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KLMNO O’Malley vows to build more schools
Having outspent Ehrlich in education, governor stresses vital Md. issue
by John Wagner Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley
pledged Wednesday to spend an additional $1 billion on public school construction if elected to a second term, returning to an issue he raised early in his 2006 cam- paign against then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. “We have made big invest- ments, even in the toughest of times . . . but our work is far from over,” said O’Malley (D), standing outside the same elementary school in Annapolis where he promised four years ago to spend significantly more on school con- struction than had Ehrlich (R). Since O’Malley took office in 2007, the legislature has approved
almost $1.3 billion in state spend- ing on school construction, about $460 million more than it did un- der Ehrlich, who is trying to win the job back from O’Malley this fall.
Although O’Malley’s new plan could result in less spending dur- ing a second term than during his first, he pledged to continue to meet a target of at least $250 mil- lion a year set in 2004 by a high- profile state commission. O’Malley also offered several ideas to make schools more en- ergy-efficient and less costly, in- cluding relying more on stan- dardized designs. After the event, Ehrlich spokes- man Andy Barth knocked the Democratic incumbent for “once more promising to spend money he doesn’t have and would have to borrow.” Barth declined to say how much Ehrlich would spend on school construction if elected. O’Malley’s proposal represent- ed his latest attempt to capitalize
on education, an issue on which more voters trust him than Ehr- lich, according to a Washington Post poll. In the May survey, 49 percent of voters said they trust O’Malley to do a better job with public education, while 29 percent favored Ehrlich. Aides have played up O’Mal-
ley’s recent recognition by the Na- tional Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers lobby, as the “Greatest Education Gover- nor.” The NEA credited O’Malley with largely avoiding the deep education cuts that other states have endured during the reces- sion. The governor also routinely touts a No. 1 ranking given to Maryland schools by Education Week magazine.
Ehrlich has not shied away from the issue of education, how- ever. On the day he announced his comeback campaign in April, he called for doubling the number of charter schools in Maryland, which now stands at 42. Ehrlich
Metrobus accident in Montgomery County
visited several of those in recent weeks, including one in Baltimore on Thursday with his new run- ning mate, former Maryland sec- retary of state Mary D. Kane. Ehrlich, who authored the
state’s charter schools law in 2003, has also proposed removing the veto power that local school boards have over new charters in their jurisdictions. Ehrlich spent Wednesday morning campaigning in Grason- ville, where he met with water- men angry about O’Malley’s oys- ter regulations, among other is- sues.
O’Malley’s choice of location for his education event Wednesday was hardly an accident: A school is under construction adjacent to the site.
Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen (D), who attended O’Malley’s event, said it is the first public school construction project in An- napolis in almost 40 years.
wagnerj@washpost.com
THE DISTRICT
Civil suit in Wone slaying moves ahead The wrongful death lawsuit
filed by the family of slain lawyer Robert Wone moved forward Wednesday, with the judge ask- ing both sides to propose dead- lines for evidence and other mat- ters. D.C. Superior Court Judge Brook Hedge ordered the attor- neys for the Wone family and the three housemates of 1509 Swann St. NW to settle on a date by Aug. 6, more than a month before the next scheduled hearing of Sept. 20.
Both sides would have to pre- pare and submit motions and de- positions by that date. Wone’s widow, Katherine, has
sued Joseph Price, Victor Zabor- sky and Dylan Ward in connec- tion with Wone’s killing. Wone was fatally stabbed at the home shared by the three, who claimed to be in a three-way romantic re- lationship. Wone and Price were college friends, and Wone had asked to stay at the house in Au- gust 2006 rather than commute home to Oakton. He was killed in the guest bedroom. Last month, after a nearly five- week trial, a Superior Court judge acquitted the three men of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in Wone’s slaying. Pros- ecutors had alleged that the trio know who stabbed Wone and covered up for the killer. —Keith L. Alexander
MARYLAND
Montgomery now off bond-watch list Montgomery County officials
have pulled the county back from the prospect of a major fiscal em- barrassment. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) said Moody’s bond-rating agency told county officials Wednesday that Montgomery
THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010 LOCAL DIGEST
has been taken off a watch list for possible downgrade after Leggett and the County Council made a series of budget cuts and strengthened policies on county reserves. The county’s coveted AAA
bond rating is now safe. Moody’s had put the county on
a watch list because it was rely- ing too heavily on reserves to cover this year’s expenses. —Michael Laris
VIRGINIA
Police release video of slain woman
On the day that Vanessa Pham was buried, Fairfax County police released surveillance video of her car in a Falls Church area park- ing lot just minutes before her body was found.
Pham, 19, was found inside her Scion tC hatchback June 27, near Arlington Boulevard and Gal- lows Road. She had been fatally stabbed. Her funeral, in Vienna, and burial, in the Falls Church area, were held Wednesday. Police combined video from
several surveillance cameras at the Fairfax Plaza shopping center on Gallows Road, where Pham visited JD Nail Salon about 3 p.m. on June 27, Officer Don Got- thardt said. The video shows the Scion entering the parking lot about 3 p.m. and leaving the lot at 3:24 p.m., about 10 minutes before her car was found less than a half-mile away. Investigators do not know
whether Pham encountered her killer in the Fairfax Plaza parking lot or after she left, and it is not clear from the video whether she is driving in the parking lot, al- though police think she was be- hind the wheel when her car left the roadway near Williams Drive. Anyone who saw Pham or her car on June 27 is asked to call Fairfax police at 866-411-TIPS (8477).
—Tom Jackman
As census nears end, some still uncounted
census from B1 MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST A Metrobus rear-ended a vehicle, then crossed several lanes on Colesville Road, winding up in a Silver Spring yard, Montgomery officials say. Blueprint for Baileys Crossroads is revived
Fairfax board to weigh redevelopment model once tied to Metro plan
by Kafia A. Hosh In the 1960s, a planned Metro-
rail extension through Baileys Crossroads inspired the devel- opment of Skyline, a collection of high-rise office and residential buildings.
But local politicians aban- doned the proposed Columbia Pike line through Falls Church, and Skyline became a mini-city rising awkwardly above one- story strip malls, gas stations and restaurants. Developer Charles E. Smith
“built an entire Skyline city to match the Metro plan,” said Fair- fax County Supervisor Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason), whose dis- trict includes Baileys Crossroads. “The line should have been built. It was on the plan. People in- vested in the plan.” Four decades later, Fairfax offi- cials want to redeem the devel- opment potential of Baileys Crossroads. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors plans to consider a blueprint for revitaliz- ing about 530 acres near Lees- burg Pike and Columbia Pike. By 2040, most of the area could be a town center-style neighborhood with tree-lined streets, sidewalk cafes, and clus- ters of apartments and offices above retail stores. Baileys would have two stops along the route of a planned streetcar connecting the area to Arlington County. The densest development would be in areas near the transit stations. “The mistake was that Metro
was taken off the plan for the Bai- leys Skyline area, and I’m trying to make up for that,” Gross said. Baileys is one of seven com- mercial districts that Fairfax has targeted for redevelopment. County officials say they hope to remake the communities into walkable, mixed-use neighbor- hoods served by mass transit.
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It’s also where officials plan to concentrate growth in the coun- ty, which is home to more than 1million people. Fairfax is pro- jected to grow by 225,000 resi- dents and about that many em- ployees over the next 30 years. “It’s a fair amount of people, and that’s why it’s so important to put them where they can be best served by a transportation system. Clearly, the reliance on cars is not the way to go,” said Barbara Byron, director of the county’s Office of Community Re- vitalization and Reinvestment. Most of the growth is expected
to occur in Tysons Corner, which is not one of the seven revitaliza- tion areas. But the county recent- ly approved a plan permitting the redevelopment of Tysons’ 1,700 acres into an urban center.
There is ‘nothing new’
Under the Baileys plan, the area could have up to 9million square feet of mostly retail and office space and 9,000 new resi- dential units. Today, Baileys is home to federal agencies and ma- jor employers, such as Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC and Northrop Grumman. Skyline takes up most of the office space. The rest of the area is mostly apartments, restaurants and big-
box stores separated by empty lots and homes converted into businesses. There is “nothing new, nothing 2010 in style or function. We have a couple of banks,” said Frank Sellers, a Real- tor and longtime resident who is president of the Bailey’s Cross- roads/Seven Corner’s Revitaliza- tion Corp., a nonprofit organiza- tion of residents and business owners. Many of the establishments
are ethnic restaurants and mom- and-pop stores with loyal cus- tomers. People come and go but rarely stick around. Carol Turner, who lives about a mile east of Baileys’ core, said she and her family occasionally visit a shopping center that has a Pan- era Bread and a Best Buy. But most of the time, “we just pass through Baileys,” she said. “We’d love to see more restaurants where we wouldn’t have to go to Falls Church City or up to Gal- lows Road.” Turner, who is co-president of her neighborhood civic associa- tion, said the area has changed very little since she moved there in 1992. “It’s been pretty stagnant for years and years,” she said. “We’re excited about the idea, even though it’s many years away, of getting some revitaliza-
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gathering places, such as public parks and an arts center, to turn Baileys into a destination. “We want people to know
they’ve arrived somewhere,” Sell- ers said. It could be years before the
Baileys project gets started, be- cause many of the stores and of- fices have long-term property leases. But Fairfax officials said that a handful of families owns the largest tracts, which could help consolidate large parcels and facilitate the transformation.
A changing county Parts of Fairfax have already
experienced that kind of change. Plans to revitalize Merrifield began in 1998, and within a dec- ade, it became the first county area to redevelop under an urban model. Merrifield has a residen- tial complex above a gym, stores and restaurants on Gallows Road, with plans nearby for a town center-style development on the former site of a movie theater. In 2006, the Board of Supervi- sors approved a complex with up to 720 apartments and stores on a parking lot at the Dunn Loring- Merrifield Metro station Last year, the board approved
a blueprint for the Springfield area, where it envisions a similar mixed-use town center. When the Baileys plan goes before the board next week, supervisors will also consider a long-term blue- print to allow urban-style retail development in Annandale. “Smart growth” experts say
that reinvesting in these older communities is the best way for Fairfax to prevent more paralyz- ing traffic and sprawl. “That’s the land that you have
available,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Your opportunities lie in the acres of parking lots we find in our commercial corri- dors.”
hoshk@washpost.com
accuracy of the completed forms. That work started two weeks ago, and Groves said the Census Bureau suspects that answers might have been made up on hundreds of forms. “A number are so severely mis-
matched, they could be fabrica- tions,” he said of the difference between the answers the original census takers submitted and the answers provided in follow-up interviews. Steve Jost, a spokesman for the
Census Bureau, said repeat inter- views are being conducted on all the “hard fail” census forms turned in by 524 enumerators. Groves said suspicious cases will be turned over to the inspector general in the Commerce De- partment for investigation and possible prosecution. The number of assaults and
threats against census takers has surpassed 500, a significant in- crease from the 181 reported in 2000. But Groves said he saw no pattern indicating anti-govern- ment sentiment was behind it and said the census was keeping a better tally this year. Census officials said they are about to put a link on the home page providing information for people who have not been con- tacted.
Groves said a toll-free number,
866-872-6868, will remain in op- eration through July 30 to take census information over the phone from anyone who was missed. Lee Preston tried that number when he and his neighbors in the
three-building Westchester Park II condominium complex real- ized that no one had received questionnaires. He said that the census worker he talked to on the toll-free number directed him to the regional office in Philadelphia, which in turn told him to call the local office in Lar- go.
“A very nice man said he would
take my information over the phone,” Preston said. “I said, ‘No, I want everyone in my building to get covered.’ He said, ‘Sir, we’ll take care of it.’ That was two weeks ago.” It could not be determined im-
mediately whether the apart- ments and condominiums were among a group of about 12,000 Prince George’s County address- es whose questionnaire labels were not printed initially. When the lapse was discovered in mid- June, workers were dispatched to count the residents in person, said Regional Census Director Fernando Armstrong. But no one can explain why
nobody in the 15-story Westches- ter Park apartments got a census form, even though everyone in an identical condominium build- ing next door did. Natalie Aguayo, who lives in the small condominium complex where none of the 30 or so resi- dents received a form, said she never called the Census Bureau to inquire about it. “It’s really very important,” she
said. “We should be upset about it. If they sent me a form, I’d send it right back.”
morelloc@washpost.com
LOTTERIES July 7
DISTRICT Mid-Day Lucky Numbers:
Mid-Day D.C. 4: Mid-Day DC-5:
Lucky Numbers (Tue.): Lucky Numbers (Wed.): D.C. 4 (Tue.): D.C. 4 (Wed.): DC-5 (Tue.): DC-5 (Wed.): Daily 6 (Tue.): Daily 6 (Wed.):
MARYLAND Day/Pick-3:
Pick-4:
Night/Pick-3 (Tue.): Pick-3 (Wed.): Pick-4 (Tue.): Pick-4 (Wed.): Match 5 (Tue.): Match 5 (Wed.):
0-2-7 8-1-7-0
2-4-0-3-8 3-8-3 7-1-7
6-5-4-0 4-7-2-5
0-0-3-6-7 1-5-4-2-2
5-13-15-26-37-39 *24 13-14-19-25-27-39 *17
3-3-6
0-7-4-5 1-9-1 2-4-4
1-9-0-2 0-7-1-1
1-4-15-16-35 *38 17-18-19-25-37 *5
VIRGINIA Day/Pick-3:
Pick-4: Cash-5 (Wed.):
Night/Pick-3 (Tue.): Pick-3 (Wed.): Pick-4 (Tue.): Pick-4 (Wed.): Cash-5 (Tues.): Cash-5 (Wed.): Win for Life:
MULTI-STATE GAMES Mega Millions:
Powerball: Hot Lotto:
*Bonus Ball Power Play: 6-4-1 7-9-8-4
11-27-29-33-34 5-9-2 N/A
4-9-8-4 N/A
4-10-17-28-33 N/A N/A
8-18-45-47-50 **36 N/A N/A N/A
**Mega Ball
All winning lottery numbers are official only when validated at a lottery ticket location or a lottery claims office. Because of late drawings, some results do not appear in early editions. For late lottery results, check
www.washingtonpost.com/lottery.
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