The Rose Garden - Capital News Paper

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2020

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Body found of boater in crash

Frederick man was in South River collision

By Alex Mann

Journalists get a preview of the restored Rose Garden at the White House on Saturday in Washington.

SUSAN WALSH/AP PHOTOS

‘It was humbling’ Anne Arundel natives help design, install newly refreshed White House Rose Garden

By Olivia Sanchez

D

uring the first three weeks of August, Mike Prokopchak and many of his employees at Walnut Hill Landscaping spent long days in the White House’s shadow, restoring a garden that has not been substantively changed in more than 60 years.

Sometimes working until 9 or 10 p.m., Prokopchak and his team ensured the Rose Garden restoration would be finished for the reveal celebration with President Donald Trump and the first family. And in time for first lady Melania Trump to deliver her Republican National Convention speech this week.

Prokopchak, a Harwood native and a 1992 graduate of Southern High School, said contributing to the country’s history was amazing.

“It was humbling to think about all the people that have been in the Rose Garden in the past and all the people that will be standing there in the future,” Prokopchak said. “It doesn’t matter what color your skin is or what side you’re on; that’s the people’s house.”

The garden, which was last designed by Bunny Mellon during the Kennedy administra-

CORONAVIRUS IN MARYLAND

Students with needs in limbo Teachers haven’t agreed to return

By Naomi Harris The three weeks of work on the restored Rose Garden, which was done in the spirit of its original 1962 design, were showcased to reporters Saturday at the White House in Washington.

tion, has served as the backdrop of many historic events and speeches over the past 60 years.

White House officials said the recent renovations were paid for by private donations and declined to reveal the cost.

Prokopchak said his company was tapped by Oehme,

van Sweden & Associates, one of the project’s primary landscape architecture firms. Another Anne Arundel County resident, Eric Groft of Eastport, is a principal at the Washington, D.C.-based firm, and the two companies have worked together before, Prokopchak

said.

Groft said his team had applied more than two years ago to restore the West Wing entrance, and when that project was put on hold, the White House asked them to design the Rose Garden. Many of the See GARDEN, page A7

Perdue gives about 17.5 tons of chicken to food pantry Donation will help feed 140 families

By Olivia Sanchez An Annapolis food pantry that opened in April to provide relief to families struggling during the coronavirus pandemic will receive a donation of roughly 35,000 pounds of Perdue Farms frozen chicken on Friday — food bank organizers say that will be enough to feed roughly 600 families per week through the end of the year.

The donation, worth roughly $62,000, will support a critical nutritional need of the140 families served by the pantry by giving them a routine protein source,

WEATHER

Authorities located the body of a Frederick man about a day after he went missing following a collision on the South River Tuesday afternoon when a powerboat struck a Jon boat, Maryland Natural Resources Police said.

Robert Stup was 68, the agency said.

The purpose of the search shifted after a few hours of searching Tuesday, as Anne Arundel County fire officials said they believed they were looking to recover Stup’s body.

Authorities were dispatched around 12:20 p.m. after somebody involved in a boat collision near Thomas Point called 911. A battery of emergency boats, fire trucks and ambulances and a police helicopter descended on the area of the collision.

A 41-foot cabin cruiser struck the left side of a 16-foot jon boat, causing the smaller boat to capsize and throwing its two occupants overboard, said Lauren Moses, police spokeswoman.

Passengers aboard the cabin cruiser were able to pull one of the people who had been on the Jon boat aboard the larger vessel, Moses said. Stup was reported missing.

Boats and divers scoured the water as a Maryland State Police helicopter scanned from above, said the Anne Arundel County See COLLISION, page A7

organizers said.

“This is enough to really make a difference in the health of the people we serve,” said Diana Love, who co-founded the West Annapolis Pop-up Pantry with Amy Marshall.

The pantry is specifically for community members ineligible for government assistance such as unemployment insurance or stimulus payments.

“We have many families who were doing well before COVID-19 and now have lost all their savings.

That could happen to anyone,” Love said. “You’ve got to hope someone in your community would lend a hand to you.”

She said she doesn’t want See DONATION, page A7

DIANA LOVE/COURTESY

Volunteers at the West Annapolis Pop-up pantry prepare food for pickup by community members struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic.

94/75 PARTLY SUNNY AND WARMER. A3

Anne Arundel County schools that serve students with disabilities are still waiting on teachers to agree to return to buildings before the three specialty centers would be able to offer limited in-person instruction.

In a Wednesday Anne Arundel Board of Education meeting, Superintendent George Arlotto said staffing needs for the fall approach to reopening specialty centers is still in the works, along with other operational needs.

“I wouldn’t say we are operationally ready to flip the switch tomorrow. It would be very intricate,” Arlotto said highlighting transportation routes, identifying willing students who would return to the schools and receiving final approval from the county health department.

In the reopening plan published by the school system, there are three targeted student populations who could return to limited in-person instruction.

Special education students at Central Special, Ruth Parker Eason and Marley Glen, along with a plan for students at Center for Applied Technologies and English Language Learners were considered for some in-person instruction.

Earlier this summer, parent Adam Wyndham began camSee SCHOOLS, page A8

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Thursday, August 27, 2020 THE CAPITAL

Towson University shifts to remote learning Closes most in-person classes and housing for fall semester

By Taylor DeVille Towson University will hold classes online for the rest of the fall semester and close its campus to most in-person classes as well as its residence halls, after a significant number of students tested positive for COVID-19 just before students returned to classes Monday.

“My greatest priority and responsibility is to protect the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff,” Towson University President Kim Schatzel wrote in a campuswide email Wednesday morning.

“The events of the last few days are a reminder of the unpredictable nature of the virus.”

The switch to remote learning came four days after the university announced Saturday that classes this week would be conducted remotely. That decision came after 55 students tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Another 11 positive tests were recorded Sunday, Schatzel said.

As part of Wednesday’s announcement, Schatzel said some face-to-face instruction and research in Towson’s College of Health Professions, Fisher College of Science & Mathematics, and the College of Fine Arts and Communication and some graduate programs still will be permitted on campus.

The college also will work with students who are required to complete lab instruction, studios and performance-based classes for their degrees, she said.

Wednesday’s announcement addresses only the fall semester and does not provide any guidance for the spring semester, set to start Jan. 25.

Towson, which enrolled about 23,000 students last year, had planned to have a mix of in-person and online classes this fall like some other area colleges and universities.

Some schools, including Johns Hopkins

University, Morgan State University, Loyola University Maryland and Goucher College, decided to offer only remote learning for the fall.

Some Towson staff members and students had been skeptical about the university’s ability to enforce safety measures, and said the university was putting students at risk. Some predicted the campus would have to shut down soon after the start of classes.

An online petition to require “routine and mandatory testing” gained more than 100 signers in two days.

Zoe Wollenschlaeger, a junior studying political science and international studies, called Wednesday’s announcement disappointing, “but if it’s what’s needed to maintain the safety of our community, then that’s the reality.”

Wollenschlaeger, who lives off campus and does not have on-campus classes this semester, expected to come to campus during fundraisers with her sorority. But, she added, the sorority already had pivoted to holding many of its events virtually.

“It’s about being creative and making the best out of it,” she said of the sorority’s activities this semester.

Connor Cameron, a Towson senior in his last semester, said he believes online classes should not cost as much as in-person classes, based on the more limited interaction between professors and students and “the fact that you’re not using a facility for” the classes.

Full-time, in-state Towson students pay nearly $10,200 a year for tuition and fees, compared to the more than $24,000 paid by out-of-state students. It costs $8,652 to live on campus this year, a rate frozen by the University System of Maryland Board of Regents.

“I … really feel for the people that paid a lot for money to be at Towson,” Cameron said Refunds will be issued to students who already paid for on-campus housing and dining plans for the fall term, Schatzel wrote. On-campus housing costs will be

reimbursed 100%, a Towson spokesperson said.

Students can begin moving out of residence halls immediately and must be completely out by Sept. 4, according to a university email to students. Those who wish to remain on campus must request to do so. Student athletes, students with internships and those in certain laboratory, clinical and experiential courses in the arts will be permitted to continue living on campus.

Kimberly Maschal’s daughter signed a lease in February to move into Aspen Heights Towson, a new, independently managed apartment building on York Road.

Her lease was executed before the apartment building and the university reached an agreement in August that allows some 200 students to lease room through the school.

It’s bothersome, Maschal said, that her daughter is on the hook to pay $1,224 a month in rent for a 10-month lease to be close to campus.

“And now they don’t have to be there,” she said.

A property manager for Aspen Heights Towson declined to comment on student leases. Per a university email, around 200 students who executed leases with Aspen Heights through the university, rather than directly through its management company, were to be provided “direct communication” by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Baltimore County Council member David Marks, whose district includes Towson, said the university’s decision will have “serious repercussions in the community.”

Residents are concerned that Towson students needing to leave on-campus housing — totaling a little under 3,000 — will seek housing near campus, creating parking issues and more noise complaints, Marks said.

“I would [have] preferred for Towson University to have been virtual for the first few months of the academic year,” Marks said.

To accommodate an anticipated spike in coronavirus cases this fall, Towson had

A7

moved up the start of classes by a week to this past Monday. All classes after Thanksgiving break were scheduled to be held online.

The University System of Maryland, which includes Towson and the various University of Maryland campuses, required COVID-19 testing for all on-campus students and employees returning in the fall.

Students, faculty and staff returning to campus were required to show a negative COVID-19 test within 10 days of their return to campus and provide proof of a positive antibodies test.

Jay A. Perman, the university system chancellor, said in a statement that Towson’s decision shows “our plans are working as intended” because of the steps taken to test students, staff and faculty and work with the county health department to trace positive cases.

“Towson followed its data,” Perman said.

Rather than mandating all state colleges close, Perman said decisions over campus closures will be left up to individual institutions because “what worked for one institution wouldn’t necessarily work for another.”

The 55 positive results announced Saturday at the university came from 627 tests conducted, which amounts to a testing positivity rate of 8.77%.

Public health experts have set a benchmark for positivity rates of 5% or less before easing coronavirus restrictions. The statewide positivity rate was 3.35% for the last seven days, as calculated by the state health department.

Unlike cases at the University of North Carolina and University of Alabama, where outbreaks were reported on campus and attributed to spread in residence halls and sororities and fraternities, Schatzel attributed the Towson cases to off-campus community spread that could not be pinpointed to any one location or event.

UNC has moved to virtual learning, while Alabama, which has now recorded more than 500 cases, is attempting other measures to rein in the outbreak.

Man arrested for role in hotel shooting

By Alex Mann

SUSAN WALSH/AP

A view of the restored Rose Garden at the White House on Saturday in Washington.

GARDEN From page A1

changes were long overdue, he said. They spent months working to ensure the new design would stay true to Mellon’s garden, while also incorporating the first lady’s preference for muted color palates. During the three-week installation period, he and his colleagues spent many 10- to 14-hour days in the Rose Garden, Groft said.

They worked alongside masonry and irrigation contractors, mechanical, civil and structural engineers to complete the project.

“It really does take a garden to bring people together,” Groft said. They wanted “to do something for the country and make this a garden for the people.” After it was recently completed, Groft said he is proud of their work and how it turned out.

Prokopchak enlisted his oldest son and his friends to help with the renovation. He then brought his two younger children to the reveal celebration at the White House on Saturday. Before they were admitted into the celebration, they had to be tested for the coronavirus by White House

DONATION From page A1

Annapolis to be the kind of town where no one helps. At the end of June, Love and Marshall were featured on the Today Show to talk about the food bank and how they are helping the community.

Love said the pantry is run on the honor system and doesn’t use government funds, so community members don’t have to provide any sort of documentation.

Love said they regularly have been feeding roughly 140 families a week since they opened.

Perdue spokesperson Bill See said when the company learned about what Love and Marshall were doing, they wanted to help. In addition to donating the chicken, Perdue is also donating a

doctors. Once they tested negative, they were cleared to be near the president, first lady and Vice President Mike Pence, and were not required to wear masks, Prokopchak said.

At the celebration, the First Lady said the Rose Garden restoration allowed for infrastructure and utility updates, and a walking path made it more accessible to people with disabilities.

“Gardens are symbols of growth and hope. We celebrate this garden in the hope that future generations will not only enjoy – but also draw inspiration and strength – from this space where so much of our history has been shared,” the first lady said at the reveal.

Still, many Americans have taken to social media to express contempt with the new design. Many noted the lack of bright colors and expressed concern that plants original to the Kennedy administration were removed.

Groft said this isn’t the case. Though critics are frustrated about removing some of the crabapple trees, Groft said the trees had been replaced multiple times and were not originals. The only original items were saucer magnolia trees, which were kept in the garden, he said.

freezer truck to store the chicken as it is distributed. It will remain in the parking lot of Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Annapolis.

“As a food company, we certainly have the resources to help,” See said. “Maryland is our home state, and it’s good to help our neighbors.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, See said Perdue has donated more than 1.5 million pounds of protein, including donations in Baltimore City.

In Annapolis, community members who frequent the pantry will receive it in baskets with the products they receive weekly, including rice, beans, masa, fresh fruits, vegetables and cereal or oatmeal.

They also consider that many families have children who want snacks or treats, and include those when they can, too.

“Food is truly the base of our humanity,” Love said. “This is for people who truly have no safety net and no help.”

“There’s a lot of vitriol out there from people who have developed an intense feeling about this administration,” Groft said. “Anything they would have done, they would have blasted and highly criticized.”

Annapolis-based landscape contractor Loni Moyer said she thought the criticism she saw on social media was mostly undeserved. Moyer is the daughter of former Mayor Ellen Moyer. Many of the new garden photos are being compared to springtime photos before renovation.

“Now we are in the thick of summer. It’s not a fair time to compare,” Moyer said, who owns Garden Girls Landscaping.

The design choices to use mostly flowers of muted colors and lots of green is “considered a very high-end, high-highfalutin design right now,” Moyer said.

And, she said, the design is “very pollinator-friendly.” The boxwoods and Agastache plants will attract bees and butterflies.

“It’s a young garden, it’s not terribly exciting at this moment,” Moyer said. “(But) it made sense when I looked at it.”

Moyer, a Democrat, said, “of all my quibbles with this administration, this isn’t one of them.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

COLLISION From page A1

Fire Department, which led the search.

Officials suspended the search around 8 p.m. Tuesday after about seven hours. They resumed Wednesday morning. Paramedics took the person rescued from the Jon boat to Anne Arundel Medical Center for further treatment for injuries fire officials described as minor. Nobody was injured aboard the larger vessel, county fire officials said.

Firefighters and medical units set up on shore at Turkey Point, which is near the mouth of the South River, roughly across from Thomas Point. The county Fire Department sent two large boats and two smaller, zodiac-style boats, out onto the water. A boat from the Annapolis Fire Department also joined the search. Natural Resources Police is investigating the accident.

A Baltimore man has been arrested for his role in the shooting of a man earlier this month at a Brooklyn Park area hotel, though the alleged shooter remains at large, Anne Arundel County police said.

Kevin Michael McNally, Jr., 25, has been charged with conspiracy to commit attempted murder and conspiracy to commit assault, as well as theft, according to online court records.

McNally is being represented by the Office of the Public Defender. An attorney there could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

An arrest warrant for McNally was issued earlier this month and he was taken into custody on Friday, online court records show. He is being held without bond at the Jennifer Road Detention Center in Annapolis, according to jail records.

Police said McNally is partially responsible for an Aug. 7 shooting that sent a man to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries. Two suspects, including the alleged shooter, are still at large, according to charging documents for McNally.

McNally was with two other assailants who shot a man repeatedly at the Comfort Inn on Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard in Brooklyn while the man’s 13-year-old son was inside the same room, police wrote in charging documents.

It’s the same hotel that was named in a series of recent indictments as the home base for a drug and human trafficking ring which county and state prosecutors say was responsible for a number of violent crimes — though they did not identify specific outbursts of violence.

Detectives reviewed video footage from the hotel McNally knocked on the man’s room door, while his two accomplices waited around the corner, according to charging documents. The man opened the door and McNally walked in, only for his accomplices to follow shortly thereafter.

Police said the assailants demanded money but when the man said he didn’t have any, one of the assailants opened fire. It was on of McNally’s accomplices who shot the man, charging documents show.

After opening fire, McNally and his accomplices fled, according to charging documents. They took the man’s planner, which had more than $700 inside and documents for him and his son. Officers responded around 1:30 a.m. to the hotel after somebody called about a shooting.

Police said they found a man suffering from gunshot wounds. He was shot four times, with bullets striking his chest, arms and leg, according to charging documents.

Police wrote in charging documents they recovered shell casings at the scene and found bullet holes in a night stand, under the window. They also found shattered glass. Detectives gathered statements and evidence, which police said pointed them to McNally. Equipped with a search warrant, they searched McNally’s residence on Alan Drive in Baltimore on Friday and arrested him.

The police department says it needs the public’s help to find the remaining suspects.

Police encourage anyone with information to call Det. Matthew Huppmann at 410-2226135 or, if a caller wishes to remain anonymous, to dial the Tip Line at 410-2224700.