Category:garrett county
>Explore Garrett County - The Republican News
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Today’s issue of The Republican includes the 2011 Explore Garrett County supplement. It’s a comprehensive publication with articles and advertisements about the many events and activities of the summer, as well as historical stories and pictures of the county’s past, courtesy of the Garrett County Historical Society and the newsroom writers. With these stories, plus some of the best graphic design techniques of our ad room staff, this isn’t your typical advertisement supplement. Be sure to pick one up today! This cover was created by Fabian Green.
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Gifts with sizzle
>Jay’s note: Garrett County bacon!! It’s internet famous apparently 🙂
You can find bacon for just about any dad this Father’s Day
By DENISE O’TOOLE KELLY, FOOD EDITOR
June 15, 2011 12:05 AM
It must be true. How else can you explain this year’s online marketing blitz of bacony twists on the classic Father’s Day gifts like neckties, wallets, mouse pads and even cologne?
Don’t laugh on the last one. A 2009 poll in Great Britain showed more men were made happier by the aroma of sizzling bacon than by the scent of a newborn baby. Not sure what the implications of that onepoll.com factoid are for the meaning of the holiday coming up Sunday. But it sure makes it sound like a good idea to make sure your father wakes up to a house that smells like bacon on his special day. And there’s a breakfast-in-bed bacon for most any dad, regardless of his dietary preferences or health-related or religious restrictions…..
Does your dad strive to eat only natural foods?
“We have thick sliced, dry rubbed, uncured bacon. It’s all-natural pork raised without antibiotics and hormones. That’s my personal favorite,” says Peggy Van Cleef, meat buyer for Love Whole Foods in Ormond Beach, of a Garrett County bacon product. “Look on the back of it, the ingredients: pork, sea salt, raw sugar and spices. That’s it.”
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Garrett County Heritage Area Headed Toward Certification
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May. 19, 2011
After nearly eight years in the making, the Garrett County Heritage Area is close to certification. GC Chamber of Commerce president/CEO Nicole Christian presented an update report on the issue to the county commissioners on Tuesday afternoon. The GC Community Action Committee’s Christine Carter also attended the meeting.
The chamber, with assistance from Community Action, is overseeing the heritage project and will manage the area and its plan, once certification is achieved.
The Maryland Heritage Areas Program was created by the state in 1996, and the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority (MHAA) was established as its administrator. Garrett County was recognized as a proposed Heritage Area in 2003.
The purpose of the program is to link resource preservation with economic development and tourism.
“Maryland’s Heritage Areas are locally designated and state certified regions where public and private partners make commitments to preserving historical, cultural, and natural resources for sustainable economic development through heritage tourism,” Christian said.
Reading an MHAA description, she added, on the local level, Heritage Areas focus community attention on often under-appreciated aspects of history, living culture, and distinctive natural areas, thus fostering a stronger sense of pride in the places where Marylanders live and work.
“If you think about this definition, this is Garrett County to a ‘T,'” Christian said. “So it only makes sense that we are in this process of moving toward becoming a certified Heritage Area.”
She noted that heritage tourism is on a good, upward trend.
“We see this as a real opportunity – a way for us to grow this industry,” the president said about certification.
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Enerplus selling portion of shale gas interests
>By Carolyn King
Enerplus Corp. expects to record a significant gain on the $575 million sale of a portion of its Marcellus natural gas interests in Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia.
But the Calgary-based oil and gas producer will retain a “concentrated, meaningful position” in the shale play, which it said will enhance its ability to control the pace and level of capital spending going forward.
The buyers of the primarily non-operated portion being sold weren’t identified. The sold interests include about 91,000 net acres in southwest and central Pennsylvania, Garrett County in Maryland and northern West Virginia. Current output is about 5.4 million cubic feet equivalent a day.
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>April 2010 Residential Real Estate Sales - Market Update
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April has come and gone and left behind another month of real estate sales in Garrett County & at Deep Creek Lake. There were 21 total sales, down one from last month and up 4 sales from April 2010.
I’ve been warning for months that the inventory is coming…and here it is. There are now 701 available properties on the market. I recall one day getting an update of 17 new homes – I believe last Monday. That number is up 103 from last month. Not surprising, as this is the time of year people like to start looking for their summer purchase. Homes show better in the warmer weather & the fresh landscaping/green grass helps a lot. The large portion of those ‘new’ listings are re-listed homes that didn’t sell last year.
Let’s take a look at the stats:
There are 43 homes under contract (38 last month).
The average list vs. ORIGINAL sales price was 81.62%, down from last month (83.51%).
The ADJUSTED list vs sale price was 87.31%, down from last month (89.63%).
The current # of active/for sale listings in MRIS (minus timeshares) is 703, up from last months 598. We have a 33 month supply of homes available (minus timeshares) based solely on the April sales numbers. This number is up from last month’s 27 mont supply.
Random observations:
•4 ‘newer’ home sold in March (5 years old or less)
•It appears that 11 or so of these sales were vacation homes
•14 homes sold under $300,000 (last month was 15)
•15 homes sold under $400,000
•2 homes sold over $ 1 million (same as last month)
•0 homes sold for higher than full price or at full price (last month was 4)
•One house sold for 52.63% of asking price – 139 Frederick Circle
•The oldest home that sold was 93 yrs old
•The average age of the homes that sold was 28 years (37 last month)
•3 condo/townhouse properties sold (3 last month)
Here are the statistical breakdowns:
Average Sale Price: $320,310 (last month $297,427)
Average Days on Market: 273/378 (last month 205/290) (days on market with current broker/total days on market)
Here’s a little something extra – more in depth stats by price range, from our friends at RBIntel.
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Redistricting revisited - gazette.net
>Perhaps the most important — and entertaining — political exercise of the year is congressional redistricting, a process that began to take shape with the census count last spring. Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to name a redistricting advisory committee in days.
The U.S. Constitution and the state constitution require Maryland to redraw its congressional (and legislative) district lines every 10 years, after the decennial census numbers come out, to reflect one person, one vote. The ideal size for each of the state’s eight congressional districts is 721,529 residents….
…From west to east, the 6th District spans heavily Republican Garrett County to northern Harford County. Prior to 1992, the district had a strong presence in Montgomery County and Democratic representation.
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Garrett County Habitat for Humanity
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VOLUNTEERS WELCOME!!! Come help us with the Garrett County Habitat for Humanity winter build project. I will be there chipping in and taking some photos for the blog. ALL HELP IS WELCOME! Details (from Barb Butler GCBR): “We have been invited to participate once again in the Habitat Winter Build project which will be held on Saturday, April 2nd beginning at 8:00 am at the Oakland Armory. Lunch will be provided and served at noon to all workers by a local church ladies group. Remember ~ this is another great way to show other community members that Realtors® also volunteer their time with housing needs and not just sales in Garrett County. If you have a child that needs community service hours and you want to bring them with you, I will be happy to sign for their work time.” 
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Garrett taking varied approaches to development
>Jeffrey Alderton
Cumberland Times-News The Cumberland Times-News Mon Mar 28, 2011, 08:00 AM EDT
OAKLAND — Garrett County is pursuing economic development on several fronts, including investing in the county’s high school graduates by offering them two-year scholarships to attend Garrett College.
For the past several years, Garrett County has offered to pay full tuition for students who are completing their final year of high school.
Whether pursuing education in the academic field or technical training, the county will pay tuition for two full years at Garrett College. The funds are paid through the Garrett County Scholarship Program.
At a cost of several hundred thousand dollars annually, the county foots the bill not only for its high school seniors enrolling in Garrett College, but also for graduates of GED programs.
“We think the best thing we can do is prepare young people for a career,” said Jim Hinebaugh, director of Garrett County Economic Development. “We have also expanded the program from academic training to vocational and technical training.”
According to Decision Data Resources, Demographic Details Comparison Report of October 2010, the median household income (middle of the income range) in Garrett County was $44,908 and the average household income was $58,997. Per-capita income was recorded at $26,449, according to the report that showed a total of 12,969 households in Garrett County.
By comparison, the average in the nine-county region that includes Allegany, Garrett, Bedford, Fayette, Somerset, Grant, Mineral, Preston and Tucker counties with a total of 181,772 households was $37,612 for median household income, $49,335 average household income and per-capita income of $21,133.
Labor force statistics from the same report showed unemployment in September at 6.9 percent in Garrett County with the average in the nine-county region at 9.1 percent. There were 16,369 people in the labor force that month in the county with 1,125 unemployed. The county’s unemployment rate stood at 8.3 percent in December.
The county will receive $1.9 million in business utility taxes from Constellation Energy’s 28 wind turbines on Backbone Mountain and 20 wind turbines operated there by Synergics. The revenue will reduce to $850,000 per year after a 22-year depreciation schedule.
Also, Garrett County is awaiting legislative developments that may allow drilling in the vast natural gas-bearing Marcellus shale rock formation. Geologists have estimated resources of 128,000 acres of viable natural gas in all of Garrett County.
If approved through legislation and regulatory procedures, the Marcellus shale industry will bring royalties and leasing revenue to landowners and subsequent severance and income tax revenue to the county. Businesses in Garrett County will benefit by providing ancillary services to the industry such as excavation work, food service, worker housing, supplies, road building materials, fuel, etc.
Drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale is already under way in nearby Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Contact Jeffrey Alderton at jlalderton@times-news.com
If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Commissioners Hear Staff Reports; Roads Dept. To Begin Spring Cleanup
>Mar. 17, 2011
The Garrett County commissioners held their first quarterly staff meeting of the year last Tuesday morning, hearing reports from 14 county department and agency heads. Topics discussed included Roads Department budget issues, Community Action funding problems, the new Dove Center, and Garrett College expansion projects.
Roads Department
General roads superintendent Jay Moyer reported that the Roads Department was winding down winter operations and was beginning its spring cleanup of tons of antiskid material.
“This is a drawn-out process, and, hopefully, we won’t receive too many more snow events that require antiskid to be put down,” Moyer said.
He noted that sweepers purchased a couple years ago enable his department to recycle much of the material for reuse.
“Anything that we can pick up that doesn’t contain leaves, sticks, or a lot of dirt, we recycle,” Moyer said. “We don’t throw away any more than we absolutely have to.”
As of March 6, he said, the county has received 145 inches of snow, according to the State Highway Administration. Last winter it received a total of 264 inches.
Moyer noted that most of this year’s snow/ice events have occurred on weekends, resulting in much overtime for crews.
“As of today (March 8), we have used 11,311.5 man hours of overtime, and that is roughly half of what we had last year,” he said.
Moyer added his department has spent 75 percent of its budget, even though it is 67 percent through the budget year.
“That occurs annually because of the fact that the vast majority of the budget is for winter operations,” he said about the inconsistency.
Because of overtime, the cost of antiskid, and other factors, his budget is $95,000 in the red. Moyer noted, however, that amendments can be made to level out the budget.
“I’m hearing good things about how the roads are this year,” Commissioner Bob Gatto told Moyer.
Community Action
President Duane Yoder reported that Community Action recently weatherized more than 300 Garrett County homes. He noted that local home improvement contractors were utilized and funding for the work came from the federal stimulus program.
Yoder reported that his agency had also recently received $1 million from the federal government to install renewable energy systems in the form of wind, geothermal, and solar power to local homes. That project will begin this spring.
Though Community Action received much federal funding for projects in recent years, it could be facing a large cut in Community Services Block Grants (CSBG). President Barack Obama noted in his state-of-the-union address that he wants to cut the grants to help reduce the federal budget deficit in fiscal year 2012.
“The only program that he mentioned in that whole speech that he was going to cut was Community Action,” Yoder said. “It’s interesting because the Community Action program, as he defined it, really has very little impact on the deficit, the reduction.”
Nonetheless, Obama wants to reduce Community Action Partnership block grants nationwide from $700 million to $350 million.
“It has some pretty serious consequences,” Yoder said about the proposal, noting that the CSBG Program has provided core funding for community services for several years.
The local agency receives about $250,000 from the program each year.
“That’s the flexible money that we use to subsidize programs that we support and build,” Yoder said.
He said if that funding were to disappear the local Community Action would still able manage its assets and its housing developments because of long-term commitments from private investors, but the loss would probably change its involvement in communities and new projects.
Yoder said he did not know yet how Obama’s proposal would “play out.” He noted, however, that the minute Obama made his announcement, House of Representatives legislators made plans to “zero out” CSBG.
“We’re going to make an effort to try to convince Congress and the president that we should at least try to preserve the Community Services Block Grant,” Yoder said. “We’ll probably be asking for letters of support from the community partners that we have here in Garrett County. Part of what we want to do is make the point that Community Action’s role in Garrett County would be hurt a lot if we aren’t allowed to do what we’ve been doing.”
Commission chair Gregan Crawford said the commissioners would be happy to write letters and make calls in support of Community Action.
Dove Center
Executive director Heather Hanline presented Dove Center statistics for January. During that month the shelter served 57 domestic violence clients, 10 rape clients, three homeless women, and three persons in its batterers’ program.
In addition, five adults and one child were sheltered for a total of 106 bed nights, and 58 domestic violence hotline calls were handled.
She reported that construction of her agency’s new facility is about six weeks ahead of schedule.
“The building crew has been great,” she said. “The exterior of the building is almost finished. Wiring and plumbing is almost done. They’ll be drywalling before we know it. So we’re very happy about the progress.”
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for October.
Hanline noted that the location of the facility, which will include a shelter and counseling/administra-tive offices, will be known to the public.
“In the past, domestic violence shelters have tried to keep their locations confidential, but that philosophy has changed through the years,” she said. “Now it’s sort of seen as the more the public you are, the safer you are, the more people who will be looking out for you.”
She noted, however, the new building will have a very sophisticated security system.
Garrett College
President Richard Mac-Lennan reported that enrollment at Garrett College was still strong.
He also noted that renovations at the Southern Outreach Center have been completed, nearly doubling the college’s space at the facility. Plans are also under way for Phase II of the Career Technology Training Center in Accident, which will add about 5,000 square feet for educational programs.
“And when the Community Aquatic and Recreation Center comes on board, those three additional facilities and some other renovation work we’re going to have done will triple the college’s footprint in terms of physical space,” MacLennan said.
The president said construction of the recreation center has suffered a little bit because of winter weather, but a Sept. 1 opening is still planned.
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If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.
>Considering the Written Word
>Former Garrett County Home Builder turned author:
Hyattsville author talks about his latest work.
By Sarah Nemeth
In a room in his apartment overlooking shades of blue and green swimming below, Hyattsville novelist Richard Morris thinks.
Although the beauty outside is inspirational—arrow straight trees slice the sky while chirps call the mornings out of their dark shackles—what flows from Morris’s pen comes from inside.
“I had a lot of things I felt I wanted to say,” he said of his books.
Morris’s first novel, Cologne No. 10 For Men, is a satire about war.
“There were a lot of things that were funny, ironic we had about the war,” he said. “[It’s] kind of an anti-war book.”
Between the covers, Cologne recounts the habit of one soldier, who found that a drop of cologne under his nose was all he needed to mask the stench of war. Eventually, the character decides that he doesn’t want it anymore—he wants to smell the odors.
Morris, who lives with his wife Barbara in Ward 4, is originally from Pittsburgh and grew up in Cleveland. He was a custom homebuilder in Garrett County and later moved to Prince George’s County where he conducted research for the National Association of Home Builders Research Center in Upper Marlboro and later with the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C. With the NAHB he traveled, wrote articles and books. He retired in 2004 while living in Bowie.
