The Silver Spring Penguin

Between the NCAA basketball brackets and St Patrick’s Day, there’s no telling which story The Penguin newsroom is working. However, given the staff’s fuzzy history with gambling and excessive drinking, the public is guaranteed thorough coverage of both topics, as well as this stuff:

Monday

10:00 a.m. MoCo exec Ike Leggett drops his 2009 operating budget on the county council. The show hits Rockville, or you can catch it as streaming online video and on County Cable 6.

12:00 p.m. Penguin editor Jennifer Deseo covers the St Patrick’s Day scene from The Quarry House Tavern (8401 Georgia Ave). At 1:00 p.m., the party moves to McGinty’s Public House (911 Ellsworth Dr). Come one, come all!

7:00 p.m. Silver Spring’s neighborhoods committee talks hood matters at the Silver Spring Regional Center (8435 Georgia Ave). It’s free. It’s open to the public. Go.

Tuesday

11:30 a.m. The full county council decides whether to foot $1.2 million for stakeholder powwows leading to development of the Silver Place mixed-use project. The show hits Rockville and is open to the public.

7:00 p.m. Members of the YMCA youth and family services staff lead a workshop on how parents and kids can deal with bullies, social exclusion, teasing and rumors. This free event rocks the Silver Spring Public Library (8901 Colesville Rd); call (301) 229-1347 or email parenting@ymcadc.org to register.

7:00 p.m. The county holds a public meeting on proposed improvements to Seminary Road. The free yap goes down at the Woodlin Elementary School (2101 Luzerne Ave) and is open to the public.

7:30 p.m. Silver Spring’s Friends of the Library skim through two novels by Pat Conroy: “The Great Santini” and “My Losing Season”. This free event takes place at the Silver Spring Public Library (8901 Colesville Rd) and is open to the public.

Wednesday

7:30 p.m. Silver Spring’s commercial and economic development committee talk about, well, commercial and economic development. It goes down at the Silver Spring Regional Center (8435 Georgia Ave) and is open to the public.

Thursday

9:00 a.m. The county’s planning board considers cosmetic changes to public space at the Silver Spring Gateway residential project. The rap hits planning board HQ (8787 Georgia Ave) and is open to the public.

3:30 p.m. Silver Spring’s urban-district advisory committee discuss what’s going on in the central business district at Discovery Communications (1 Discovery Pl). This event is free, open to the public and beats breaking into the building just to get a peek.

4:00 p.m. The county’s planning board mulls over the fate of Silver Spring’s Perpetual Building, and whether it should be designated an historic building. The board chews the fat over this one at its headquarters (8787 Georgia Ave) and is open to the public.

Photo: Fans cheer the American University men’s basketball team. AU is among a handful of local schools to send a team to the big dance. They don’t stand a chance. Courtesy of Flickr user Propatria4.

Updated Mar 17, 2008, at 10:00 a.m.