Enoh, 17, Tristan Hoskins and Ezra Hollinger, both 15, shoot hoops March 31 in the gym at the old National Guard Armory in Laurel. If a workout room is built in the shooting range below the gym, the floor of the gym will have to be redone to make it soundproof.
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