gaithersblog.net

Signaling a significant shift in the status quo, Gaithersburg’s new City Council rearranged the city’s priorities over the weekend by choosing to put a long-planned aquatic center in the Lakelands on hold while fast tracking a new upcounty senior center and promising to beef-up police spending.

Councilman Michael Sesma said he was surprised that 40 percent of respondents said they had been victims of crime and not reported it.

‘‘Forty percent of anything is a pretty significant number,” he said. Reporting crimes is critical both to keeping the city safe and helping the city know the level of police services needed.

Gaithersburg officials have decided not to open a criminal investigation of Assistant City Manager Fred Felton for accessing the then-city manager’s e-mail account without authorization and sending inappropriate messages to a female staff member in October.

The city has scheduled a joint public hearing of the mayor and council and Planning Commission to amend the 2003 land use element of the Gaithersburg Master Plan to include the Kentlands Commercial District Special Study area

As Montgomery County opens its contracts to run three day-laborer centers to competition for the first time, it remains unclear whether bidders will be provided direction on whether they can ask about the immigration status of people using the employment centers.

The County Council’s first formal presentation of a sweeping plan to create a new ‘‘public safety campus” in South Gaithersburg was met with interest and concerns over the details of how it will be executed and its impact on neighboring communities.

Included in O’Malley’s allocation is $5 million in engineering funds for an interchange at I-270 and Watkins Mill Road in Gaithersburg

County Fire and Rescue Service officials say a mechanical malfunction in a vehicle’s engine caused that vehicle and four others to catch on fire early Tuesday morning at Shady Grove Metro station parking garage.