Advisory Board

Constance D. Bendann, a lifelong Baltimorean and volunteer, died in her sleep Friday at College Manor nursing home in Lutherville. She was 94. Constance David Bendann was born in Baltimore and raised off Eutaw Place on Brooks Lane. Her father, Maurice Bendann, was a principal in Bendann Brothers, now Bendann Art Galleries, and her mother, Violet, was a homemaker. "She spoke fondly of the neighborhood when growing up there," said a cousin, Lance Bendann of Homeland, who now owns and operates Bendann Galleries.

Patricia Sonquist Lane, a volunteer environmentalist who tested water quality in Baltimore's parks and stream valleys, died of cancer May 1 at the Charlestown retirement community. The former Mount Washington resident was 79. Born Patricia Sonquist in Dayton, Iowa, she met her future husband, Dr. M. Daniel Lane, at a freshman mixer at Iowa State University. She later earned an art history degree at New York University and a master's degree at the Johns Hopkins University. After moving to Baltimore in 1969 with her husband, now chairman emeritus of the John Hopkins department of biological chemistry, she began addressing environmental issues.

Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Monday the appointment of six members to the newly revived Sexual Offender Advisory Board, which had lain dormant since being established by law in 2006. Last week, O'Malley tapped former Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. as the board chairman. Curran, who is O'Malley's father-in-law, has studied sex-offender reforms for years and favors civil commitments for certain predators. The appointees are Michele J. Hughes, director of a nonprofit domestic violence victim support center; Dr. Annette L. Hanson, a psychiatrist at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center; Karla N. Smith, a family violence prosecutor in Montgomery County; David Walsh-Little, a Baltimore public defender; Laura Estupian-Kane, a licensed psychologist who focuses on the assessment of adolescents who have committed sexual offenses; and J. Patricia Wilson Smoot, a deputy state's attorney in Prince George's County.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has activated the state's dormant Sexual Offender Advisory Board - a decision that comes after state lawmakers learned this month that the board they created four years ago never met and failed to produce a required report on the state's sex offender policies. The Democratic governor is expected to announce today that reconstitution of the board is among six proposals on sex offenders he will push for this year. He'll also seek lifetime supervision of violent and repeat sex offenders, changes to the state sex offender registry that will bring it into federal compliance, and criminal background checks for employees at all facilities that care for or supervise children.

Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. said he will not approve pay raises for his successor or for County Council members, despite recommendations by an advisory board that he do so. "I do not believe this is the time to raise the salary of elected officials," Smith said in a news release Tuesday. "We are in the midst of a difficult economy and individuals and families are working hard to make ends meet." The advisory panel had recommended that the county executive's salary be raised 8 percent and the council members' salaries 2 percent.

Cockeysville soldier is killed in Afghanistan 2 Thirty-four-year-old Staff Sgt. Matthew A. Pucino, 34, of Cockeysville died Monday in Pashay Kala, Afghanistan, when his mounted patrol unit was attacked with an improvised explosive device, the Pentagon said. Sergeant Pucino was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group of the Maryland Army National Guard in Glen Arm. He is the 11th Maryland Army National Guardsman to die in the war on terror. Sergeant Pucino was deployed to Afghanistan in July 2009.

Public testimony on ZRA 113, the redevelopment of downtown Columbia, will continue before the Howard County Planning Board at 7 p.m. March 5 in Tyson Room II in the county's offices at 8930 Stanford Blvd., Columbia. The public is invited to present their concerns and suggestions to the advisory board on the future of downtown Columbia. Those wishing to testify at the hearing can sign up beginning at 5 p.m. Information: 410-313-4303.

A showdown could be brewing between the Anne Arundel County Council and County Executive John R. Leopold over which branch of government can exercise more control over expenditures and a key board that reviews county building projects and growth plans. Five charter amendments proposed by a pair of Democratic council members last week could chip away at the power of the county executive if they pass through the council and are approved by voters in November. The most drastic change would give the council the power to appoint four of the seven members on the county's Planning Advisory Board - a committee that is currently hand-picked by the executive and helps determine which building projects are funded - as well as review the county development plan.

Two months after WYPR fired him, Marc Steiner won a Peabody Award yesterday - just as the public radio station kicked off a fund drive that it had postponed in the wake of the intense outcry that followed the host's dismissal. The Peabody recognized Steiner's 2007 series titled Just Words, a documentary that featured the voices of addicts, ex-felons and the homeless. Steiner, who nominated his work for the prize, called it "an amazing honor." "The idea was that nobody heard the words and stories of the working poor of America and what they have to say about their own lives," Steiner said.