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Owners of a coveted 80-acre wooded tract near the future Watkins Mill Town Center told city leaders last week that they are interested in annexing the property into Gaithersburg.

Also on Dec. 1, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett made a pre-emptive strike on city ambitions, asking the mayor and the City Council to remove the Belward farm, Shady Grove Life Sciences Center, the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University and other large parcels in the county’s technology corridor from Gaithersburg’s proposed growth plan.

North Potomac and Potomac residents are raising concerns about the expansion limits that the City of Gaithersburg has set forth in the draft of its municipal growth plan.

The April killing of a Gaithersburg woman, allegedly by a felon who was released from prison early with a reduced sentence and good behavior credits, is prompting renewed scrutiny of state laws that allow such leniency.

At a Dec. 1 public hearing, city officials proposed changing a city ordinance regarding political campaign signs on private property following criticism by the American Civil Liberties Union and a decision by the city attorney that the rule is “unconstitutional.”

Gaithersburg officials are scrambling to overhaul an annual neighborhood matching grant program after money depleted early the past three years, to the detriment of larger and less affluent communities.

For 26 years, 80-year-old Mac Currin used a telescope to peer through a transom roof at the Gaithersburg International Latitude Observatory and recorded miniscule movements of 36 stars to help determine the wobble of the earth. A park commemorating the historic significance of the approximately 170-square-foot wooden structure is planned so visitors can learn more about this national landmark.

Interfaith Works, a non-sectarian nonprofit coordinating more than 140 member and affiliated congregations toward a goal of helping the needy, has taken over Montgomery County’s Holiday Giving Project this year. The project, long run by the Montgomery Volunteer Center, has been aiding lower income families for 30 years and this year aims to help 9,000 county families.

Gaithersburg leaders are vying for $150,000 from a state grant program to help improve building facades in Olde Towne and adjacent historic districts, according to Louise Kauffmann, the city’s grant administrator

More problems with the Gaithersburg city code are surfacing following the city’s first campaign finance investigation, as a new ad hoc election advisory committee explores needed changes.

A 74-year-old woman reported missing by her family was rescued Friday night by Gaithersburg Police who found her next to a stream near her home, drenched and suffering from hypothermia.

A multi-car traffic collision in White Flint last night took the life of a Gaithersburg woman, according to Montgomery County Police.

Ngoc Xuan Thi Lai, 18, of the 9300 block of Chadburn Place, was pronounced dead on the scene of the collision at about 8 p.m. Tuesday, at the intersection of Rockville Pike and Nicholson Lane.

After months of tinkering and a deluge of community comment, the County Council is set for a Jan. 13 vote on a bill that would bar “heavy commercial vehicles,” buses, trailers and RVs from parking on residential streets for more than 24 hours.

A Germantown man was killed Dec. 3 when he was struck by a sport utility vehicle on Quince Orchard Road in Gaithersburg.

Juan De Dios Gomez, 27, of the 20000 block of Summer Sweet Terrace, was crossing Quince Orchard Road north of Firstfield Road at 6 a.m. when he was hit by a silver 2007 Honda CR-V that was traveling south, according to a statement from Montgomery County Police. Gomez was pronounced dead at the scene.

Some area officials seem to be warming to the possibility of a rapid bus system in the county as another method of relieving congestion on some of the county’s most clogged roadways.