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Library damaged when SUV crashes in Mount Pleasant

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Sweet relief for some troops

cool to play dodgeball with students at BakerMiddle School. But he’d forgotten to bring shorts and sneakers to change into. He was dressed in his ACU (army combat uniform), fatigues whose design is supposed to mimic “desert, woodland and urban environments.” Sgt. Welsh chuckled when he said this, a little laugh that suggested the pattern didn’t always work. On his camouflaged chest was a Baker visitor sticker, his name — “Welsh, Shane” — inked next to the blue pawprints of the school’s bulldog mascot. Besides, he was beat. He’d been speaking all day to tweenagers, first at Gaithersburg Middle School, then at Baker in Damascus. “I was nervous,” he said after his last presentation had ended and he was unwinding in a conference room at Baker, munching on a cold-cut sandwich. “I was sweating like crazy.” Sgt. Welsh and his wife,

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Courtney, drove down Monday morning from Wrightsville, Pa., where his family lives. It meant burning a day of his precious leave, but he thought it was important to make the trip. The students at Baker and Gaithersburg had sent handwritten notes to his unit in Baqubah: Charlie Company, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division. “They’ve taken the time to write these letters,” he said. “They deserve to have some kind of response.”

So, too, did some of the ladies

who’d baked the cookies and brownies that those notes accompanied, people such as

Maddi Klein of Olney and Eva

Black of Laurel, who organize monthly shipments of baked goods to 20 different units in Iraq. The brownies are especially appreciated. “I give away the cookies, but I

rarely give away the brownies,” Sgt. Welsh said. There was the sound of mock protest from one of the cookie bakers in the conference room. “Those peanut butter cookies are phenomenal now that I think about it,” Sgt. Welsh said. As for chocolate chip cookies, they’re only sent from November to April. The rest of the year, it’s too hot in Iraq and the chips melt. The baking program gets soldiers’ addresses from Treat the Troops, a nonprofit organized by a South Carolina

woman named Jeanette Cram.

With the help of the Montgomery County Association

gt. Shane Welsh, home

from Iraq on a 15-day leave, thought it would have been

for Family and Community Education, Maddi and Eva organize monthly cookie shipments from Eva’s church, First United Methodist in Laurel. They always include notes thanking the soldiers for their service. It was Maddi’s granddaughter,

Brianna Nelson, a sixth-grader

at Gaithersburg Middle School, who had the idea to have students write notes. Brianna’s mom, Becky Nelson, teaches at Baker and enlisted students there. “It doesn’t matter if you’re for it or against it,” Maddi said of the war. “It’s the guys and gals over there that we’re trying to support.” Sgt. Welsh had prepared a

PowerPoint presentation for the students who gathered in the media center: background on Iraq, how he trained for his deployment, the weapons he uses . . . The boys especially perked up

at that last one and when the time came for questions, their hands shot up. “How do you call for an air

strike?” “Have you ever controlled a

Predator?” “How many people have you

killed?” Afterward, in the conference room eating his sandwich, Sgt. Welsh said he’d been expecting that question and was surprised he hadn’t gotten it earlier. There were things in Iraq he couldn’t really talk about, he said. Things that weren’t appropriate for children. But he’d answered the question the best way he could, saying: “You have to think about it this way: It’s either going to be you or it’s going to be them. I don’t know about you, but I’m going home to my family.” Then someone asked whether

he played the video game “Call of Duty,” and everyone cheered when he said he did.

Back in the conference room, I mentioned that it wasn’t all that long ago that Sgt. Welsh was in middle school. He enlisted at 18, had his first deployment — to Ramadi — at 20 and is just 25 now.

“I feel old,” he said. The

meniscus in his knees is shot. His back aches. “It definitely beats up your body. I’m in good shape for being through it all.” He plans on staying in the

Army for three more years. Then he thinks he’ll become a firefighter. He expects he’ll have one more deployment. Keep those cards and cookies coming.

kellyj@washpost.com

If you want to help Maddi and Eva with cookies or notes, e-mail maddik@comcast.net or

mommablack@verizon.net.

Purple Line fans feel blue over U-Md. plan

Transit advocates

worry about changes to use of Campus Drive

by Katherine Shaver

Some University of Maryland students and Purple Line sup- porters are criticizing a univer- sity plan to temporarily close the main road on the College Park campus to all private vehicles and many buses this summer, saying they worry the restrictions will discourage transit use and com- plicate plans to build a light-rail line along the road. The university is considering closing Campus Drive to all but pedestrians, bicyclists, campus shuttles, emergency vehicles and university service vehicles from June 19 to Aug. 15 as a test of lon- ger-term plans to create a “traffic-

free, pedestrian-friendly zone” in the heart of campus, said univer- sity spokesman Millree Williams. Metrobuses, most commercial ve- hicles and private cars would be rerouted north of Campus Drive along Regents Drive, he said. “We really just want to see

what sort of problems would oc- cur so it could inform our think- ing in the future,” Williams said. But some Purple Line support- ers said the restrictions would make transit more inconvenient. “A lot of people view it as rele-

gating transit to the edge of cam- pus,” said David Daddio, editor of the Rethink College Park blog. Daddio and other Purple Line

supporters said they wondered whether the university is trying to complicate the Maryland Tran- sit Administration’s plans to run light-rail trains along Campus Drive. A 16-mile Purple Line would run between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

“I think they’ll try to use [a fu- ture pedestrian mall] as justifica- tion against a Purple Line align- ment” there, said senior Joanna Calabrese, director of environ- mental affairs for the student government. University officials and state

transit planners have been at an impasse over a Purple Line route for more than two years. State planners say running light-rail trains through the central cam- pus is necessary to serve the most riders. The university’s preferred route, partly along Preinkert Drive, would have too many safe- ty problems, said Michael D. Madden, project manager for the state’s Purple Line study. University officials have said running trains along Campus Drive would be dangerous to pe- destrians and that electromag- netic interference could affect sensitive scientific research in nearby buildings. Madden said

LOCAL DIGEST

THE DISTRICT

Same-sex marriage goes to appeals court

Attorneys for and against al- lowing same-sex marriage in the District outlined their positions Tuesday, with all nine judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals — in- stead of the usual three-judge panel — sitting to hear the argu- ments. Attorneys arguing against al- lowing the marriages said D.C. voters should have been allowed to vote on the issue in a referen- dum. Attorneys for the District, how-

ever, said the D.C. Council acted within District laws in passing the legislation. The appeal was filed by Bishop

Harry Jackson, the pastor of Hope Christian Church in Belts- ville, who brought suit after the Board of Elections and Ethics re- fused to approve a ballot initia- tive. The board argued that an initiative would violate the city’s Human Rights Act. In January, a D.C. Superior

Court judge upheld the board’s decision. Several dozen supporters of

Jackson’s effort dressed in white and held a rally after the hearing in support of defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Several supporters of same-sex marriage attended the hearing wearing T-shirts reading, “I Do.” About 1,400 same-sex couples

JOHN KELLY/THE WASHINGTON POST

Army Sgt. Shane Welsh and his wife, Courtney, visited Montgomery County schools to thank students for writing to his unit in Iraq.

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have applied to wed in the city since same-sex marriages were le- galized March 3, a court official said. The judges could file a decision

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as early as midsummer, officials said.

— Keith L. Alexander

MARYLAND

O’Malley signs bill giving tax break

Gov. Martin O’Malley signed

into law Tuesday a tax measure passed by the Maryland General Assembly that has become a focal point of debate in this year’s Prince George’s County budget process. The measure gives residents a break on taxes they pay to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, an in- dependent agency that in recent years has increasingly helped fund the county’s operating budg- et. The law will also cost the com- mission an estimated $18 million in tax revenue in the next fiscal year, and some officials have said that will make it hard for the commission to supply more than $60 million to the county as part of County Executive Jack B. John- son’s proposed budget. Johnson (D) has said the com- mission can afford to give the as- sistance, and he recommended that the agency make cutbacks similar to the ones that the coun- ty has made. Vetoing the bill, as one candi-

date for county executive recently urged, would have been a risky political move for O’Malley (D), whose Republican opponent, for- mer Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., has made cutting taxes a central plank of his cam- paign platform. A spokesman for O’Malley said

that signing the tax measure into law was a “tough decision” but that providing tax relief to resi- dents in Prince George’s won out. “I think ultimately, he came to the conclusion that given the na- tional recession, that a small bit of tax relief for the residents of Prince George’s County was pref- erable in this particular case, but it was a tough decision for him, and he had to balance that with the cut in revenue that the county would face,” said O’Malley’s spokesman, Rick Abbruzzese.

— Jonathan F. Mummolo

Man pleads guilty in DUI death

A former college football play- er has pleaded guilty in the drunken-driving death of a high school football player from How- ard County. David Erdman, 22, pleaded

guilty Monday to negligent homi- cide while driving under the in- fluence of alcohol.

Erdman was driving his young- er brother, Thomas, and friend Steven Dankos home from a par- ty Nov. 30 when he lost control of his pickup truck in Glenelg. The truck overturned, and Dankos, 17, who had been riding in the bed, was killed. Erdman’s attorney, Jeff Har-

ding, said Erdman didn’t know Dankos was in the bed of the truck.

Dankos played football at River

Hill High School in Clarksville. Erdman played on the offensive line at River Hill and at Wesley College in Delaware.

— Baltimore Sun

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VIRGINIA

Property agent charged with theft

An Alexandria woman who

worked as an agent for a Fairfax County property management company has been charged with the felony embezzlement of $365,000 from the account of an Alexandria area apartment com- plex. Wendy R. West, 35, was a man-

agement agent for Control Man- agement Systems & Services, which is hired by homeowners associations to collect dues and manage property. West worked with the Over- look Community, a Fairfax neigh- borhood straddling Bren Mar Park just west of Alexandria, said Patricia D. Cooper, a vice presi- dent for Control Management. Cooper said Control Manage- ment identified the problem and turned over its information to Fairfax police. Cooper said police determined that the embezzle- ment was limited to one of Over- look’s reserve accounts, that no one else was involved and that the company’s insurance will cov- er the amount stolen. West, who has been fired, was arrested April 15. Fairfax police did not disclose the theft or the arrest, the second such financial crime to come to light recently. Last week, in a case also not disclosed by police, an accoun- tant for a Reston information technology firm was sentenced to 10 years in prison for embezzling more than $1.1 million.

— Tom Jackman

MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST

D.C. police investigate after a Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicle crashed into the rear of the public library in Mount Pleasant.

Improvement in science scores sparks optimism

D.C. public school students’ standardized test results rise slightly

by Bill Turque

D.C. school officials said Tuesday that they were

encouraged by the growth students showed on the science and biology segments of last year’s DC-CAS standardized tests. Overall scores remain low, but slightly more than a third of D.C. public school fifth-graders scored proficient or advanced, up 2 percentage points from 2008.

About a quarter of eighth-graders reached profi- cient or advanced, a 5 percent bump. The scores are from only the second year of test- ing in science and biology, meaning there is not a substantial baseline for drawing broad comparisons about changes in performance. The tests are given in grades 5 and 8, and also in

grades 9 through 12. There were some solid schoolwide gains, includ- ing in some of the middle schools. Takoma, Jef- ferson, Stuart-Hobson and Sousa improved by be- tween 5 and 13 percentage points. Fifth-graders at nine elementary schools boosted their scores by more than 20 percent: Emery, Noyes, Ross, Tyler, Barnard, Maury, West, Kimball and Stoddert. Neither DCPS nor OSSE had any immediate ex-

planation as to why these scores were announced eight months after the release of reading and math scores.

turqueb@washpost.com

the university is considering pro- posals from the state on how to reduce that interference. A Purple Line route did not fac- tor into the university’s plans for the pedestrian zone, Williams said. “There is no preemptive strike” against a Campus Drive route. “The Purple Line has not been part of these discussions.” Madden said the summer re-

strictions would have no impact on the $1.68 billion project, which is still in a relatively early planning stage. “If [the Purple Line] is not on Campus Drive, we don’t know where else on campus it could be,” Madden said. “We’ve emphasized that the Purple Line needs to be fully integrated” into university plans. Madden said the state’s Purple Line plans would include closing part of Campus Drive to private vehicles but would allow buses and university service vehicles.

shaverk@washpost.com

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