Carroll year in review

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283 days ago: Harford year in review

283 days ago: Howard year in review

283 days ago: The highs and lows of state legislation in 2007

287 days ago: Shooting, scandals and suits from 2007

(Mike Silvestri/ Examiner)
A Mount Airy firefighter walks past what’s left of Main Street businesses after the Labor Day blaze.

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - JANUARY

THEN: Isaiah Simmons III, 17, dies Jan. 23 at Bowling Brook Preparatory School in Keymar after counselors held him down for three hours. His family has pressed for criminal manslaughter charges, while the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have launched investigations. The school’s counselors are charged with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor.

NOW: Simmons’ family plans a massive rally and hopes it draws thousands of supporters from throughout the country, including the Rev. Al Sharpton. The six counselors are to be tried in March on reckless endangerment charges, and federal officials say civil rights charges cannot be brought until after the trial.

FEBRUARY

THEN: The Warfield complex, a former mental hospital on 96 acres in Sykesville whose development has stalled since the county took it over in 1995, must get a master developer soon, a commissioner-appointed board says.

NOW: At last, the Warfield board reaches agreement with a developer for the largest commercial project in the county in years, and businesses should start moving in within two years.

MARCH

THEN: Orphans from Mount Zion Village in Namibia whose parents or family members died of AIDS visit Carroll County. For the first time, they walk in a mall, ride an elevator and watch “Disney on Ice.”

NOW: President Bush commemorates World AIDS Day in November at Calvary United Methodist Church in Mount Airy because of the church’s work with the orphans. Townsfolk line the streets, savoring the president’s visit. Speaking at a church, Bush urges Congress to double AIDS funding for disease-ravaged areas and vows to visit Africa in 2008.

APRIL

THEN: Pigs cannibalized dead swine, and customers killed animals in a slaughterhouse coated with blood and guts at Carroll Schisler Sr.’s New Windsor farm, prosecutors say. Schisler is found guilty of animal cruelty and selling tainted meat from his farm.

NOW: Schisler has appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, the state’s second-highest court. His attorney claims police lacked adequate evidence to justify searches, making the searches illegal. The case is scheduled to go to court in March.

MAY

THEN: Water shortages weigh heavily on voters’ minds in Westminister. Three Common Council candidates win election after running on vows to find more water sources.

NOW: Mandatory water restrictions have been in place in Westminster since the summer, with no end in sight. Reservoir levels are nearly 8 feet below normal, but the town has made progress. It plans financial incentives for water conservation and is building a 7-mile pipeline to Medford Quarry to bring in water during droughts.

JUNE

THEN: Sick of planes buzzing overhead, Westminster residents fight a runway expansion at Carroll County Regional Airport, but to no avail. County commissioners approve the expansion, 2-1.

NOW: Opponents’ latest effort to stop the expansion focuses on about 330 trees near the airport that are protected by an environmental easement. The county says the trees need to be cleared to make way for a new lighting system that has nothing to do with the runway expansion from 5,100 to 6,400 feet. It is trying to switch the easement to another section of trees so they can be cleared.

AUGUST

THEN: Carroll County Sheriff Kenneth Tregoning tells The Examiner his office employs more deputies and costs less than the Resident Trooper Program. Under that program ­— the only one of its kind in the state — the county pays the state about $500,000 more a year for 45 troopers than it pays for about 70 sheriff’s deputies.

NOW: County commissioners have voted to move away from the Resident Trooper Program and form a county police force. But that would also decrease the number of deputies. Tregoning has appealed to the county’s state delegation to intervene, amend state law and set a referendum to allow residents to decide the future of policing.

SEPTEMBER

THEN: Flames from the heart of Mount Airy’s business district tower in the night sky on Labor Day in a blaze that destroys seven business housed in two historic Main Street buildings. Main Street had become a bustling center to the town, recognized by the state for its economic improvements while maintaining its small-town feel.

NOW: Five of the seven destroyed businesses have reopened in portables down the street in a makeshift business center called “The Railyard” because it sits on the site of the old train station. Town planners say Main Street will return to the look and feel of the downtowns of old when new buildings open by September.

OCTOBER

THEN: Albert Snyder, the father to fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, wins the first lawsuit against Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kan., after the church protested outside his son’s Westminster funeral on March 10, 2006. Westboro must pay Snyder $10.9 million, a U.S. District Court jury decides, for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

NOW: Westboro has appealed the decision to U.S. Court of Appeals. Snyder receives condolences and congratulations from all over the country.

NOVEMBER

THEN: The family of a man killed on Nov. 28, 2006, after being run over by a state trooper’s cruiser pushes for criminal charges against the trooper and alleges a cover-up after receiving a crash team investigation report months after its completion. The report shows the trooper’s cruiser was traveling 83 mph in a 55-mph zone on Route 140 in Finksburg and struck Randy Rakes inches onto the shoulder. State police initially reported the trooper was assisting in a burglary call, but he was actually off duty, on his way to file paperwork, according to the later report.

NOW: The one-year statute of limitations has expired, and the trooper, Dale Derr, 23, has not been charged. Rakes’ family has a $15.8 million civil lawsuit pending, and a judge denied Derr’s request to have the suit thrown out. “We’re kind of regrouping,” said Jeanne Blizzard, Rakes’ mother. “Right now, we have to go a different way.”

DECEMBER

THEN: Illegal immigrants should stay out of Carroll County, some local lawmakers say. Commissioner Michael Zimmer seeks a task force to investigate ways to cut off county services to illegal immigrants, while Taneytown City Councilman Paul Chamberlain Jr. wants a resolution that declares illegals are “not welcome.”

NOW: Zimmer’s task force has not garnered support from commissioners Julia Gouge or Dean Minnich or the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, which would have to investigate crime suspects to determine whether they are legal. Chamberlain’s resolution awaits a City Council hearing.

SEE THE LATEST ON THIS STORY

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283 days ago: New Year’s predictions for D.C.-area officials

» 283 days ago: Carroll year in review «

283 days ago: Anne Arundel year in review

283 days ago: Baltimore year in review

283 days ago: Harford year in review

283 days ago: Howard year in review

283 days ago: The highs and lows of state legislation in 2007

287 days ago: Shooting, scandals and suits from 2007