It’s rainy, it’s windy, and every day it gets colder. But it could be worse, Washington — you could be Anthony Mereos. The Silver Spring man is facing a $80,000 fee for illegally clearing trees from land he purchased for $65,000 (he denies cutting the trees down). Mereos had intended to use the land to build a home for his family. But wait! It gets worse:
[Mereos’ laywer Shawn] Whittaker said the county is using his client to set a stern example after some procedural irregularities were found in a tree-clearing case involving Redskins owner Daniel Snyder.
So the NFL owner pays half of what the grocery store clerk/father of three does. The law’s the law, we suppose. Still, that’s pretty rough.
Maryland Will Use Electronic Voting: Earlier this week we discussed the state of electronic voting in Maryland. In short, it was do or die time for Diebold, the vendor supplying the machines. Faced with charges of freezes, random rebooting and other failures during the recent primary, the problematic devices and their manufacturer were given a final chance to prove themselves at the BWI Marriott on Tuesday. Well, they pulled it off, according to the Post. State elections administrator Linda Lamone says that the machines will be used in this fall’s election after all. But not everyone’s satisfied: both Benjamin Cardin and Robert Ehrlich are voicing concerns about the decision.
New Stadium Will Be Green: Back in April the environmental friendliness of the new stadium was to be in question. Everyone seemed to agree that the plan for the stadium called for a conscientious approach, but nobody was quite sure what that meant — although they did know that it would come with a $5-10 million price tag. Given the seeming inevitability of cost overruns and resulting cost-cutting, the stadium’s chances for earth-friendliness seemed tenuous at best. Well, good news. WTOP reports that the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission has authorized changes to the stadium design that will allow the structure to be certified as a “green building”, making it the first such ballpark in the nation. And the cost has somehow come in at a mere $1.2 million, which officials say will come out of the already-allotted budget.
Accident Closes Inner Loop: The weather is leading to some nasty traffic situations. Chief among them is a crash involving two tractor trailers in PG County. It looks like the cleanup is mostly complete, but traffic is still slow. And hey, on the subject of traffic: commuters should take note that a ramp near the Lincoln Memorial will be closed through the weekend.
Briefly Noted: Ehrlich gets police endorsement… Broken lightbulb leads to hospitalizations… Gas company resumes pruning efforts in Herndon… Argument in videogame leads to real-life stabbing in Arlington… Oyster season off to a good start… No bombs found in Culpeper Schools…
This Day In DCist: One year ago we discussed the infamous Victoria’s Secret controversy at Tysons, reviewed stellastarr* and sang the praises of our hometown paper. Two years ago we were dreading getting the flu.
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user JamesCalder
