Baltimore County

In Baltimore County Water pressure drops in northwest areas after valve breaks OWINGS MILLS -- A broken valve caused four pumps at a pumping station in Owings Mills to shut down yesterday morning, causing water pressure to drop in some northwest Baltimore County neighborhoods. The valve broke Tuesday night or early yesterday, which caused flooding at the station and the pumps to stop, said Kurt L. Kocher, spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Public Works. Owings Mills and Reisterstown residents may have experienced low water pressure yesterday morning, said Kocher, adding that pressure was back to normal by afternoon.

Sleepy after arriving home from a cross-country seafood delivery, independent trucker Johnnie Wheeler never dreamed his 18-wheeler would be towed from the parking lot he had used for years -- and that he would be charged $910 to get it back.But the Woodlawn resident awoke Sunday afternoon to find his illegally parked luxury truck gone from Liberty Crest Shopping Center, replaced by a towing bill from All American Towing that Baltimore County police say was three times the usual rate.Yesterday, the Cherry Hill towing company, charged earlier this month with using a spotter to detect illegally parked cars and with a truck registration violation, dropped the fee to $600 after Wheeler and police complained.

The Baltimore County Department of Social Services has received $45,000 in public and private grants to help low income residents avoid eviction.The grants come at a time when evictions are increasing in the county and when the state is poised to cut a program that has steered thousands of Marylanders through emergencies such as eviction.Reacting to these new problems, the County Council last week approved a measure that would move $20,000 from a federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program to the Social Services Department.

Beleaguered commuters from southern Pennsylvania to Maryland will have a new alternative to driving down Interstate 83 starting today: hopping on a bus from York that connects with Baltimore's light rail system. York County's public transportation system, rabbittransit, will run six round trips each weekday day between York and Shrewsbury, Pa., and the Timonium/Hunt Valley area. The rabbitEXPRESS service, a three-year demonstration project funded by the federal government's Congestion Mitigation Air Quality fund, comes at a time when Maryland has been shedding commuter routes in response to budget problems.

The demise of steelmaking at Sparrows Point last year landed like a body blow on eastern Baltimore County. With 2,000 jobs and a 125-year-old legacy lost in the shutdown and subsequent liquidation of assets, the cost to families, to the local economy and to the very social fabric of a close-knit community was immense. Yet, nearly one year after RG Steel filed for bankruptcy, the outlook for the 3,300-acre property is significantly brighter. The potential for redevelopment could yield as many as 10,000 jobs within 10-15 years as new businesses - particularly those related to the Port of Baltimore - take the place of steelmaking.

A Baltimore County police officer pleaded guilty to misconduct and agreed to resign after admitting to filming himself numerous times engaging in sex acts and neglecting to respond to calls while on duty. Aaron Z. Pross, 29, who had been assigned to the Pikesville Precinct, took more than 120 images and 20 videos engaging in sexual acts with himself, including one where he masturbated inside his patrol car while reports of "possible guns involved," can be heard over a police radio, prosecutors said.

Nearly 20 years after a little girl's beaten body was found in a wooded area of Rosedale, and 19 years after an innocent man was sentenced to death for that killing, the Dawn Hamilton murder case ended yesterday when her true killer pleaded guilty in a Baltimore County courtroom. Kimberly Shay Ruffner, a former East Baltimore man with a history of sexual attacks, acknowledged that he alone had sexually assaulted and murdered the 9-year-old girl in 1984. He was sentenced to life in prison; he is already serving time for an unrelated assault.

The Maryland Senate on Monday overwhelmingly passed a weakened speed camera reform bill that would bar local governments from paying vendors based on the volume of citations but wouldn't ensure motorists had enough information to fact-check their citations. The measure, approved 46-1, goes to the House of Delegates, where lawmakers have been drafting a separate bill. The Senate bill, sponsored by Democrat James Brochin of Baltimore County, would outlaw per-ticket payments to any contractor that "provides, deploys or administers and processes" speed camera tickets.

Police have arrested a 42-year-old Social Security Administration employee after investigating claims that she forged $15,000 in checks written to the agency and placed them into her bank account, Baltimore County police said. Authorities said the investigation is continuing and might involve more than $50,000 in checks. Police had not released the woman's name as of last night, saying she had not been formally charged. She was being held at the North Point Precinct, police said. The woman was taken into custody at her rowhouse in the 200 block of Murdock Road in Rodgers Forge.

A Baltimore County councilman did not disclose his outside employment over the past several years, including his work with a painting and drywall company that has a $3.1 million contract at a new high school being built in his district. Councilman John Olszewski Sr., a Dundalk Democrat, only recently revealed in required disclosure forms that he has employment outside his elected post, filing amended reports going back to 2009. Council members and other county officials must report any outside jobs on annual reports so that the public can examine whether they have conflicts of interest.