Authority

The County Council continued tinkering last night with County Executive John G. Gary's bill to create a money-raising agency for golf courses, swimming pools and other public amenities, pushing it to the brink of expiration.Council members voted to prohibit board members of the proposed Recreation Revenue Authority from having a financial stake in any of the agency's projects. The ban would extend to the authority's staff and family members.Also, council members killed an amendment that would have required it to review the authority's projects as part of the Anne Arundel capital budget, which the administration has said would defeat the purpose of creating an independent agency.

THE ANNAPOLIS HOUSING Authority hardly seems the center of political intrigue and secret agendas, but the smell of back-room deals and political payoffs is now wafting from some misguided personnel moves involving the agency's leadership.In early August, Annapolis Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins abruptly decided to remove Marita Carroll as chairwoman of the authority which oversees federally subsidized housing in the state capital. A former school teacher and community activist, Ms. Carroll was universally respected for her commitment to public service.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and BUILD, a community group, are planning to unveil tonight a novel public authority that would pay for after-school programs for city public school students.The programs would include recreation and cultural and academic enrichment activities.Mr. Schmoke plans to raise at least $1.5 million in start-up money from private sources to fund programs beginning in September in 10 city schools, said spokesman Clinton R. Coleman.But one of the mayor's funding ideas -- a 25-cent tax on tickets for the Orioles and Baltimore's new professional football franchise -- is already in trouble.

A day after it declared their vermin-infested homes habitable, the Annapolis Housing Authority offered yesterday to relocate several Bowman Court residents to a home across the street."

As he wiped snowflakes off his glasses yesterday afternoon, 8-year-old Kedrick McIntye explained that on most days, his mother can't pick him up from Federal Hill Elementary until 4 p.m. So he usually spends the 3 o'clock hour helping teachers to clean everything from hallways to blackboards."

Baltimore Housing Authority officials yesterday continued to disavow findings in a federal audit that criticized the agency for knowingly exposing families in public housing to dangerous levels of lead paint and dust, a federal housing official said.At the same time, however, authority officials admitted that there were problems in the maintenance of the city's 18,000 publicly owned apartments and houses.During a private two-hour meeting yesterday in the Baltimore office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, authority Deputy Director Eric Brown defended, debated and, at times, agreed with the audit's seven findings, which chided the agency for its $25 million no-bid repair program, for the purchase of Chevrolet Blazers for personal use by top administrators and for awarding contracts to relatives of an employee and a board member.

A 5-year-old girl shot herself in the leg last night with a handgun belonging to her uncle -- a Baltimore Housing Authority police officer, an authority spokesman said.Jessica Anderson was reportedly in good condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital, authority spokesman Zack Germroth said.The shooting occurred about 8 p.m. at a residence in the 800 block of N. Gilmor St. The officer, whose name wasn't released, had just returned from work, and the child somehow got #F possession of the handgun and shot herself, Mr. Germroth said.

You're a good, well-meaning person. But when someone disapproves of you, it feels like they are the authority. So then you crumble into a little self-recriminating heap, repeating to yourself how terrible you are.You know you shouldn't let others' judgments do that to you. But how do you stop buying in to their opinions?You stop it by figuring out how you got that way in the first place, then by making changes in your thinking:* First, take a look at your attitude toward authority. For instance, who has the right to be an authority, are you comfortable with authority, where did you learn things like that?

For the first time in its 56-year history, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City is financially troubled because its reserve fund is $7 million below the level considered safe under federal standards, according to Daniel P. Henson III, the authority's executive director.The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has not officially designated the authority as financially troubled and will not evaluate it until December, said Vivian Potter, a spokeswoman for HUD in Washington.But last week, Mr. Henson described the authority as financially troubled because it ended fiscal 1993 on June 30 with only $4.9 million in reserve.

Angry that the Housing Authority of Baltimore City has not completed all repairs necessary for ending a rent strike at Lexington Terrace, residents set up a picket line at the West Baltimore complex this week.The residents were to attend a hearing yesterday on the 2-month-old strike. But District Judge Theodore Oshrine postponed the hearing after the authority admitted it had not completed repairs, an attorney for the residents said.Sally Gold, a private attorney hired by the authority, contended the agency has made most of the repairs.

A panel of engineering experts convened after a crash last year in which a truck broke through a barrier wall and plunged off the Bay Bridge has recommended that the Maryland Transportation Authority beef up its procedures for inspecting the state's toll bridges and tunnels and open the process to more scrutiny from the public. But the panel, made up of seven top transportation engineers from around the country, rejected contentions that the authority should commission an independent inspection of the Bay Bridge.

Nov. 10 1775 The U.S. Marines were organized under authority of the Continental Congress. 1969 The children's educational program Sesame Street made its debut on National Educational Television.

1986 - Legislature creates authority with goals of building a new baseball stadium and attracting an NFL team. Baltimore attorney Herbert J. Belgrad serves as the first chairman. 1992 - The agency's first project, Camden Yards, opens to universal acclaim from players, fans and architecture critics. 1995 - Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell announces he'll move his team to Baltimore after negotiations with authority chairman John Moag. 1996 - Work is completed on the Baltimore Convention Center, a major nonsports project that was awarded to the authority after its success with Camden Yards.

According to Shakespeare's text, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, has reached the age of 30 and is a grown man. I suppose the author should know how old his own characters are, but I've always thought that what the Bard really crafted is a canny, dead-on portrait of a boy at least a decade younger. Hamlet is hyper-sensitive to slights to his nascent manhood. He is utterly self-absorbed, chafes at authority and is clueless about women. He runs hot one minute, cold the next. In other words, an adolescent.

WASHINGTON -- In its most detailed defense of the National Security Agency's secret domestic spying program, the Bush administration raised serious questions yesterday about the validity of the 1978 law that prohibits the NSA from eavesdropping in the United States without a court order. The Justice Department analysis, released hours after the broadcast of another warning from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, contends that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act stands on "fragile constitutional ground" because it limits presidential authority to obtain intelligence in wartime.

AMachiavellian quality has been evident in the Bush administration's security policies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And for the most part, Americans went along with it. Many were scared, and hoped to be kept safe. Civil libertarians raised concerns over the years about privacy rights and occasional trammeling of the rule of law. Until recently, though, even they have spoken in hushed tones for fear of being accused of aiding the enemy. But now that it's clear Mr. Bush considers his spy powers beyond the reach of Congress and the courts, it's time for a genuine national conversation about whether that is an acceptable price for what is inevitably only the illusion of security.

IT MAY NOT be surprising that a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court will let federal authorities go after people who use marijuana in states that allow it for medicinal purposes, but the decision is still a grave disappointment. The overriding legal consideration is that marijuana is banned under federal law and that trumps enlightened state efforts to carve out some sensible exceptions. As Justice John Paul Stevens noted for the majority, despite the "troubling facts" of the case, the court followed settled law, and those who are unhappy with the decision can urge Congress to change it. Indeed, they should.

ARLINGTON, Va. - The Terri Schiavo case has been a perfect media storm and an object lesson. For the media, it has served as a metaphor for much of what divides us: pro-life vs. pro-choice; religious vs. secular; wife vs. husband vs. parents/in-laws; church vs. state. Many religious leaders (and certain members of Congress) at first distinguished themselves by standing on principle and appealing to the state to preserve Mrs. Schiavo's life. But a few called for defiance of authority, suggesting Florida officials disobey court orders, "rescue" Mrs. Schiavo from her hospice bed and reinsert her feeding tube.

Two months after discovering what the chief called a "design flaw" in pistols purchased for the Maryland Transportation Authority's more than 400 police officers, 450 new handguns arrived last week to replace them. The .40-caliber Glocks will be handed out in the coming week as officers are trained to use them, said authority Police Chief Gary W. McLhinney. The new guns were paid for with $230,000 in emergency procurement money, he said. The Berettas originally purchased were not reliably firing when the trigger was pulled, McLhinney said.

WASHINGTON - On SEPT. 11, terrorists attacked the United States in an unprecedented and brutal manner, killing thousands of innocent people, including the passengers and crews of four aircraft. Like everyone throughout our country, I am repulsed and angered by these attacks and believe all appropriate steps must be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice. We must prevent any future such attacks. That is the highest obligation of our federal, state and local governments. On this, we are united as a nation.