Fixing Dunham’s Jog
The dangerous area of Falls Road known as Dunham’s jog may soon be corrected.
“It’s back on the front burner,” said Del. Jean Cryor (R-15). Cryor and Sec. Jean Roesser (formerly the senator from district 15) had worked on the area extensively.
Dunham’s Jog is on the southbound side of Falls Road, just north of the intersection with River Road. The lanes abruptly shift to the right, and drivers unfamiliar with the intersection could be forced to cut across traffic between Cherner’s Automotive and Mitch and Bill’s Exxon.
Cryor is planning to meet with state officials in the next two weeks to discuss moving the project along. “It’s now at the last stages,” Cryor said. “Everything is set for it to happen.”
Adding to a New Name
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc., a national investment bank headquartered in the D.C. area, announced this past Monday that it will be the 2003 title sponsor of the FBR Capital Open tournament, formerly known as the Kemper Insurance Open. The tournament is the only Professional Golf Association Tour stop in the Washington D.C. area.
The agreement between FBR, the PGA Tour and Kemper Sports, a Chicago-based marketing and golf management company that operates the tournament, is one-year in length and discussions to extend the sponsorship are currently taking place.
The FBR Capital Open at Avenel returns to Potomac on June 2-8. The pro tournament takes place from Thursday, June 5 - Sunday, June 8 and many pre-tournament activities take place the three days before the tournament.
Since coming to the Washington area 24 years ago, the tournament has distributed more than $7 million to more than 150 local and national charities.
Golfers already committed to this year's tournament include Phil Mickelson, who is currently ranked No. 4 in the world, Takoma Park native Fred Funk, 1999 champion Rich Beem, John Daly, Chris DiMarco, Jose Maria Olazabal, Scott Hoch, Australia's Peter Lonard, Nick Price, Hank Kuehne, Aaron Baddeley, and defending champion Bob Estes. Daly has played the Avenel tournament 11 times.
The winner of this year's tournament will receive $810,000. This year's tournament purse is a record-high $4.5 million.
The tournament spent seven years at Congressional Country Club, from 1980-1986, before moving to Avenel on Oaklyn Drive in 1987.
For information, including ticket sales, call the tournament office at 301-469-3737, TicketMaster at 202-432-SEAT, visit Ticketmaster's website at www.ticketmaster.com, or go to the tournament's website at www.capitalopen.pgatour.com
Security Funding
Maryland has received more than $10 million in federal homeland security funding and $361,754 of that will be passed along to Montgomery County.
The money is part of the federal appropriations bill passed in February. The funding awarded to each state was determined by the U.S. Department of Justice. Each state was obligated to pass 80 percent of the money along to local jurisdictions and was responsible for developing their own formula for that distribution.
The City of Baltimore received the most money, $906,174, and Garret County the least, $36,419.
Residential Burglary
Between 10:36 p.m. on May 2 and 2:50 a.m. on May 3, a house on the 7400 block of Nevis Road in Bethesda was broken into. A sliding glass door was pried open and jewelry, a jewelry box and metro passes were taken.
Maps and More
Want to report a streetlight outage? Do that and more at a little-known portion of the county website. A wide array of free and fee maps are available through the county’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Look at school boundary lines, trash and recycling pick-up days, election districts at every level of government and a lot more for free. For a fee ranging from $50 and up a host of maps are available at varying levels of detail.
Also available are aerial photos corrected for distortion of anyplace in the county, some ranging back to the 1950s. Visit gis.montgomerycountymd.gov
Commencement Speakers
Potomac area high schools have attracted some big names to give commencement addresses.
Churchill – June 3, 2:30 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall – Hon. Celia Sandys, author, lecturer, and granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill.
Whitman – June 4, 2:30 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall – Thomas l. Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize.
Wootton – June 11, 2:30 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall – Susan O’Malley, president of Washington Sports and Entertainment.