From: Barbara Darneal

Mount Airy

Councilman Marc Nance says on his campaign brochure that he wantsto be re-elected on May 4.

This is strange, because he was never elected by a vote of the people of Mount Airy in the first place.

Because Marc Nance failed to receive a majority of council votes the first time (a majority is more than half the total), the polling of the council had to be repeated.

When the Mount Airy Citizens Coalition pointed out that the Town Charter required vacancies for the council to "be filled by the favorable votes of a majority of the remaining members," Marc Nance reacted peevishly: "It's aggravating. The only thing it did was throw a wrench into the works" (Carroll County Times, Nov. 2, 1989).

Incumbent Nance's campaign literature claims that he has a "record of doing things better for less, cutting waste, and improving the quality of life." He hopes the voters will believe this and trust him to represent their best interests for four more years.

On one hand, he appeals to the conservatives by telling them he reads books by Peter Grace, founder of the conservative think tank Citizens Against Government Waste.

And on the other hand, Nance courts liberal voters as well. He openly supports liberal Tom Hattery for Congress and launched an attack against Rep. Beverly Byron in a letter to the editor of the Frederick News Post on Dec. 28, 1991.

Helashed out at her "spending spree" and wrote: "Mrs. Byron and her accomplices spent money like drunken sailors." This may be good rhetoric for a politician seeking votes in a period of voter dissatisfactionbut it won't fool anyone who has been following Marc Nance since he entered politics.

As one citizen was heard to lament: "Where, oh, where was Marc Nance when we needed him?"

Voters in Mount Airy might consider it inconsistent if not disingenuous for Marc Nance to denounce Rep. Byron for her "spending spree" but never denounce ex-MayorBoyer for her spending spree.

On the contrary, Marc Nance praisedMs. Boyer's lavish appreciation dinners (two cost the taxpayers $6,517.20) and voted to increase her salary. He also publicly stated as late as January 1990 that he would support Ms. Boyer if she ran for re-election because she has done "a tremendous job for this town."

When Mount Airy Citizens Coalition issued its "Report Card" in April 1990 detailing how taxpayer money was wasted under the Boyer administration, it found no friend in Marc Nance. He was openly hostile to thecoalition.

To this date, he has never endorsed any of the effortsof this citizens' watchdog group, which gained much of its inspiration from Citizens Against Government Waste, whose cause Nance now espouses.

Nance is apparently against government waste on the nationallevel, but not on the local level. Inconsistent? Yes, and furthermore: "Where was Marc Nance when we needed him?"

Recently, Marc Nancehas become vigilant regarding bidding for town purchases by Mayor Johnson and other members of the council. However, a scrutiny of past events in which he was a ma

jor player should cause the voters to weigh his claims carefully and take them with a big dose of skepticism.

It is a matter of record that under the Boyer administration, one of Nance's first acts as department head of Streets and Roads was to recommend to the Town Council in October 1989 that the town spend the incredible sum of $56,977.25 for sidewalks on Prospect Road on thebasis of only one bid. That single bid was submitted by a company inMontgomery County that had been in business for about two years.

The sum of $60,000 had been earmarked in 1988-1989 for sidewalks on both North Main Street and Prospect Road. When the residents on North Main Street objected, the job was dropped while Ms. Snell was still in office.

However, when Nance took his seat on the council, he spent almost the entire $60,000 for Prospect Road alone. Is this how Marc Nance gives us more for less?

Councilman Nance undergirded Ms. Boyer in 1989 and moved that the council purchase computers from Microstar, a company we learned later was owned by Ms. Boyer's husband.

Later it was Marc Nance who moved that the council appoint the two ministers Ms. Boyer selected for her Ethics Commission after she was charged with an ethics violation. When she came under fire for the wayin which she selected the two ministers, Marc Nance defended her. Again: Where was Marc Nance when we needed him?

Marc Nance said he has taken a poll and "tested the waters" before deciding to run for council this time around. A fair question is: How did he go about "testing the waters" the first time he sought the council seat?

By having first to "test the waters," is Marc Nance cautious or calculating?By wooing voters of both persuasions, is he expedient or principled?Why did he find it necessary to wait until a consensus built around him before making his intentions known?

Oh, and by the way, if elected, will Marc Nance be there when the taxpayers need him?

The voters will make the decision for him on May 4.

NANCE DEFENDS HIMSELF

From: Marc Nance

Mount Airy

Just when it seemed that Mount Airy would get through one political season without negative campaigning, up steps Barbara Darneal.

Once again, Ms. Darneal has decided to run a campaign based not upon why voters should choose her candidate, but upon why they should vote against someone else.

I will not step into Ms. Darneal's mud bog to slosh it out with her. My record is clear, once we wash away Ms. Darneal's mud.

It should be obviousto even the casual reader that I am a moderate. In case Ms. Darneal has forgotten that this political group exists, I remind her that moderates such as myself stand in the void between liberals and conservatives and extend the hand of friendship to both.

My true record stands for itself. I feel the voters of Mount Airy are intelligent enough to make up their own minds on May 4.

POLICE EVOKE FLASHBACKS

From: Mark N. Wadel

Westminster

Why does this bother me?

The state police sitting in the median strip of Route 140 or on a nice straight county road, tucked in between a house and a barn on Uniontown Road, sitting there with field glasses watching vehicles approach from a distance.

I guess for me it's a flashback from when I worked near and sometimes behind the Iron Curtain in assisting refugees to escape to the West. All along the border, we were always under the ever-watchful eye of field glasses by the East German border patrol.

At times, if we had a pair of field glasses ourselves, we would look at them across the massive anti-tank barricades and flesh-ripping barbed wire fences at the different border guards and sometimes even across Check Point Charlie, staring eyeball to eyeball.

The differencebetween us and them was that they were always the bad guys armed with machine guns and would kill anyone that dared cross the no-man's-land zone into the west.

We, on the other hand, tried to extend to all the choice of freedom, to live in peace, prosperity and to have religious freedom.

I have many friends at the Maryland State Police Barracks G here in Westminster and I know that they are just doing their job. However, to me personally, it is an unfair, unreasonable practice that will certainly lower the image of the fine men and women who serve on the Maryland State Police force.

The hair on my neck still rises at the thought on the many times that I was under surveillance and in the cross-hairs of high-powered rifles.

My thought is to give the general public some freedom. They don't need to feel that"Big Brother" is always watching over their shoulder.

I love and enjoy my freedom. I take it very seriously. Let the criminal feel that he is under surveillance, not the general public.

I don't believe that the criminal we are looking for is the one that we discover going five to 10 miles over the (highly disputed) speed limit here in Maryland, on a straight country highway with no intersections and no houses.

There could not be too many Maryland State Police around ina Charles Therit murder case, but perhaps 240 too many when it comesto field glass surveillance.

Thanks for allowing me to share my flashbacks from days gone by and why I feel the way I do.

BREAST-FEEDING NATURAL

From: Jean Reichert

Regarding the father who wishes to ban "Jacob Have I Loved" because it mentions breast-feeding, I have the following questions and comments.

If he were driving on Route 27 and saw a calf suckling its mother in the pasture, would he hidehis children's eyes?

Does he shudder as a mother cat nurses her kittens?

Most of the world's human population owes the first year of its existence to being breast-fed by its mother. It's a natural process done by all mammals to nourish their infants.

Only he is making the mention of breast feeding dirty.

Furthermore, if eighth-grade students don't know what breasts are for, it's time they learn.

The school board and The Carroll County Sun should not even dignify this man's stupidity by addressing it.

WAS TALK OUT OF BOUNDS?

Editor's note: Former football player Herman Weaver recently gave several anti-drug talks with religious overtones to middle and high school students. School officials said they were unaware Weaver's talk wouldbe religious in nature and that he would attempt to proselytize the audience and hand out cards seeking to sign up students to receive religious material. Students had no choice; they had to attend the assembly. We have been asking readers whether they agree it was appropriate for a speaker at a mandatory assembly, whose sole topic was supposed to be about drugs, to inject religious material into that speech, and would it have been better for students to have been advised in advance and given the option of not attending? Here are some of their replies:

From: Robert McDowell

Sykesville

It was appropriate,and the students didn't need to be advised in advance.

The students hear God's name in vain all day long, so let them hear the goodness of God's name also.

I commend the speaker and the schools for this action and look forward to May 7, the national day of prayer.

All the social, moral and non-religious theories that we have been experimenting with through the '60s, '70s and '80s obviously were failures.

Teen pregnancy, illicit affairs, drug abuse, inner-city strife, lack of family values, etc., all point to the fact that without a strong moral foundation based on a belief in God, we are doomed.

Open the courts, the schools and the textbooks to real beliefs not based on some trendy, popular "rap trap," but century-old traditions, integrity and Christ-like example of the golden rule.

From: Dorothy Furney

Westminster

Very inappropriate. Against the law.

I agree with the statements made by Dan Bridgewater concerning the blatantdisregard for the law shown by the speaker, Herman Weaver.

Of course the mandatory assemblies (six of them) were in violation of student rights in public school and the superintendent of schools was extremely lax in his duties to uphold school law.

There is one thing that must be considered when all your tallies regarding this issue arecounted: This county has an enormous number of fundamentalist Christians living here. They believe that their religious beliefs are the only "true" ones and they are taught that they are bound to use whatever means are available in their efforts to convert everyone.

I know this to be true because I was connected with that sect at one time.

You will be inundated with responses from these churches because it is part of their converting zeal to make themselves heard. Be aware of this huge drive on those churches' parts when you tally your results.

From: Steve Cohen

Eldersburg

I strongly object to whatHerman Weaver did.

It was wrong for him and his backers to use the public schools to promote his religious views. I am appalled that some Christians believe that what he did was all right because he toldthe "truth" about his experience and worthwhile because it might have helped some troubled children.

I wonder how many Christians would have approved if Herman Weaver had promoted some other religious views.

Believe it or not, many people are saved from a troubled lifeby religions other than Christianity and even by cults, such as Scientology.

I wonder how many Christians would have liked it if Kirstie Alley, the star of Cheers and a former drug user, had lectured public school children on the benefits of Scientology and had invited children to write to her for more information.

Kirstie Alley is certainly a more recognizable celebrity and potentially a more influential speaker than the relatively unknown Herman Weaver.

There is a reason for separation of church and state. It's to protect all of us.