Talkin' Rails, Medical Errors and Benefits for Waggin' Tails

Good Monday morning, Rockville. Time for another work week. Let's try to make it a productive one, even with daylight savings knocking us all for a loop and with the NCAA tournament beginning earlier than usual this year.

If you believe the annual fire-and-brimstone studies, the ever-expanding 64- to 65- to 68-team tournament is threatening to swallow all productivity of the American worker—or at least a larger drop in the bucket, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Nevertheless, who might be checking out for a time on Thursday afternoon (We are!). Note to Patch powers-that-be, my Blackberry and laptop will be by my side, I swear.

Focus ... focus ... focus. OK. Let's get it started with a pre-March Madness edition of "The Rundown":

• The Rockville City Council has a full plate tonight, beginning with dinner for two (councils). The city councils of Rockville and Gaithersburg will join forces to talk Metro at 6 p.m. on Monday at . David Robertson, executive director for Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, will present "Moving Metro Forward." The report, by the Joint Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Governance Review Task Force (a committee with a name longer than a climb up the Wheaton Metro Station's escalator) recommends changes to the transit agency's governance.
• The agenda of the Rockville City Council's regularly scheduled meeting includes discussing city staff's recommendation of a nearly $3.5 million increase to the city's operating budget and a $295,000 increase to the city's capital budget for the current fiscal year. The operating budget increase would include a $961,000 increase to the city's general fund to reflect $31,000 in new grants for city police overtime and $930,000 in increased revenues that would to toward  the Rockville Women's Business Center ($7,000), snow and ice removal operations ($108,000), bond counsel and rating agencies for the 2010-2011 bond issues ($100,000) and for renovations to the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center Outdoor Bathhouse ($715,000). The capital budget increase includes $230,000 for the stormwater management fund.
• The Universities at Shady Grove and the Rockville Institute kick off the at 4 p.m. today. The series's first topic: “Medical Errors and Patient Safety—What Do We Know and What’s Being Done?”
• Wondering what's for dinner tonight? How 'bout what's for dinner on March 29? Gotcha, right? Well, if your date book is open, why not think about ? Twenty percent of all sales at will go to help control the pet popular and have a cat spayed or neutered. Bob will thank you.
• While we're on the subject of food, about , which is gaining fans from the space of the former Houston's on Rockville Pike. Our friends at Rockville Central brought to our attention this recent write-up in local foodie blog "Lunching in the DMV" (that's how the cool kids refer to the metropolitan area—the District, Maryland and Virginia—these days).
• The county will recognize Vietnam veterans with the county's Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Second Annual Reunion from 6 to 9 p.m. on March 30 at the at the Silver Spring Civic Building. The reunion will include a reception for veterans, a panel discussion on "Vietnam and the Vietnam War: Then and Now" and a conversation with County Executive Isiah Leggett, a Vietnam War veteran, about his 2009 return to Vietnam.
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