Boards

Bell Atlantic Corp. will disband the outside boards of directors of its state operating companies, including Bell Atlantic-Maryland, and replace them with all-employee boards, a company spokesman said yesterday.The board of the Philadelphia-based parent company will continue to have outside directors.The state-level boards will disband at the end of the year, said spokesman Jay Grossman.The change does little more than ratify a trend toward centralized operations of the telephone company.

Members of the Harford County Liquor Control Board enthusiastically approved an outdoor event liquor license for the Lunar Bay Festival coming June 29-30 at Steppingstone Museum near Havre de Grace. All three organizers of the music, art and food festival – Kelley Duncan, Genevieve Britton and Margie Coakley – appeared before the board at its meeting in Bel Air on Wednesday afternoon. The trio calls itself Ladies of Locust because they are neighbors on Locust Street in Havre de Grace.

The scene plays out routinely in Baltimore Circuit Court: A defendant shows up late for an arraignment and tells an irate judge he was across the street at the "other" courthouse by mistake. Or the defendant insists he was in the right building all along - but got lost. With the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse on the west side of Calvert Street and Courthouse East across from it - not to mention 35 courtrooms spread out over several floors in both buildings - it's no wonder people show up late for court on a daily basis.

The Baltimore City school board approved three new charter schools to open beginning in 2014, including two schools that will be subject to heightened scrutiny throughout their contracts. The Lillie May Carroll Jackson School, which will be operated by a nonprofit organization created by Roland Park Country School and educate girls in grades 5-8, won a smooth approval to open in 2014. But the Green Street Academy, which has been operating as a "transformation" school with an environmental theme for the past three years, "stretched certain standards," city schools CEO Andrés Alonso said in recommending to grant the school charter status.

The Baltimore and state election boards now say they have time to remove Sen. Clarence W. Blount's name from voting machines before the Democratic primary.Blount lost a suit in court on Wednesday filed against him by Del. Frank D. Boston Jr., a candidate for Blount's Senate seat. An Anne Arundel County Circuit judge ruled that Blount did not live in West Baltimore's 41st Legislative District and should not be on the ballot for his Senate seat. Blount has appealed that ruling.The boards had originally argued in the case that Blount's name could not be removed from the ballot in time for the Sept.

The victor may get the spoils, but the losers aren't faring too badly in Maryland this year. Some prominent Democratic politicians left jobless after last year's election received consolation prizes yesterday when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. unwrapped the first batch of appointments to the hundreds of boards his administration will fill. The state's first Republican governor in 36 years named former House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. to the Maryland Health Care Commission, and former Prince George's County Executive Wayne K. Curry to the state Port Commission.

WASHINGTON -- The National Association of Securities Dealers may get a recommendation to eliminate the boards of directors of its two subsidiaries in an attempt to streamline decision-making at the industry body, NASD's new top executive, Frank G. Zarb, said yesterday.That is a reversal for Zarb, who has repeatedly denied he might propose removal of the Nasdaq stock market and broker-regulatory boards.Yesterday Zarb, a former aide to Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford who has headed NASD for two months, said elimination of these boards is the most dramatic of three options he might recommend to the parent body's board June 26."

Baltimore's officialdom gathered on a blighted block on the city's west side yesterday and celebrated something it usually doesn't brag about: how to better board up a vacant rowhouse.With television cameras rolling, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke drove home a screw to secure a door-sized piece of plywood to the front of 3007 W. North Ave., a three-story brick house that is one of 13 vacant dwellings on the block. Two are occupied.The idea was not to highlight urban decay -- though the mayor acknowledged that the strip of crumbling, Victorian-era structures should be demolished.

WASHINGTON - The tapes Doug Collins had watched of the Golden State Warriors showed a team that reflected the playing personality of its coach, Dave Cowens. In the 10 years he spent with the Boston Celtics, Cowens was one of the best rebounders in the NBA. "If we don't match them on the boards," Collins said an hour before last night's game, "we'll get overrun." The tapes didn't lie, and the Wizards didn't work. It proved to be a difficult combination at the sold-out MCI Center, where the Warriors dominated the boards at both ends and Michael Jordan, showing his age for longer stretches than at any time this season, dominated at neither.

Jai Lewis controlled the boards and Gary Neal and Teon Edwards lit up the scoreboard as host and No. 5-ranked Aberdeen ran away from No. 4 St. Frances after halftime and went on to an impressive 82-66 romp yesterday. In what was the final of the Eagles' first Kickoff Classic in Harford County, Neal scored 15 of his 23 points in the third period. Hitting a trio of threes and short jumpers, Neal, a 6-foot-4 junior point guard, concluded his 15-point binge with a slam dunk, as the Eagles pushed their halftime lead from 33-28 to 57-38.

An attorney for a teenager who said his jaw was broken in an encounter with Baltimore police dismissed the city's civilian review board as a "proxy" for police after nearly three years have passed without a ruling on the case. In July 2010, Yardell Henderson, then 16, filed a complaint with internal affairs in which he said he was beaten by police in Northwest Baltimore during an incident that did not result in his arrest or criminal charges. He also contacted the civilian review board, a volunteer panel formed to great fanfare in the late 1990s, to provide a check on police.

Three new members have been named to the Baltimore County school board, and another member has been reappointed, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Monday. Marisol A. Johnson, a State Farm insurance agent, will replace Cornelia Bright Gordon, who has served on the board since 2011. Edward J. Gilliss, a former county attorney and a partner with the Towson law firm Royston, Mueller, McLean & Reid, will replace Valerie Roddy, whose term ends this month. He is chairman of the county planning board.

An attorney for the family of an Anne Arundel County second-grader suspended from school for nibbling a pastry into the shape of a gun said Monday that a top school official has denied the appeal to have the boy's record expunged. Robin Ficker, attorney for Park Elementary School student Josh Welch and his family, said he will now appeal to the county school board. Josh Welch was suspended in March for two days after school officials accused him of shaping the pastry into the form of a gun and waving it around.

A 13-year-old boy is alleging he was sexually assaulted by other students at the SEED School of Maryland, a public boarding school for at-risk children in Southwest Baltimore. Police confirmed that they were investigating the incident, which is alleged to have occurred in a dormitory May 28. The boy told his parents about it on June 4, according to police, who declined to release other details and withheld the incident report. Students stay at the school in dorms from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon, living with support staff.

Legg Mason Inc. has expanded its board of directors, adding two independent members, the Baltimore based money manager announced Thursday. Joining the board are John V. Murphy, a formerly of Korn/Ferry International, and John H. Myers, a retired president and CEO of GE Asset Management. These addition increase the board to 16 members. Legg hired Korn/Ferry last year to assist in its quest for a new CEO and Murphy had worked on the search. In a regulatory filing, Legg said that it paid Korn/Ferry about $900,000 and Murphy left the company at the end of December.

The Anne Arundel County Council vote this week to trim $5 million from the school's capital budget has led school officials to allege that the cut was retaliation for a squabble last year. On Wednesday, after the school board reviewed more than three dozen projects in jeopardy because of the cuts, Superintendent Kevin Maxwell said the board now has "the most contentious relationship we've had with the council. " "How we're going to work together going forward is as much a question as where we are now," Maxwell said.

Ever since Pinterest hit big, we've been buildling up a few Pinterest boards. The biggest board is called Make this for Gorelick . Now, when I see a tempting recipe on cool sites like Serious Eats or The Kitchn , I have somewhere to pin them. Have a look. And if you want to help build up this board, let me know. I'll add your name to the board's contributors. There are more Baltimore Sun Pinterest boards you can follow here .  

In advance of Banned Books Week (Sept. 25-Oct. 2) I want to thank the often unheralded defenders of my First Amendment rights — librarians — who have quietly fought and continue to fight censorship. Large amounts of great literature have been banned at one time or another by self-appointed arbiters of the public morality — churches, school boards, censor boards, etc. — because these books have asked questions or described situations that made the rich and powerful uncomfortable or offended someone's sensibilities.

A Northwest Baltimore woman was nominated to the city's police civilian review board on Monday night, the first move in filling as much as eight positions on the beleaguered nine-member board.  The nomination of Sunny Luisa Cooper for the unpaid position represents the second time Cooper's name has been submitted to the board, which investigates citizen complaints of abusive language and excessive force by police. She was originally put forward along with two others by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in 2011, and confirmed by the council, but the swearing-in never took place.

In a mostly empty ninth-floor conference room on a recent Thursday evening, the civilian panel charged with investigating police misconduct in Baltimore met for its monthly meeting. There are supposed to be nine members, but four chairs were empty - those positions have been vacant for years. Of the five positions that are filled, four of the members said they want out, having long overstayed the limits of their terms. When the board was created more than a decade ago, boosters promised it would prove a crucial check on brutality and abusive language by police officers.