Action Agency

Anne Arundel's Community Action Agency has appointed a long-time employee to act as its chief executive officer until a new chief can be found.Edith M. Knight, the agency's deputy chief executive officer, was named yesterday to fill the position left vacant by Dallas Evans, who resigned Oct. 1.Ms. Knight, a lifelong resident of Anne Arundel, has worked for the agency for 19 years. Eleanor Harris, president of the agency's board of directors, said Ms. Knight will act as CEO until a search for a new administrator is completed.

Dallas Evans, chief executive officer of the Anne Arundel County Economic Opportunity Committee Inc., is under fire from some members of his board of directors who want to oust him.The committee, also known as the Community Action Agency, oversees a budget of about $3.5 million in public and private funds and a staff of more than 100 who manage the county's Head Start and Senior Aide programs and several smaller ones.Eleanor Harris, the president, said she hoped to call a board meeting today or Monday to discuss the situation, but would not comment further.

Adrian Johnson and Damien Moulden sat side-by-side on the top stoop of a ramshackle house yesterday and savored their freedom.It was the first day of summer vacation, hot and breezy, perfect weather for a little one-on-one basketball or a long bike ride. The possibilities stretched before them, seeming limitless, as they began making plans.They quickly decided to spend hot afternoons at the pool, play basketball every day and fix up the club house. They're also going to eat lots of ice cream, march 10 miles in an AIDS walknext Saturday and learn how to sail.

Two months before their wedding, Rita Nurmi and Brian Kay got the present of their dreams -- the keys to a modern two-story town house inAnnapolis.With excited smiles, they rushed into their new home and went from room to room, admiring the freshly painted cream-coloredwalls, the well-equipped kitchen and the muddy back yard.They talked eagerly about their plans to fill the empty rooms with furniture. Kay, a sous chef at the Treaty of Paris restaurant in downtown Annapolis, inspected the kitchen with an eye toward cooking romantic dinners after his April 5 marriage to Nurmi.

Delese Spriggs used to daydream about having a home of her own. But even after cutting out luxuries and living with her father to save money, she couldn't afford a house in Annapolis.Yesterday, the 31-year-old secretary stood on a driveway and pointed to the place where her dreams came true."It's perfect," she said, gesturing at a gray-shingled house withbright green shutters. "It's a good price, a good opportunity, a good neighborhood and a good interest rate."Spriggs is moving into one of five homes built by the city in an attempt to ease its shortageof low-cost housing for first-time buyers.

In Annapolis, where housing prices have soared until even the simplest places often cost $200,000, a non-profit community agency is offering 35 affordable town houses to first-time buyers.The Community Action Agency yesterday hammered out the last details in its long-awaited plan to develop an affordable town-house community near Bywater Road and Greenbriar Lane."This is an incredible opportunity for first-time home buyers," said Donald F. Wallace, the agency's deputy director of housing and community development.

It's a resume of sorts scribbled on a paper scrap -- a matchbook summary of a life of service. Gladys Bellows prepared it, and it reads like the lyric of a Frank Sinatra tune."

Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley (R-2nd) has named Charles Cresswell to serve as her district representative. His new duties include overseeing the Congresswoman's three district offices and representingher locally when she is in Washington, D.C.Cresswell is presently the Executive Director of the Maryland Association of Community Action Agencies, a position he has held for four years. Prior to that hespent six years as the Executive Director of the Human Resources Development Agency, Baltimore County's Community Action Agency.

Human Services Programs Inc., the private agency that runs most of Carroll's shelters and emergency assistance, won approval from the County Commissioners yesterday to become a "community action agency."That designation was started by former President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s during his "War on Poverty."Community action agencies formed in other parts of the state and country in the 1960s, but never in Carroll. Human Services needed the commissioners' OK and now awaits state approval.

The city of Annapolis and the Community Action Agency broke ground yesterday on a five-home affordable housing project on Gross Avenue.About 30 city, federal, state and Community Action Agency officials were on hand for the ceremony. Construction will begin today.The premanufactured single-family homes will sell for about $60,000 each to qualified buyers, who will be able to take advantage of low-interest mortgages from the state.The city bought the land for the project last year with $100,000 of federal Community Development Block Grant money.