Taxes, taxes, taxes. When looking at local government, it's often the question most asked by residents: will my taxes increase?

Sept. 11, 2001 began with a local primary election. It ended with a nation mourning a tragedy.

For three weeks in the fall of 2002, people in Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland were terrorized by what seemed like random shootings.

The local sports community reeled in 2003 after the tragic death of a star athlete that was partly responsible for building a Maryland high school football dynasty.

The infamous black book scandal that plagued the city of Frederick starting in 1999, finally mostly came to close in 2004 but not without a few more interesting episodes.

The story of Carroll Creek Park is a long, complicated and expensive one. After decades of planning and development, the first portion of the park finally opened on June 21, 2006. 

Plans for a Muslim retreat in Walkersville were hotly debated throughout a large chunk of 2007.

Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick and a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, took his own life in July 2008.

Even Frederick County’s historically resilient economy was not immune to the economic downturn that began in 2008 and carried over for much of the next five years.

The most talked about news event in 2010 happened just about a month in.

Frederick County drew national attention in 2011 when Urbana High School teacher Michelle Shearer was selected as National Teacher of the Year by the Council of Chief State School Officers.