CRIME PAYS OFF
Local author wins award from Crime Writers’ Association. P. 2
MY TWO CENTS
Reader sounds off on proposed changes to Municipal Building. P. 10
Money talks in 2016 presidential election
FIND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS ON HYATTSVILLELIFE.COM
Life&Times
By Helen Lyons
With Election Day coinciding with publication of November’s Hyattsville Life & Times, Hyattsville citizens are heading, or have headed, to the polls to declare their choice for the 2016 presidential race. An analysis of data obtained from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) regarding individual campaign donations provided insight into a city that’s home to diverse political viewpoints. According to the FEC data, between April 2015 and mid-Oct. 2016, 42 donors in Hyattsville brought in over $14,000 for Bernie Sanders, while 79 contributors raised more than $8,000 for Hillary Clinton, and 26 people collected just over $2,000 for Donald Trump. Sanders may have had fewer
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CAMPAIGN continued on page 12
Vol. 13 No. 11
Hyattsville’s Community Newspaper
November 2016
HCPD rallies to help one of its own fighting cancer By Mark Boyle
Sgt. Tony Knox was on a midnight tour when his left eye started bugging him, he said. Each passing car seemed to have its bright lights on. The 41-year-old Hyattsville City Police Department sergeant used eye drops everyday, but this wasn’t a standard case of dry eyes. Five years ago, Knox had a tumor removed from behind his left eye. His eye was acting up again. In 2011, Knox was having trouble seeing. Doctors confirmed that a growth coming through his eye socket below his left eyeball was a benign mixed tumor. It would need to be removed. The Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors performed the procedure, removing Knox’s tear duct, which was connected to the tumor. After follow-up scans showed everything was clear, Knox was freed from scheduling follow-up appointments. That is, until this past summer, when car headlights were agitating his eye again in an all-too-familiar way. “I knew something was wrong,” Knox said. The tumor had returned, this
COURTESY OF ZACH NEMSER A GoFundMe page has been set up for Sgt. Tony Knox with the Hyattsville City Police Department, who is fighting cancer.
time cancerous. A specialist found the cancer had spread to the bone around Knox’s left eye. The eye and the bone will have to be removed. “Think of a baseball,” Knox said. “If you cut that out of something, you don’t want to cut exactly
around the baseball. You have to go further.” The cancer had entered the bone in front of Knox’s brain, thinning the wall. To get away from the aggressive cancer completely, everything in the eye socket would have to be removed, Knox said.
The news was a blow. But the anger and depression lasted only a day or two, Knox said. “There’s no sense in doing the ‘woe is me’ and sulking over it,” Knox said. “Either I’ll have two HCPD continued on page 8
ATHA Inc.’s new projects help residents reach more ‘milestones’ Hyattsville Life & Times PO Box 132 Hyattsville, MD 20781
By Brianna Rhodes
Anacostia Trails Heritage Area Inc. (ATHA Inc.) has a lot in store for its Maryland Milestones program that will benefit the City of Hyattsville and Prince George’s County over the coming months. Maryland Milestones is a program that in-
forms visitors about specific landmarks along the Anacostia Heritage Area. Visitors are able to learn about the history and culture of the region by way of travel tours and routes. ASHA Inc. is currently in the process of opening a Maryland Milestones welcome center, called the Heritage Center, in the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center on Gallatin Street
in Hyattsville. Aaron Marcavitch, the director of ATHA Inc., and Lee Cain, the managing board president, held a reception on October 4 for politicians, local developers, and public figures who were invited to tour the building and MILESTONES continued on page 13
CENTER SECTION: NOVEMBER 8, 2016 ISSUE OF THE HYATTSVILLE REPORTER — IN ESPANOL TOO!