This just posted on the home page... I found this interesting. If re-zoning promotes such a wide range of opinions, I wondered what this would do...
Busting at the seams

It shows me that a sucker is born everyday.

Makes me thing the folks in the Martinsburg area, and the rest of Washington County ought to be hopping mad, for being lumped in with a city with such a bad reputation.

Seriously, when people ask me where I live I say Insert name of town here I don't say I live in the Hagerstown-Martinsburg, W.Va., metro area. I truly don't want to be lumped with Hagerstown, the "city" does not have the best reputation in the state. You have had your fair share of "national" blunders. The County may be growing, but the city I would bet is stagnant, or even declining (people, not the buildings ).

A blank page? Either they pulled the story or once again this web site has some kind of privacy of other violation or bug in it and my PC won't allow it to be displayed.

Yeah, I got a blank page too. Probably just changed the address of the page. When I go to the H-M homepage, it flashes up a quick view then goes to blank.

Must be you two, I can get to the page from home and work.

Yup, the story continues. Moving up and out I guess.

Works for me from work but didn't at home earlier.

I live in South County, nowhere near Hagerstown. I'll spare you my usual anti-Hagerstown nonsense. Patton covered it. It is funny how a news story can call all of Wash Co and parts of another state the "Hagerstown Metro" area. Man they just do whatever they want to manipulate the stats to their pleasing, dont they?

I about fell out of my chair when they referred to the Hagerstown Metropolitan area. I was thinking, "What the heck is that?" Perhaps they would have done better with Hagerstown Regional area. We're far from being a metropolis. And doesn't the Census include us in the Washington Metro Area?

Okay Genreal, I'll ask, can you elaborate on your comments about "national blunders"?

And please, as you so eloquantly scribe, be precise.

Past History - Willie Mays (Still a black-eye, after all these years)

Current - Ms. Parsons debacle.

There ya go, two precise examples.

Wow, I didn't realize it was so many. And over such a short period of time.

Funny Yoss, you know what I mean.

I don't want to flood anyone.

Willie Mays - Let's see, a baseball hero who came back to Hagerstown, where he played a game in the minors and a Mayor who wanted to change the name of a street (permanantly) to accommodate him.
The first mistake was by Breichner for not doing a temporary honoree renaming of the street for, let's say, a month.
This would have not made the veterans as mad and they probably could have lived with it.
Is this a black eye for Hagerstown? Was Hagerstown any different than the small southern towns where he would have played in his minor league days? I don't know, maybe I'm way off base on this one, however..........

Council member Parson - McBean - You had an employee of the Boonsboro Police Dept. who lived in Maugansville, who was accused of sending and did indeed sent hate letters and threatening letters to not only her but other elected and past elected officials, myself included, and made threatening phone calls to schools.

Now, how is this Hagerstown's fault? The only problem was of course that he threatened those who live in Hagerstown, so actually it should be Maugansvilles fiasco, not the City of Hagerstown. Or to even stretch this further, maybe it's those pesky folks in South County who hired this man for their Police Dept.

Well in my effort to be a bit nicer, all I will say is, anything can be explained away.

Enjoy your little town.

It's nirvana.

But don't lump the rest of the county in with your little town.

Thank you for being nice.

And I never said our City was nirvana, maybe Shangri La or Toon Town.......

Anyway, I don't mean to explain anything away. Yeah, some people screwed up handling certain situations, but that doesn't make us the arm pit of society either.

What about the folks in South County who let the KKK have a rally on the battlefield?

J/K I know you didn't let that happen, but controlling that is the same as controlling Shifler.

He actually had no ties to Hagerstown at that point.

Now Mr. Mayor how do you know this is what he was referring to? Maybe he was referring to "do you know who I am" ride to the MVA. That resulted in stonewalling and the appearance of a cover-up by the City Council who treated it like a hot potato and would not send it to an ethics board. I believe that incident resulted in a finding of guilt but not an apology.

Then we had the whole building communities’ fiasco. Let's see Hagerstown needs to be a town that includes everyone. Let’s start this super secret organization that includes "everyone" but we will only invite the people we want and keep everyone else in the dark. However, let’s use city funds so we can offer refreshments to our chosen few and tell the council they have no right to ask about it. After all we wouldn't the HM reporter to know about it they might actually report on a news item for once.

Does that about sum it up everyone that has been around awhile?

We could go on all day about the members of the council but why rehash what we all know; you Mr. Mayor are the Ringmaster of the biggest political circus in Washington County.

I commented on what I did because of the Natonal reference by Patton.

These two items here Tony were not national.

At least one did get play regionally though including the Washington DC market.

Regional and National are two different things.

Your point?

I'm only guessing here...

but 2 states as opposed to 50 states?

Well 4 states plus DC. This bunch gets reelected and we will see even more garbage come from them. They are only being good now because it is getting close to election time.

Hagerstowns National blunders;

How about Mayor Frush went missing during the city election and turned up in a detox unit.

How about ABC news and Peter Jennings doing a special on Hagerstown being the "crack" capital of the US. Jennings returns to do a story about Little League baseball, probaly the most glaring example of Hagerstown at its worst.

What about wiretapping scandal at the Police Dept., this led to the replacement of the Chief.

Dont forget the fomer Councilmember who was convicted of being a child molester.

Include the low standard of living, out of wedlock births, drug epidemic, teen birth rate, average education level, racial division and a indolent goverment workforce and I think we become a national blunder!

If you want more I will continue, all of the above are factual and appeared in national newsprint or television coverage.

I thought it was Brokaw and NBC that did the crack story?

Many of those must have been before my time, and I've been in the area for 22 years.

I've been here since '61 and vaguely remember some of those. The Little League thing I remember.

But all that aside, how is Hagerstown different from thousands of other small towns/cities across the U.S.? Little dramas about small towns pop up all the time in the news. I don't think you can google "Hagerstown" and find references to Sodom and Gormorra.

If y'all want to hate Hagerstown, have at it. But if it's such a filthy city why did y'all move here? And no matter how far away from the city you are in the County, Hagerstown is still the seat of government for the County.

Hagerstown is in an evolution right now. The downtown has been dark and dank for sometime, beginning with the building of the Valley Mall in the early 70's, probably. Bowman, Deming and the rest are here to make a profit, sure, but they're doing something for the center city. They're not standing around complaining about it. Mistakes are bound to happen.

Downtown didn't die overnight, and it's rebirth isn't going to happen overnight.

HAGERSTOWN council member... almost if not all of his targets were in HAGERSTOWN and associated with the City of HAGERSTOWN in some way. He was a disgruntled former HAGERSTOWN City Policeman. Whatever happened to him while working in HAGERSTOWN and his beef with his former employer the city of HAGERSTOWN appeared to have set him off on his rampage.

So, although she wasn't a Council member at the time of the intitial letters and threats, would that mean had she been running for council from Williamsport it would be Williamsports fault?

Anyway, you know as well as I do, if anything happens in an area that is incorporated outiside the City it always becomes a Hagerstown issue.

You know it's funny, but had a former Mack Truck employee been charged with anything it would never say, "A former Mack Truck employee" as a headline for the newspaper. Much like when Steve Spalding was charged, it had to say, " A former City Councilman". Hell he hadn't been on the council in over 15 years.

McDonalds on the Dual at Cleavland Ave. got robbed one time, the papers headline was, "Downtown restaurant robbed".
I am glad they explained to me the area that they considered downtown.

Thank God we're not Detroit or New York State.

Ah, can you run for Council? Or I'd even vote for you for Mayor.

There is a big difference between a "former Mack Truck employee" and a police officer or elected officials. You're right, unless the former Mack Truck employee was the plant manager, it probably would not be mentioned. But a police office and an elected official are held to a different standard. As they should be.

Close. Incorporated or not, if anything bad happens anywhere within or even near Wash Co, chances are it was somehow Hagerstown's fault. That's just the voice of experience talking! Heheh of course I'm just jerking you around. Patton can answer for himself well enough.

No thanks Mr. Mayor, I've seen the stuff you have had to deal with.

Besides, I wouldn't want the headline to read...

Mayor Yossarian Charged with Assault

Mayor John Yossarian was charged with assault today during a city council meeting after grabbing Council Persons Penny Nigh and Parsons/McBean and shaking them violently.

When asked about the the incident, Mayor Yossarian stated, "I was just trying to shake some sense into their thick skulls."

The Mayor will not be tried, as the States Attorney ruled it justifiable.

LOL Maybe we will get lucky and they and the rest of our Council will get voted out. It would really be a good thing if the next election was a clean sweep right out the door for our current council.

OMG, Yoss said it all. And very eloquently at that. Summed up what I have often thought. Enjoyed the visual.
Tony makes a good point, get the broom and sweep away the lot........But that would mean coming up w/5 newbies.
Would that many souls come forward? I dunno. Could be time for another famous BUS trip.
Thank you Yoss & Tony.

That's beautiful.

Yoss.
My vote is on you ok. I'll be there. I'd help hold one for you, if need be. I can not for the life of me forget that My taxes paid for a Tax paid Cab for her. OOOPPSSS I slipped agian didn't I???????
And Mayor Bod you go for it. Because if I was in your shoes I'd start with the staff at hand. Then work on the State's attorney's office, then onto the city billing office. I'm furious with the fact that they can do what they can. AND NO IT'S NOT THAT I OWE THEM IT'S BECAUSE THEY OWE ME!!!!!!!!!! SEE I OVER PAID AND IT'S NOW 42 DAY'S LATER AND I'VE YET TO GET A REFUND. HEY KID GOT SOME INPUT ON THIS ?????????????? Think real clearly Kid before answering me ok. This goes back 3 year's ago when protecting your family ok. But it's all good I just threatened to blow the freakin meter off the house to get my light's turned off and out of my name. So that your family could not continue working on the house with electric in my name. Sorry and no I'm not mentioning any names so don't None of you PM me and ask cause I'm not saying ok. Our lawyer got it done. Kid However your welcome too I have the reciept's an I'll show them to the mayor ok. Not bad though it only took 33 day's to get the light's out of my name. But that's in the past and I'm all ok with it now,,,,,,,, I think.?

Kid is a County Commissioner, not a city councilman.... sort of...

Were you trying to watch the 'worksession' too? It was awful--The pointer--you can't see it on tv, so I was lost most of the time and then I could not tell if the two women were for or against the changes because they rambled so between the subject and object of each sentence..I finally turned it off to go to dinner..no wiser to anything.

Yeh, I love it when they use the pointers.

I just figure they aren't smart enough to realize that the pointers don't show up on tv.

Actually the pointers weren't for your benefit. We figured those watching tv knew where the areas were.

Oh, So it was for the ones that didn`t know where it was located? That figures. They are always lost.

You figured wrong. Find another way to point out locations like a good old-fashioned pointer!!

Chill Chief, it was a joke.
I like the old way. Like when Jason Divelbliss stood up and pointed out the boundary lines for the UGA and MRGA.
I was only kiddin.

BMIC

"employer the city of HAGERSTOWN appeared to have set him off on his rampage."

You hit the nail on the head - so bad that it caused an amazing human being to have the life sucked out of him and forced him to turn to something so desparate and out of character. All i will say is that the City of Hagerstown is not innocent by any means - they play a huge part, believe me.

Everybody needs someone to blame now days.

How about some personal responsibility.

NAWWWW. It's more fun to blame the big city folks in Hagerstown. Everyone knows all of society's biggest problems come from our overcrowded cities. People were just not meant to live like that...

“Sweep” a term they are all familiar with and an action they are quite talented doing.