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JUNE 20, 2014
SERVING NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY
DEW TOUR
LET THE GAMES BEGIN The 2014 Dew Tour Beach Championships in Ocean City kick off June 25, run through June 29–Page 38
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Owners certain interference halts boat ramp deal Planning Commissioner’s role now being questioned
OCEAN CITY TODAY/JOSH DAVIS
ASPIRING FIREMAN Two-year-old Jacob Myers from Littletown, Pa. watches the Maryland State Firemen’s Association parade in Ocean City with his family, Wednesday.
Schools address wellness program Focus to expand, include nutritional education in science and health classes
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By Clara Vaughn Staff Writer (June 20, 2014) County public schools will be ramping up its health and wellness program. The Board of Education during its Tuesday meeting passed revisions to its Health and Wellness Policy — one that has been in place since 2006 — addressing students’ nutrition and physical activity, staff wellness and other school-based activities aimed to promote health. The revised policy also includes provisions to monitor those programs and their effects. “Everybody needs to be aware of making healthy choices,” said Board
Member Douglas Dryden. “This is a lifelong lesson that can be learned in our schools.” The changes are updates to a previous policy, which focused only on nutrition and physical activity, said Tamara Mills, director of health programs at Worcester schools. “The state and the federal regs have noticed that there are a lot more people involved in students’ health than just the phys ed teachers and food services,” she said. Because the schools already had such a policy in place, the changes will be subtle, she said. “It’s not going to be major differences in terms of the way things are now.” Under the new guidelines, schools will promote healthy eating by following the Healthy, Hungry Free Kids Act of 2010.
“This will help to guide us in terms of what we serve to students in the cafeteria, what we sell (and) the ingredients in our food,” Mills said. The schools will also focus on nutritional education programs in both health and science classes, she said, and the new regulations shrink schools’ ability to advertise junk food on campus. Another policy focus is physical activity and education. The new rules aim to raise active time in the gym to at least 60 percent with the remainder allotted for health classes, for example, Mills said. The schools will work to better promote activities outside of class that focus on health, such as ACES (All Children Exercise Simultaneously) and Jump Rope for Heart. To ensure the updated policy is effective, the schools will create an action plan See COUNTY Page 9
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By Zack Hoopes Staff Writer (June 20, 2014) Accusations of interference from City Hall seem to have stymied city officials’ desire to exercise eminent domain to acquire the property on 64th Street it needs for a new municipal boat ramp. It also has left Robert Kirchiro, who owns the mostly submerged or unbuildable lots in the wetlands behind Dead Freddie’s, wondering if he’s the victim of a City Hall-inspired plan to prevent him from getting his asking price. Although the City Council on Monday passed the final reading of an ordinance that would allow it to take Kirchiro’s property via condemnation proceedings, some officials suggested they would rather drop the deal altogether given the complaints. “I say we just let him keep it and move on,” said Mayor Rick Meehan. Of the 32 parcels Kirchiro owns, five of them are critical to the boat ramp project. To build a ramp of the size city officials want, parts of the facility would have to encroach on those lots, thereby necessitating either an easement granted to the city, an outright purchase or condemnation. When the city first approached Kirchiro about the property, he expressed a desire for some type of public-private partnership arrangement that would allow him to retain ownership of boat slips or a bait shop to be built in conjunction with the ramp – something the city is reluctant to get involved in, given the difficulties with environmental permitting. Meanwhile, Kirchiro’s last proposed sale price to the city was around $180,000 – he paid his grandfather’s estate slightly more than $200,000 in 2007 – but the city has apparently indicated that it would pay no more than $20,000, or See ROLE Page 3
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