SNOW HILL – Attorneys for accused West Ocean City murderer Gregory William Stokes last week entered a motion for a change of venue, which could move the high-profile trial to another part of the state.Stokes is charged with the shooting death of Pamela Balk in her parents’ West Ocean City home on January 11. His… Read more »

ANNAPOLIS – The on-again, off-again bill that would prohibit hydraulic dredging for clams and oysters in the Atlantic coastal bays this week finally emerged from one the most contentious debates in recent memory and now appears to be close to being enacted into law after an last minute amendment pushed back the effective date one… Read more »

OCEAN CITY – An Ocean City man was arrested late Wednesday night after the truck he was driving struck a house which caught fire after the collision.Jay Benedict, 36, was driving his truck eastbound on the Route 50 Bridge at a high rate of speed. At the base of the bridge, he lost control, traveling… Read more »

BERLIN – The local medical community and the entire lower shore lost a giant recently when Dr. Andrew Forgash, a pioneer in the effort to establish Atlantic General Hospital (AGH), died unexpectedly from a cardiac condition on March 15 at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury.Forgash, 67, died in the hospital where he served as… Read more »

OCEAN CITY – It has been two weeks since Ocean City’s newest retail shop, SexStyle, opened up its doors and began doing business in the Bayside Shopping Plaza on 137th Street and city officials are still looking at ways to regulate the current business and any others that may try to come to the resort.SexStyle,… Read more »

OCEAN CITY – Just two weeks after Councilman Jim Hall made a request to set aside some time in an upcoming work session to discuss the idea of mandating the use of carbon monoxide detectors in all single-family homes in the resort, the code was added to the books and unanimously approved at the council’s… Read more »

BERLIN – The town of Berlin has racked up nearly $300,000 in expenses on the electric utility sale.That amount will be higher when the contracts are signed. Negotiations are still incomplete, and the above figure includes only the amount of deferred legal fees to Thompson Coburn available through January. Berlin has paid $34,266 to Thompson… Read more »

OCEAN CITY – Over two months have passed since the Planning and Zoning Commission decided to re-advertise a public hearing concerning comprehensive rezoning and amendments to zoning regulations for properties zoned R-2 and R-3a.That meeting finally came to be Tuesday night and after a brief hearing commissioners discussed the issues regarding height restrictions in those… Read more »

NEWARK – The Worcester County Board of Education on Tuesday night unanimously adopted the school system’s proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2008, which comes to around $87.3 million when all sources of revenue are added in, and will submit the document to the County Commissioners for approval next month.The total proposed budget of $87.3… Read more »

SNOW HILL – Water quality in the coastal bays is getting worse, not better, reported Dave Goshorn of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Dave Blazer of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (MCBP) to the Worcester County Commissioners Tuesday.“We have a lot of red flags going off,” said Dave Blazer, director of MCBP.Monthly… Read more »