Features: Talk of Takoma • Howard Kohn

September, 2006

A bureaucratic chainsaw, a sad crime, a perfect smile

A magical swing in a tree vs. the rules

One day about three years ago someone tied two ropes to a high limb in an old elm near the waters of Long Branch and put a board between the ropes to make a swing.   "The spot is by a bridge and a picnic table, a lovely spot to stop and sit, almost private in its locale and feel," says Betsy Broughton, who lives nearby.

Sometime later Betsy noticed the board had been cut off and the ropes left dangling.   Within a few days, though, a thicker board was in the same place with a more elaborate connection to the ropes. At intervals this sequence kept repeating: the disappearance and reappearance of the swing, each time with sturdier construction.

For the past year the swing has been a triple-seater.   Very early on August 22 Betsy heard the sound of a chainsaw. Employees of the Montgomery County parks department were advancing on the tree. Within minutes the limb holding the swing fell to earth, cut flush to the trunk.

In the parlance of the park service the swing is an "attractive nuisance," an invitation to an accident and a lawsuit. "It's purely a question of liability," one of the tree-cutters explained to a neighbor who tried to get them to stop.

Betsy was furious: "Is this really how things go now? The people in power can't stand anyone to step outside the lines?"

Bill Rock, who looks out on the tree from his house, says that several folks who live along the parkway go out of their way to make the park more enjoyable. "They mow weeds in the playground and mulch saplings and pick up litter," he says. "And they love the swing."  

He expects to see it reappear. "That's the rumor I've heard," he says. "The swing will be back up on a new limb, maybe in a new tree, but soon."

An arson spree in B. F. Gilbert: "unusual, weird and sad"

On the night of August 13, while some in town slept with one eye open, two Takoma Park 16-year-olds were out to burn other people's cars to tar and ash and to scorch lives, their own.

Twenty-four hours earlier the boys had set on fire two cars in the B. F. Gilbert neighborhood.   A Molotov cocktail thrown under a parked car is an initiating act for some gangs in Montgomery County, and perhaps these boys got their idea from such talk at school, but, on the basis of the evidence, they were neither members of a gang nor experienced at arson.

In the case of at least six vehicles they unscrewed gas-tank caps and stuffed paper or rags down the openings and struck matches only to have the flames flash and die back. Of course the opposite might have happened. They might have set off an explosion in their faces.

They had moved from Beech to Sycamore to Elm to Hickory and Fourth with no apparent regard for stealth. On this second night the neighborhood was haunted by the recklessness of the previous night.   People in their houses were alert to noises outside, and the Takoma Park police were on watch.

About four in the morning, while waiting on a tow truck for an abandoned car at Beech and Sycamore, Officer Eric Mueller heard a man yelling out the window of his house and saw another car on fire.   Sgt. Rick Bowers, also in the vicinity, chased after the teenagers and caught one.   The second one, in the company of his mom and dad, turned himself in for arrest at the police station the next day. (It is possible a third teenager from Silver Spring was also involved.)

The two boys live in Takoma Park, but, as juveniles, their identities are not part of the public record. Nor have they, in the light of discovery, sought to make a name for themselves among friends. As far as can be determined, they have been too ashamed to say anything.

  One of the ruined cars belonged to Linda Stern, a Takoma Foundation board member, and her husband, writer Ken Norkin.   "It seems like an unusual, weird and sad crime," Linda says.   "I hate to think of any of our kids being so disaffected, and I keep wondering if there is a way to turn this into some kind of 'teachable moment.'"

Takoma's million-dollar dentist gets her picture on magazine cover

Dr. Lynn Locklear realigns faces with high-tech dentistry in an early-century Old Takoma house that smells of candles, cookies and paraffin, and because she brought in the sweet sum of $1.2 million last year in her solo practice Black Enterprise named her "Business Innovator of the Year" and put her on the August cover of the magazine.

Dr. Locklear, who is 43, and a Takoma Park soccer mom, is described as "the most beautiful dentist in America" in a follow-up item in the Washington Post. Certainly she has a perfect smile that is the essence of her business.

When upper teeth do not fit well with lower teeth, facial muscles react badly. The symptoms can be a rigid jaw-line, teeth grinding, migraines, back pain or all of the above.   Dr. Locklear specializes in making uptight muscles feel more comfortable through a low-grade electric stimulus.   Along with a buzzing sensation on their cheeks, patients get chocolate chip cookies, paraffin hand-dips and naps between treatments in a house on Cedar Avenue that used to be a traditional dental office but is now what she calls a "spa."

As for being a cover girl, she says, "I am on a mission to educate people about the wonders of neuromuscular dentistry so I appreciate the spotlight. It's been an amazing, awesome experience."   Her website is www.lifeenhancingdentistry.com.

Maple Avenue tenants to party down on September 16

Although tenants along the Maple Avenue apartment corridor couldn't get permission to barricade off a section of their street   (it's an emergency route), that hasn't stopped them from organizing a meet-your-neighbor street fair. It will take place in the parking lot at 7777 Maple Avenue from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, September 16.

In years past there were occasional block parties along Maple Avenue, but this is the most ambitious attempt anyone can remember to get folks out of their apart ments and onto the street. For incentives there will be Smokie D's home cooking, Island music, local crafts at likable prices, Mike Tabor's organic vegetables and more food and music.

City Council member Terry Seamens, who represents the Maple Avenue tenants, talked up the idea earlier this year, but he says, "A large group of residents took the ball and really ran with it. They are making this happen."

They have chosen a name for their group --Takoma Park Community Action Group -- and they are already planning to move beyond the party into more serious endeavors such as hooking up unemployed tenants with job training.

Next county executive promises better deal on double taxation

Mayor Kathy Porter and Bruce Moyer, a   primary author of a 92-page report on double taxation, pulled together a group of local activists to sit down in separate August face-offs with the two leading candidates for Montgomery County Executive and got them to promise on the record that they would give the City a bigger rebate on policing and other services we pay for twice -- in local taxes and again in county taxes.  

The two candidates, Ike Leggett and Steve Silverman, each got an hour's worth   of wrangling about rebate formulas from a group that included City Council members Bruce Williams and Colleen Clay, plus two other authors of the report, Bruce Baker and John Conger, and the mayor's rival in last year's election, Seth Grimes.

Leggett and Silverman, one of whom is certain to be the next executive, were then asked to answer in writing whether they would "advocate for" changes in the formula that could result in kicking back $1 million or more annually in local taxes to the City.  

On the two main points - adding overhead and capital costs to the formula, and expanding the formula to cover street maintenance, recreation programs and housing services in addition to policing - Leggett and Silverman each answered "yes."

There were only two differences in their answers. Leggett is in favor of changing the state law to allow for outside intervention in disputes over rebates while Silverman is only "open" to the idea.   However, Silverman is willing to move quickly to start revising the formula, as early as next month, to give the City a chance for more money in next year's budget. Leggett would delay by a few months, probably putting off changes until the following year's budget.

Takoma cop stops a sex crime

The car parked next to a Maple Avenue apartment two hours before dawn of August 1 had Virginia plates, and the woman kissing and hugging an older man in the backseat looked very young.

Takoma Park Sgt. Mark Hammond, with veteran instincts about the streets, decided to make them his business.   At first the young woman claimed to be a consenting adult, but when taken to the station she admitted she was a 15-year-old girl from Bowie.   Under more questioning by Sgt. Richard Poole she also confessed to working as a prostitute.

She said she had been talked into it by a bus driver she met when he started helping the football team at her Bowie high school.   The bus driver and another man, an officer with the U.S. Capitol Police, were arrested as pimps and charged with child sexual abuse.

The man in the car with the girl was charged with pandering and a fourth degree sex violation.

City loses arborist who saved trees, though not all of them

Brett Linkletter, who in five years as the City arborist was often caught in the middle between people who wanted to cut down trees and people who objected, has moved on to a less stressful job as Montgomery County's project manager for tree maintenance.

Despite a judicious manner, Brett often took flack for his decisions.   Still he lasted about twice as long here as the City's three previous arborists, and he had only generous parting words: "Takoma Park is full of people who care passionately about trees, and I admire that spirit."  

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