gaithersblog.net

• Chris Robinson writes, Long Smile Train Runnin’:
  

  Madeline Stone knows how to keep ‘em grinning.

  Since mid-December, 13-year-old Stone, of Gaithersburg, has collected more than $900 in her ongoing campaign to support the international nonprofit The Smile Train through sales of her handmade tissue holders.

  The organization devotes 100 percent of all donations to providing free cleft-palate surgery for children in developing countries.

  The latest sales should bring her total contributions to nearly $4,700 since starting last summer. At roughly $250 per surgery, Stone has helped about 19 children with cleft palates

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• C. Benjamin Ford writes, County jail needs to open new unit, hire more officers:
  

  The number of prisoners held in the county jail in Clarksburg is rising so rapidly that the county needs to open another housing unit.

  The inmate population averaged 918 in 2003, when the jail opened, and grew to 959 in 2005. The number remained about constant until August, when it suddenly spiked to 1,068 inmates.

  ‘‘We are placing them in every nook and cranny,” Wallenstein said.

  Why the numbers suddenly increased is a mystery, Wallenstein told the committee. He has met with other officials from the police, courts, state’s attorney’s and public defender’s offices to try to determine the cause. No one has an answer, Wallenstein said.

  While a new graduating class of police officers had taken to the streets in mid-August when the spike occurred, that appeared to be only one of the factors involved, Wallenstein said. Many of the inmates are people who were unable to post bail, he said.

  It appears that opening more “housing units” does not involve any construction at this point — it is mostly a matter of activating existing facilities and providing staffing. Mocoprogressive also makes note of this.

Contessa Crisostomo writes in the Sentinel, Proposed Derwood Day-laborer center stirs more controversy:

While a county proposed day laborer center slated for Derwood is stirring controversy for its location, it is also apparently stirring some controversy because of how the county intends to run the center.

The day laborer center is scheduled to be operated by the local non-profit organization CASA of Maryland, but that wasn’t one of the recommendations of the task force created in Gaithersburg last year to study the issue.

The task force’s report (pdf format) can be found here.

“They preferred someone with more presence in the local community and didn’t feel like CASA had been out here that much,” said [Gaithersburg Assistant City Manager Tony] Tomasello.

However, Clark Day, task force member and Gaithersburg resident, said other reasons included CASA’s financial situation and “the radical behavior of Gustavo Torres,” he said.

The “radical behavior” refers to a comment Torres made early last year in response to the Minutemen who were photographing day laborers as contractors picked them up from the centers.

CASA’s financial performance was another reason, said [Gaithersburg Resident Mike] Stumborg, who submitted a report showing CASA’s number of day laborers and job placements dropped significantly from 2001, while the estimated amount of money per job placement increased significantly.

Now that a site for a day laborer center has been found, Gaithersburg city officials are expected to take up the anti-solicitation ordinance once more. Last month, Mayor Sidney Katz and the majority of the council members voted to delay action on an anti-solicitation ordinance, which would ban day laborers from gathering on the street, until the center had an established site.

Tomasello said that while the ordinance is not currently on the agenda for Monday’s regular meeting, it could be added.