gaithersblog.net

I just noticed this release on the City’s Website, which echoes the information in today’s Gazette.

Seven Candidates File for City of Gaithersburg Election
Posted 9/25/2007

Last night the Board of Supervisors of Elections certified seven candidates to run for three vacant City Council seats in the City of Gaithersburg municipal election on November 6, 2007. The terms of Stanley Alster, Geri Edens and John Schlichting expire this year. None of the incumbents will be running for re-election.

The seven candidates are Ahmed Ali, Shawn Ali, Jud Ashman, Cathy C. Drzyzgula, Wilson Lee Faris, Carlos Solis, and Ryan Spiegel.

City residents who are registered to vote in Montgomery County are automatically registered to vote in the City election. To confirm registration, contact the Montgomery County Board of Elections at 240-777-VOTE. The last day to register to vote is Monday, October 8, 2007.

This year Gaithersburg will permit “no excuse” absentee voting. In previous elections, absentee ballots were only issued to those individuals who would not be in the City when polls were open or who were physically unable to travel to a polling place. This year voters will not be required to give a reason for requesting an absentee ballot.

Applications for absentee ballots may be picked up in person at City Hall during normal business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday), requested via telephone at 301-258-6310 or downloaded below between September 10 and November 6, 2007. Completed applications can be mailed or dropped off at City Hall, 31 South Summit Avenue. Ballots will be mailed to qualified applicants after October 8, 2007.

For complete election information please contact Sarah Paxton in the City’s Manager’s office at 301-258-6310 or visit the City’s website at www.gaithersburgmd.gov/election.

• Absentee Ballot Application

Update:

From WJLA:

The mother of a child who was found wandering on Jarrett Court in Gaithersburg about 8 a.m. Wednesday has been located.

The mother say her daughter apparently wandered off while the she was in the shower. The child’s sibling somehow opened the gate to the courtyard fence, allowing the little girl to wander away. About 10:30 a.m., the mom realized the child was missing, she called police. She also went out into the neighborhood to search and learned about what happened.

The child is in the custody of Child Protective Services for now. Once her husband gets home from work, the mother and he plan to go down to Child Protective Services, explain what happened, and get the child back.

The child was not hurt.

These are two separate reports; both came out this morning. The first is a search for the parents of a child found wandering on Jarrett Court; from the WJLA report:

Montgomery County Police are searching for the parents of a child who was found wandering on Jarrett Court in Gaithersburg about 8 a.m. Wednesday. Police describe the girl as two to three years old with curly blond hair. She was wearing a T-shirt, a diaper, no shoes and had an off-white blanket.

The girl is reportedly in good health.

Child protective services has taken custody of the girl in the interim

Jarrett Court is northeast of the intersection of Wightman Road & Montgomery Village Ave.

The Second is for a woman missing from her apartment on N. Summit Drive, which is off N. Summit Ave opposite Lee St:

Woman Missing from Gaithersburg

Detectives from the Montgomery County Police 5th District Investigative Section are searching for Mrs. Maola Hodge, age 68, who is missing from her Gaithersburg apartment in the unit block of North Summit Drive. She was last seen yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Hodge suffers from serious medical ailments—including dementia. She does not have her medication with her.

Mrs. Hodge has been entered into a national computer database which is available to all law enforcement authorities. She is described as an African-American female, 5’ 02” tall, weighing 135 pounds. She was wearing a burgundy tee-shirt and blue jeans, and has very short “salt & pepper” hair. She may have taken a Ride On bus within Montgomery County to either Germantown or Rockville. The Metro Transit Police Department and the Rockville Police Department have both be notified about Mrs. Hodge’s disappearance.

Anyone who has information about Mrs. Hodge’s whereabouts is asked to call the Montgomery County non-emergency number at 301-279-8000.

# # #

Contact: Media Services Division Phone: 240.773.5030

• Chris Robinson writes, Incumbents bow out of city politics:
  

  In a year marked by shifts in city government, some Gaithersburg civic leaders say the direction of the city will change after three veteran City Council members announced they will not seek re-election in November.

  The new additions to the race include Ryan Spiegel, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully last year for the District 17 House of Delegates seat; Carlos Solis, a business owner and member of the Police Chief’s Advisory Council; and Ahmed Ali, a Navy veteran and president of a defense contracting company.

  Spiegel, Solis and Ali said they are not running on a slate, but are colleagues who will support each other.

  ‘‘I do think these guys share a lot of my values and a lot of the vision we’d like to bring to the city as we tackle some important issues,” said Spiegel, who listed crime and the environment as his top issues.

  The other candidates include Jud Ashman and Cathy Drzyzgula, who are running on a slate; Wilson Faris and Shawn Ali, who is not related to Ahmed Ali.

  Shawn Ali said he is the cousin of Del. Saqib Ali (D-Dist. 39) of Gaithersburg.

• Janel Davis writes, County 911 system is online again:
  

  By 9 a.m. Tuesday, the county’s 911 call system had been rerouted from a secondary emergency center in Rockville to the county’s primary center in Gaithersburg after an outage on Saturday that left phone lines down.

• Patricia M. Murret writes, Lyme disease prevalent in Montgomery:
  

  In early July, 12-year-old Amalia Rivera-Oven of Germantown got stabbing pains in her legs. For the next month, acute pain spread through her joints. She suffered sensitivity to sound and light.

• Chris Robinson writes, Raccoon is third rabid animal found in city this year:
  

  A raccoon found in the 100 block of Sunny Brook Terrace in Gaithersburg at 1:30 p.m. Thursday tested positive for rabies.

• Sebastian Montes writes, Driver pleads guilty to killing Village woman and Marine:
  

  A driver who killed two Maryland residents in Columbia Thanksgiving night pleaded guilty in Howard County Circuit Court last week to two counts of negligent manslaughter.

  Howard County police said Morales-Soriano had a blood alcohol level that was four times the legal limit. And within days, federal immigration agents determined that they had no record that he entered the country legally, immigration officials have said.

• Keith L. Martin writes, Teen arrested in 2005 murder:
  

  A Gaithersburg teen has been charged with murder in the 2005 shooting death of David Wayne Lee of Frederick.

  Cpl. Jason West of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office said following a two-year investigation with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, police have arrested Eric L. Campbell, 18, and charged him with first-degree murder.

  One thing that the Gazette article doesn’t mention is that Eric L. Campbell is a Gaithersburg resident, with an address on Girard Street. According to Court Records as of this morning, he continues to be held without bond.

• Sebastian Montes writes, Gaithersburg man sentenced in 2006 Fox Chapel shooting:
  

  Although questions remain as to who pulled the trigger in a brutal Germantown shooting last year, a 22-year-old Gaithersburg man has been sentenced to life in prison with all but 24 years suspended.

• Sebastian Montes writes, Three pit bull attacks come in one morning:
  

  In the fourth known dog attack involving pit bulls in the Gaithersburg area in the last two months, a vicious dog-on-human attack last week sent a pregnant woman to the hospital and left two dogs dead.

• Patricia M. Murret and Chris Robinson write, Vandalism strikes Muslims and Jews:
  

  On the morning of Sept. 11, Samira Hussein of Gaithersburg heard the words “two flat tires” and she jumped.

• Chris Robinson writes, Airbag thefts are ballooning:
  

  While global positioning systems and stereo equipment in vehicles are familiar targets for thieves, police say airbag thefts are inflating.

• Kristina Gawrgy writes, Solutions to silence trains still not on the right track:
  

  Joe Rosenberg, a Kensington resident who lives less than a mile from the CSX railroad tracks at Forest Glen Road and Linden Lane in Silver Spring, has been behind the effort to silence the horns since he moved into his house on La Duke Drive seven years ago.

• Patricia M. Murret writes, Mounted police converge on fairgrounds:
  

  Horses whinnied and brayed on Saturday and Sunday while they waited to compete in the 24th annual North American Police Equestrian Championships at the Montgomery County fairgrounds in Gaithersburg.