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Maryland’s annual “Unclaimed Property” booklet, with names and addresses of those who have accounts with unclaimed funds, will be distributed this week and next. If you regularly get The Gazette at your home and do not receive the publication, email circulation at circulation@gazette.net after May 2.
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Wednesday, April 16, 2014
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Plumbing failure puts shelter in a bind on money Nonprofit looking to fill shortfall in two fundraising events BY
MARGIE HYSLOP
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
Rainbow Place, an overnight emergency shelter in Rockville, is scrambling to secure money to pay for the meals and warm beds it provides to scores of homeless women each year. A plumbing system failure during the recently ended fivemonth sheltering season blew a hole in Rainbow Place’s budget that remains to be plugged. The expense came at a time when Rainbow Place provided bed and board to 105 women — up 50 percent over the 69 women the shelter served in the previous season and the most it has served in its 32-year history.
The cost of repairs to pipes and to the basement of Rockville Presbyterian Church, where the shelter operates rent-free, has totaled more than $20,000 already and is still being assessed, said shelter director Nancy J. Sushinsky. Meanwhile the shelter sought, but was not awarded, a $24,000 community development block grant that it had received in each of the past three years, she said. Faced with growing needs and fiscal uncertainties, Rainbow Shelter workers and volunteers are hoping to raise money through two events: a benefit golf tournament at RedGate Golf Course in Rockville on May 9 and a fashion show and traditional tea at Rockville Presbyterian Church’s Calvin Room on May 2.
See SHELTER, Page A-10
PHOTOS BY TIFFANY ARNOLD/THE GAZETTE
Alice Miller says mourners have left hundreds of letters at the gravesite of her granddaughter, Michelle, who died on April 8, 2013. A candlelight vigil was held at her grave in Rockville last week on the one year anniversary of her death.
Remembering Michelle
Graveside memorial held for Rockville teen found dead with recruiter BY
TIFFANY ARNOLD STAFF WRITER
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Workers install Lorann Jacobs’ bronze sculpture, titled The Thinker, at the Rockville Town Square on April 9 in Rockville. Patrick Sells of Pennsylvania prepares the life-sized figure to be hoisted onto its base of metal gears.
Thinking tin Festival gears up in Rockville Free event will be held in early May
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BY KRISTA BRICK STAFF WRITER
The tinman came to Rockville Town Square on April 9, but not by following the yellow brick road. It took a crane to lift this 1,500-pound piece of art in place. The public art installation of The Thinker will remind
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Montgomery school system studying fairness of private contributions into public schools.
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residents to “Think A-RTS” in the weeks leading up to the ARTS Festival at Rockville Town Square. The free festival is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 3 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 4. Stickers will transform the sidewalk into a yellow brick road leading to the sculpture, according to Bob Deutsch, principal of the festival. The tinman is artist Lorann
See TINMAN, Page A-10
Loved ones held a memorial service at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville on April 8 for Michelle Miller.
Patrick Miller stood along a moonlit dirt path at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville on April 8 holding a candle with the words “RIP angel” wrapped around it. “I live like I don’t have tomorrow, now,” he said. His sister, Michelle Miller, was found dead along with her Army recruiter in his Germantown home April 8, 2013. Patrick, 23, and about 40 of her friends gathered at her gravesite to remember her. It would be a lie to say things were getting easier, that it actually felt like a year had passed since she died, Patrick
Miller said. “It’s like reliving it,” he said. “It’s like it happened yesterday. It actually feels impossible.” Police found U.S. Army recruiter Staff Sgt. Adam Anthony Arndt, 31, and Michelle Miller, 17, dead in Arndt’s home on Pinnacle Drive on April 8. A report from the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which ruled the cause of death for Arndt as suicide, left the cause of death for Miller as undetermined. Miller’s relatives say she was planning to enter the U.S. Army Reserves after graduation, and had been training with Arndt, who helped recruit her.
See MICHELLE, Page A-10
Rockville votes to support ethics disclosures Gaithersburg pushed for change, wants focus on relevant information
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BY JENN
DAVIS
STAFF WRITER
The Rockville City Council is taking a stand against any attempt to soften statewide ethics requirements for public officials, even though the Maryland Gen-
eral Assembly took no action this year. Led by Councilman Tom Moore, Rockville council members voted 3-2 March 17 to send a letter to the Montgomery County delegation and leaders in Annapolis expressing the city’s support of the legislation as it stands. The current law, passed in 2010, requires city officials to disclose any interest in property they have and all salaried
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employment they and their immediate family members hold, among other things. Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park introduced legislation in January that would require officials to disclose property interests outside of the state under certain conditions. It would apply if the property were acquired from or in conjunction with a person who has either done business with the municipality at any time in the past 10
years or who is doing business with the municipality, according to online bill documents. The bill never emerged from committee. Moore called the proposed changes a “weakening” of the law. “I’ve talked with thousands of voters over the last couple of years and nobody says to me, ‘I think my officials are too honest.
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Whitman graduate becomes a key part of Terps’ offensive line plans
Learn to maximize your retirement funds; how to avoid being pickpocketed when you travel; join a pickleball league; locals recount their epic adventures; are your old books valuable?
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See ETHICS, Page A-10
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