Budget Tweaks, a Bill Retreats and Patch in a Creek

Good Monday evening, Rockville! Hope you're enjoying your preview of summer.

The National Weather Service forecast is calling for cooler temperatures and rain for the next couple of days, followed by sunshine and some beautiful spring weather on Thursday and Friday.

Budgets—city, county, state and federal—dominated .

Federal workers went back to work after all today, but the budget is still a big item on the agenda at all levels of government this week as the Rockville City Council goes to work on its spending plan at 7 tonight and the Maryland General Assembly wraps things up when they call "Sine Die" at midnight.

All that and more in this dinner hour edition of "The Rundown":

• A work session on the fiscal 2012 operating and capital budgets highlights tonight's agenda for the City Council. Tonight's work session focuses on the budgets for the offices of the council, the city manager and the city attorney and the departments of human resources, finances, information technology and police. The council also will hold budget work sessions at the its meetings on April 25 and May 2. There will be no council meeting on April 18, in observance of the first night of Passover. A final public hearing on the budget will be held on May 9. Final adoption of the budget is scheduled for May 23.
• A local bill that would have given the county government the exclusive authority to issue permits and enforce regulations related to school construction has been withdrawn from consideration by the state legislature for this year. City officials worried that the bill, introduced following an acrimonious power struggle between county school planners and the City of Rockville over new portables at , would have. The legislative anvil hung precariously over Rockville for 88 or the 90 days of this year's General Assembly before being withdrawn on Saturday after languishing in the county delegation's Land Use and Transportation Committee for more than a month.
• While the anvil didn't drop in Annapolis, the gavel will fall on the 2011 General Assembly tonight. At the stroke of midnight all legislation that has yet to pass both chambers turns into pumpkins (or "summer studies" or early files for 2012). Follow the race to beat the clock with live audio on the assembly's Web site. Maryland Public Television will also have a wrap-up of the session with "Ask the Governor," a live call-in program with Gov. Martin O'Malley at 7:30 tonight.
• Sad news from our neighbors to the north today. , the landmark restaurant known for its catalog-like menu of sandwich offerings . The local institution opened in what is now Town Center in Rockville in 1955 before moving to Olde Towne Gaithersburg in 1971. Roy Passin, the restaurant's namesake, died two years ago. I once had the treat of interviewing Roy and found him to be as gregarious and entertaining as regulars of his restaurant knew him to be and as generous with his time as his sandwich creations were with the many ingredients that went between the slices of bread.
• The opening of the District Courthouse in Town Center has been pushed back to June, Sean Patrick Norris reports in The Gazette. While Norris reports that court employees will have to wait to move into their fancy new digs, the good news for their neighbors at Rockville City Hall is that architects say they have found a remedy for the "Death Ray" reflection from the courthouse's south facade of windows that has charred bushes in front of city headquarters and forced city employees to draw their blinds.
• Rockville Patch reader Amy Estersohn sent us a report from Saturday's Splash! at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which gave high school students—including some from Rockville—the opportunity to take innovative, interactive courses taught by University of Maryland students. Andreina Delgado and Anthony On, who live in Rockville and are freshmen at , attended a class that introduced students to non-traditional board games and discussed how board games are developed and published. Delgado and On are pictured in the photo accompanying today's "Rundown" playing the board game "Bang!"
• Patch was out and about performing community service across the county on Saturday, including staffing a Manna Food Center tent at the Sugarloaf Craft Festival at the county fairgrounds in Gaithersburg. (Thanks to the many who donated food or cash.) In the morning, Patch editors fanned out along Beach Drive to pick up trash in and along Rock Creek. New Chevy Chase Patch editor Laura L. Thornton has from Rock Creek. Check out the good-lookin' guy in the Penn State stocking cap and one of this treasured finds of the day—one of about six tennis balls. There must be some sad puppies that play along that trail.
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