Effective Tuesday, September 14, 2021, the City of Cumberland will be reinstituting mask and social distancing requirements within City Hall. The public will be allowed into City Hall from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the purpose of making payments with the Tax and Utility Department or conducting business with the Community Development Department. All visitors, regardless of vaccination status, will be required to wear face masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines while inside the building. No more than four visitors are permitted in the rotunda at any one time. Admittance to other offices will be accommodated by appointment…

Allegany County continues to have one of the highest COVID-19 case rates and one of the lowest COVID vaccination rates in the state of Maryland. Health officials urge the unvaccinated to get a COVID vaccine as soon as possible. According to the CDC, unvaccinated individuals are 11 times more likely to die from COVID. To combat misinformation on social platforms, the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) has launched a Twitter feed to combat COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation and ensure that Marylanders have accurate information about life-saving vaccines, the importance of testing, and other COVID-19-related facts.  The feed, @GoVAXMaryland, will also…

UPMC Western Maryland has received five American Heart Association awards for implementing quality improvement measures that ensure cardiovascular and stroke patients receive the most efficient and coordinated treatment, ultimately leading to more lives saved. For the second year in a row, recognized with: Get With the Guidelines® – Stroke Gold Plus Achievement award. Mission: Lifeline®- NSTEMI Gold Award. Upgraded to Gold Plus status in the Mission: Lifeline® – STEMI Receiving Center – Achievement Award category, having earned Gold in 2020. And earned special Target Awards: Stroke Honor Roll. Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll UPMC Western Maryland earned the awards by…

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of September 13, 2021, there have been 3,597,992 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 211,706 total cases and 3,238 deaths. DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 77-year old male from Putnam County, a 26-year old female from Fayette County, a 44-year old male from Wood County, an 83-year old female from Boone County, a 75-year old male from Wood County, a 72-year old female from Jefferson County, a 94-year old female from Harrison County, a 52-year old male from Raleigh County, a 72-year old male from Kanawha…

On Sunday, September 12th, 2021 the Cumberland Police Department responded to a Springdale Street business for the report of possible abduction.  The caller believed that one of his employees may have been abducted by her boyfriend.  Officers spoke with the manager who advised that Dustin Michael Driver entered the establishment, caused a disturbance and demanded that his employee leave with him.  The manager told Driver that she could not leave at that time because of the store was busy with customers but, Driver told him he didn’t care and became even more irate.  The female then left with Driver in…

A two-year Baltimore City school system investigation has found that administrators at one city high school schemed to inflate enrollment, pressured teachers to change grades and scheduled students into classes that didn’t exist. Maryland’s Lt Governor Boyd Rutherford said that unfortunately incidents of undeserving students being promoted to the next grade level is not unique to Baltimore- as there have been cases reported system wide through the years. Rutherford said there will obviously be repercussions resulting from this latest incident- and the hope it that it resonates with every school system in Maryland…

In his final meeting as a council member last week, Seth Bernard moved to tackle the issue of salaries for the city’s elected officials. He noted that the last time the compensation for the mayor and council members was increased was 1981. He requested a vote be taken to order the city’s salary and benefits commission to study the compensation for the elected officials. Council members make $4,800 and the mayor $7,200 annually. Bernard suggested a compensation hike could help attract a younger, more diverse and  more qualified field of candidates. The council voted unanimously to the Citizens Advisory Commission…

Despite COVID-19 cases surging, schools closing and outbreaks across the state- West Virginia Governor Jim Justice is continuing to reject requests for another indoor mask mandate. An earlier mandate was lifted in June. When a reporter asked Justice if his refusal to move in that direction is due to fear of potential political backlash- the governor quickly dismissed that narrative…

Review processes from state and federal highway administrations are ongoing for the  $9.7 million Baltimore Street Redevelopment Project.  Matt Miller, executive director of Cumberland Economic Development Corp, gave an update on the project at a meeting of the Downtown Development Commission Thursday. The redevelopment project is expected to include replacement of underground utility lines followed by reinstalling Baltimore Street through the pedestrian mall. City officials had hoped the project would get underway in the fall, however the reviews will likely place the breaking of ground into spring of 2022. While numerous delays over the past several years have many in…

On the morning after DelFest organizers announced that this year’s festival has been canceled- they joined WCBC’s “Dave Norman Show” to discuss the decision and where the event goes from here. On Thursday afternoon,  the organizations facebook page posted a letter to fans from the family explaining that the decision was due to a local labor shortage caused by a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant that has left the festival’s event services company unable to field a team for DelFest.  Rob McCoury said that every effort was made to put on this year’s festival, but in the…