Recent meetings of the Cecil County Council have looked and sounded like school kids in a cafeteria food fight but Council President Robert Hodge (R-5) is looking to impose new discipline on councilors, including possible mandatory ‘time outs.’ “Our behavior makes a difference,” Hodge said at the 9/10/13 Council worksession in Elkton. In particular,...
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Faced with a growing crisis in illegal drug usage in Cecil County, County Executive Tari Moore on Tuesday named a health official as a “special assistant” to develop a plan to combat drugs and expand treatment options, while a state judge who deals with drug offenders urged broader services to deal with alcohol abuse...
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Perhaps Cecil County Councilor Diana Broomell (R-4) had indigestion or was feeling wounded by the pointed fork jabs she had just received from fellow Councilor Alan McCarthy (R-1) when she hurried out of a Council worksession Tuesday, and refused to eat a slice of the cake that had been brought in to celebrate the...
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The 2014 campaign for state legislative seats in western Cecil County will bring new names and faces in re-drawn Senate and House of Delegates districts, and two new Republican contenders declared their candidacy on Tuesday in Cecil County: Del. Wayne Norman, a Bel Air lawyer, seeking the new Senate 35th Dist. seat, and his...
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After two weeks of political drama, two county Republican committees have sent to Gov. Martin O’Malley the name of their nominee—Del. Steve Hershey—to fill the vacant state Senate seat in Dist. 36, thus apparently ending the local process and shifting the decision to Annapolis to break a tie between Hershey and Del. Michael Smigiel....
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A majority of the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee voted Tuesday night to endorse Del. Michael Smigiel for the vacant Dist. 36 state Senate seat, creating a tie between Smigiel and Del. Steve Hershey among the four counties in the district. Hershey has won the endorsements of the Kent and Caroline counties’ local...
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A Cecil Times Special Report While a political bloodbath has been unfolding in the four counties of the state legislative 36th District recently, the man who caused it has been serenely contemplating, on social media, Texas sports teams and Lone Star state oversized hamburgers. But E.J. Pipkin’s abandonment of his Maryland Senate seat, for...
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The Caroline County Republican Central Committee has voted to endorse Del. Steve Hershey, of Queen Anne’s County, to fill the vacant Dist. 36 state Senate seat—with the likely result that he will prevail over remaining rival Del. Michael Smigiel, of Cecil County. In a whirlwind of events in the past day, the Caroline County...
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Former state Republican Party chair Audrey Scott withdrew Friday night from the hotly contested race for appointment to the state Senate seat recently vacated by E.J. Pipkin, leaving a potential head-to-head fight between two current state Delegates for the post. Since Pipkin was a Republican, his successor to fill out the remaining year and...
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The process to fill the state Senate seat vacated recently by E.J. Pipkin has turned into an increasingly bitter brawl, with pressure on local Republican Central Committees in the four-county District to unify behind one candidate to prevent Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley from making the final selection from a splintered GOP list. Former state...
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Audrey Scott, the former Maryland Republican Party chairwoman, has won key support from two counties’ GOP party committees in her quest to fill the state Senate seat vacated recently by E.J. Pipkin in the four-county 36th District—leaving her the current leader in the crowded field of candidates for the post. The district covers four...
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The iron grip held on the four-county 36th legislative district by former state Sen. E.J. Pipkin ( R) for over a decade has crumbled in the past week since he announced his resignation and departure from Maryland, with a crowded field of hopefuls lining up to seek appointment to his seat. By early evening...
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State Sen. E.J. Pipkin of Elkton announced Monday he will resign his 36th District Senate seat, representing Cecil County and three other counties on the Upper Shore, to seek a new career in sports management. The surprise declaration set off a buzz of political speculation on a successor, both for an appointment to fill...
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Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, a long-debated and much needed expansion of vocational/technical education in Cecil County has been resurrected with a proposed deal, announced Friday by the County Executive, to acquire the former Basell building and its 91-acre property on Appleton Road in Elkton for conversion to a new, state-of-the-art tech...
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Elsewhere it might be close to the summer solstice, but in Elkton, it was the Cecil County Council’s sewer solstice– as members danced around the fiscal and political bonfires of boosting sewer fees to reflect actual costs of services and future economic development implications of decisions made now. If you thought such decisions had...
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