From Laurel Chickens to Big Government, Who Flew (or Almost Flew) the Coop this Week? Government Stories that Matter in Your Area

Patch takes seriously the journalists’ credo to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Read all about what your elected leaders are doing in the community, and how it affects you, in the Week in Regional Government.


The president of the Carroll County Board of Commissioners says residents need to know the whole story behind a proposed property tax cut and the education budget. Go to Westminster Patch to get it, and check out what your neighbors think with the video You Said It! Responses to Proposed Education Funding Cuts, also on Westminster Patch.


The group’s goal for self sustainability fits a national trend of relying more on locally grown and produced food, but in Laurel, council members still can remember farm animals roaming Main Street, something some say they don't want to relive. To read what is ruffling everyone’s feathers, be sure to visit Laurel Patch.


A shuttered federal government would have hit Maryland particularly hard because it is home to more than 130,000 non-military federal employees—the largest contingent of workers in the state. To learn what else was at stake, read the story on Arbutus Patch and see the accompanying installment of , thanks to Owings Mills Patch.

Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman says he wants an explanation from Howard County about the contamination he sees in Little Patuxent River. But officials at the Howard County Department of Public Works see it differently. Watch the video posted, courtesy of Savage-Guilford Patch.