Week in Review: Schools and Crime Stats and Roundabouts

In case you missed it, here's the news from Takoma Park this week.

In , Montgomery County will not pursue a waiver from a school funding requirement and faces a $29 million penalty from the state.

County Executive Isiah Leggett joined with the County Council in sending a two-sentence letter to the state school board on Thursday saying that the county would not pursue a waiver from the state mandate. The mandate requires that per-pupil funding of schools by county governments remain the same or increase from one fiscal year to the next.

The decision represents an about-face for Leggett (D), who had pursued a strategy of not funding county schools at the level necessary to meet the state requirement while pushing for a waiver and a legislative remedy.

In , overall crime was down from January to March compared to the same period in 2010, but burglaries are up over the three months.

There were 121 crimes committed in 2011 through March in the categories of homicide, robbery, burglary, larceny, aggravated assault, rape and auto theft. In 2010 during the same time there were 147 crimes committed in those categories.

There were six more burglaries in 2011 than during the same period in 2010.

In , a Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) official said it is not likely a roundabout would fit on Carroll Avenue in the Takoma Junction area because large trucks would not be able to make the turns that a roundabout would require, said Takoma Junction Task Force members who met with the SHA official on April 20. 

The meeting was held with Cedric Ward of the SHA’s District 3 office, said Katrina Oprisko, task force member who discussed the meeting at the Task Force’s full meeting April 26, 2011. The first thing Ward determined was that a roundabout would not fit in the Takoma Junction area because traffic coming up Carroll Avenue—mainly large trucks—would not be able to make the turns through a roundabout.