USE OF SPACE Silver Spring library/arts center collaboration still on hold. A-10
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SILVER SPRING | TAKOMA PARK | WHEATON | BURTONSVILLE
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Wednesday, November 5, 2014
DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Growth packs county schools
ELECTION H ST
Leggett headed for third term
Democrats also in the lead for County Council, State House n
Council members project development moratorium
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BY GAZETTE STAFF
After eight years as county executive, Isiah Leggett does not appear to be done yet. Leggett, a Democrat, led Republican challenger Jim Shalleck by about 25,000 votes Tuesday evening with 69 of 255 precincts reporting. Early voting numbers showed the 70-year-old Leggett solidly leading Shalleck with about 71 percent of the vote, a margin that narrowed slightly as election results trickled in from the precincts. With 69 precincts reporting and early voting results, Leggett led with 49,098 votes, Shalleck trailed behind with 23,507 votes. Leggett is seeking a third term at the helm of Montgomery County. Shalleck is seeking to unseat him and become the second Republican ever to lead the county as executive. Not since voters elected Republican James P. Gleason as the county’s first executive in 1970 has Montgomery County had a Republican in its top elected slot.
BY LINDSAY A. POWERS AND KATE S. ALEXANDER STAFF WRITERS
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
Congressman Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (D-Dist. 8) of Kensington, who is running for re-election, reaches to shake a voter’s hand near the entrance to Clubhouse I in Leisure World in Silver Spring. Behind Van Hollen is Morton Davis of Leisure World, who is supporting Anthony Brown and Isiah Leggett, and at right is Sen. Brian Frosh (D-Dist.16), who is running for Maryland attorney general.
County Council Montgomery County Council’s four at-large council incumbents comfortably led their Republican and thirdparty challengers early Tuesday night in the race for four seats.
With 69 of 255 precincts reporting, Councilman Marc B. Elrich (D) of Takoma Park led the pack with 47,787 votes. Councilwoman Nancy Floreen (D) of Garrett Park was behind him with 47,003 votes. Councilmen George L. Lev-
enthal (D) and Hans Riemer (D), both of Takoma Park rounded out the leaders with 44,872 and 43,354 votes respectively. Republican Robert Dyer
See LEGGETT, Page A-12
Four Montgomery County school clusters could soon be overcrowded to the point that residential development in some growing areas could come to a standstill, school officials said. By the 2020-21 school year, the Northwood, Einstein, Gaithersburg and Wheaton clusters are each expected to have so many students, the county must either set aside money to add classrooms or temporarily halt new housing developments, said Bruce Crispell, director of the school system’s Division of Long-range Planning. Northwood’s enrollment is
Silver Spring vet recalls WWII service A bullet went through his helmet during the Battle of the Bulge BY
RAISA CAMARGO STAFF WRITER
More than 70 years later, World War II lives on in Howard Trowern’s memory. Trowern carries the same steel helmet, medals of honor, and a model of a rifle he used throughout 11 months in combat in Europe. A blackand-white photo of a young Trowern in the Army is hung on the middle of his living room wall at his Leisure World apart-
ment in Silver Spring. From the moment of his first wound, in the back of his skull, to coming home and being welcomed by dancing Rockettes at New York Harbor, Trowern remembers his coming-of-age experience. “I was a kid looking for adventure,” Trowern said. The then-17-year-old from Long Island enlisted a day after his prep school graduation in June 1943. Because he didn’t meet the age requirement, Trowern said, he told recruiters he was 18 and lost his birth certificate.
See VET, Page A-12
RAISA CAMARGO/THE GAZETTE
World War II veteran Howard Trowern wears the same steel helmet that he was wounded in during his service in Europe. Trowern led 42 men into the Battle of the Bulge under the command of Gen. George S. Patton.
projected to hit 128.3 percent of its classroom capacity at the high school level by 2020. Gaithersburg will hit 123.4 percent at the elementary school level, Einstein 122 percent at the high school level and Wheaton 120.8 percent at the middle school level, he said. “We’re facing a huge wave of middle school and high school growth,” he said. Each summer, Montgomery County’s Planning Board projects future enrollment to determine if a school cluster will grow too much in the coming next five years. If a cluster’s enrollment is projected at any of the school levels — high, middle or elementary school — to exceed 120 percent of its capacity in the next five years, the planning board, by law, cannot approve
See GROWTH, Page A-12
County hospitals prepare for Ebola n
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CDC sets all guidelines
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BY RAISA CAMARGO SAMANTHA SCHMIEDER STAFF WRITERS
With Ebola scares becoming more common throughout the country, the six hospitals in Montgomery County are focusing on training and federal protocols as they prepare for possible patients. “We’re not deciding if this is something we can afford to do, not being prepared,” said Ann Nickels, the public relations and communications director at MedStar Health, which oversees MedStar Montgomery Medical Center in Olney as well as nine other hospitals in the BaltimoreWashington area. “We can’t afford to not be prepared.” Besides the Olney hospital, three others — including Shady Grove Adventist in Rockville and
Takoma Park and Suburban in Bethesda — said they are in contact with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are training staff and upgrading personal protective equipment, while dealing with the challenge of the possibility of an Ebola outbreak. Holy Cross Health in Germantown and Silver Spring said it will continue to follow county, state and CDC guidelines, but declined to comment further. Montgomery County also is the home of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, which is designated as one of the four medical centers in the country that can treat Ebola patients. A Dallas nurse who contracted the disease from a patient at her hospital was treated there. She has recovered and been released. For a person to become a
See EBOLA, Page A-11
Takoma Park eyes requiring permit for ‘disruptive’ film shoots Smaller productions that don’t close streets or have car chases not affected n
BY
KEVIN JAMES SHAY STAFF WRITER
As often as 10 times a year, Takoma Park receives inquiries from film producers wanting to shoot scenes along
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its public streets and other places. Short and feature-length independent filmmakers, along with commercial ads such as for AARP, are regularly shot in the city. “American Milkshake,” a teen coming-of-age comedy by Montgomery Blair High School alum David Andalman that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year, was among the projects filmed in Takoma Park in recent years. The situation has advanced to the
people that just want to go out and take pictures, to do their student projects in the public,” Ludlow said. The city is proposing a $20 application review fee and permit fees of $250 per day. There would be an additional fee if crews require city police officers. Councilman Tim Male said he hoped the city would not create barriers for people who might, for example, take photos to sell at a local festival or participate in a student documentary
SPORTS
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Paint Branch clinches football playoff berth by defeating Sherwood.
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point that officials are working on an ordinance requiring a permit for filming considered “disruptive.” That includes filming and photography that have activities such as street closures, loud noises, lights at night, explosions or car chases, said Deputy City Manager Suzanne Ludlow. Permits would not be required for filming done for news purposes, criminal proceedings or nondisruptive uses. “We are not interested in managing
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contest. “Maybe spending some more time thinking about how to really make it clear that all those sort of amateur activities are excluded would be good,” he said. Parking spaces often are needed for larger film shoots, and whether parking spaces come with the permit should be covered in the ordinance, Male said. The proposed ordinance likely will
See PERMIT, Page A-11