Businesses

Since November, taxpayers have been footing the tab to police club-goers and college students in the downtown Market Place area, an unintended consequence of a plan to stop officers from moonlighting as security outside city businesses. Bars and clubs that once hired uniformed city officers to work secondary employment outside the establishments have not been paying into a pool intended to fund an extra shift of patrol officers downtown, a plan meant to give police authorities more control over how officers are deployed.

Moving at "creep speed" amid a business lunch crowd yesterday, the miniature tank-like machine aroused little curiosity. Diners barely noticed as the contraption passed, unaware that it was monitoring temperature, humidity and air quality. An Army engineer operated the unit remotely, occasionally raising its arm above the diners to get a better view. After reviewing the data, he pronounced the atmosphere on the patio at Harford Community College safe -- even healthy -- for diners. "Oxygen is at 20.9 percent, right where it's supposed to be," said Shawn Funk, a mechanical engineer with the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Bill Foltz ducked out of work for a few minutes this week and headed to a tent on the side of Belair Road to snag a must-have item for his wardrobe: a purple Ravens T-shirt. For Foltz, a season ticket-holder, the shirt is a splashy addition to the other purple tops and 46 strands of beads he has at home for game days. But for Andrew Hacke and Jeff Fiorucci, who were selling the shirts, the sale is one of thousands that mean extra profit this football season. "We're really rooting for the Ravens," said Hacke, a die-hard Ravens fan. "You could say this is the calm before the storm.

Anne Arundel's Economic Development Corp. may have run afoul of federal tax regulations, putting at risk hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grants meant to boost the county's economic growth.In light of revelations that the agency lent money to companies with financial ties to some board members, the Internal Revenue Service could revoke the agency's tax-exempt status, which qualifies it for such grants.Domenic J. LaPonzina, chief IRS spokesman, said he could not confirm whether the IRS is investigating the agency but added that the law prohibiting nonprofits' board members from profiting from board decisions is taken seriously.

A REPORT out of the U.S. Census Bureau last week stated that the number of residents in suburban Baltimore, including Carroll County, continued to grow during the past year. Not as rapidly as in previous years, but still increasing. Baltimore City, no surprise, again lost population.Carroll and Howard counties were percentage-gain leaders in population growth in the metro area last year, as they have been since the 1990 Census. During the decade, Carroll's population has risen by 21 percent, Howard's by 26 percent.

HAS Gov. Parris N. Glendening opened the floodgates for lawsuits against Maryland businesses should there be computer foul-ups at the end of this year?The governor says no, he was just being cautious in vetoing a bill giving limited protection from such litigation to companies that act early to avert Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problems. He said consumers' legal rights were being trampled upon.We disagree, as did an overwhelming majority of the Maryland General Assembly. The bill he vetoed wasn't nearly as "radical" as the governor alleged.

Marylanders flooded government switchboards with questions yesterday, while some residents poured bathwater on plants and carwash owners steamed as statewide water-use restrictions took effect.A telephone hot line set up by the state fielded 250 to 500 calls an hour yesterday, as homeowners asked whether they had to let their fish or flowers die (Answer: No) and business owners questioned how the curbs on outdoor water use applied to carwashes and golf courses and water parks.Police departments geared up to begin handing out warnings and citations to violators, even as complaints about water wasters started trickling in.In Baltimore, meanwhile, city officials announced they would start tapping the Susquehanna River early next week to supplement the shrinking reservoirs that serve 1.8 million people in the city and suburbs.

You get a taste of it in Fells Point, where Mexican eateries, Syrian-run convenience stores and Greek-owned machine repair shops dot the streets. There's a hint of it inside Goldman's Kosher Bakery on Reisterstown Road. A glimmer among the Vietnamese groceries in Southwest Baltimore.Head outside the city limits. You can sense it in Randallstown and traditionally white Dundalk and Essex, where an increasing number of middle-class African-Americans are buying homes. In the Korean groceries popping up in Ellicott City.

U.S. ROUTE 1 is Maryland's Route 66, a throwback to the days before Interstate 95 took the bulk of interstate traffic -- cottage motels from the 1950s and signs for independent businesses such as the fabled "One Spot Flea Killer" dot the landscape.In recent years, it has taken on the streamlined aesthetics of a corridor of industrial parks and aging strip malls.Prince George's County and the city of Laurel have used public funds to beautify the highway as it rolls through those communities.

SUPPOSE you own a small business that employs six workers. You write a letter to your state's economic development agency, stating that you won't move your business out of state if the state does not tax you, gives you job training credits and other freebies.The state agency would tell you to get lost.Now change the scene and the scale. Marriott International Inc. -- which generated $7.96 billion in revenue last year -- had threatened to move its corporate headquarters from Maryland if it didn't receive incentives to stay.

In what must be considered a monumental understatement, Attorney General Eric H. Holder told CBS News' "60 Minutes" that more oversight of Medicare funds is needed. I'll say, considering what we have learned about the scope and ease of stealing billions of dollars from the American taxpayer by means of fraudulent claims for care that never happened. To Mr. Holder's credit, his agency has been frantically cracking down on this thievery for some time now, resulting in the indictments of dozens of criminals in Miami, Detroit, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Gov. Martin O'Malley stopped by a Coca-Cola bottling plant in East Baltimore on Wednesday - not for a drink, but to promote the company's environmental efforts and urge more Maryland businesses to jump onto the green bandwagon. After touring the plant and trying his hand at crushing a batch of aluminum cans for recycling, the governor praised Coca-Cola Enterprises, a distribution arm of the giant beverage company, for its efforts to reduce its waste, energy and water use. And he used his visit to plug his administration's "Maryland Green Registry," a self-nominating who's-who of businesses, universities and government agencies seeking recognition for voluntarily recycling waste and reducing energy use or pollution.

The long-delayed Charm City Circulator Bus made a cameo appearance Friday in Harbor East, as city and business leaders kicked off a campaign aimed at encouraging workers and residents to ease the bustling neighborhood's traffic by taking transit or a water taxi, biking or walking. People who turned out for the event at the Katyn Memorial got a chance to hop aboard the new hybrid bus, but they still can't ride it anywhere. Production problems and a slumping economy continue to hold up delivery of the 21 buses it is acquiring, city officials said.

The owners of a French restaurant on Annapolis' Main Street, an Irish pub on Maryland Avenue and a small market in Eastport all share the same environmental zeal. Jean-Louis Evennou was so thrilled when his staffers designed a green T-shirt to advertise their eco-friendly policies that he drove them to New York City and treated them to a pricey French meal. Now he has proudly mounted the shirt on Cafe Normandie's wall. Fintan Galway instructs his waiters to discuss sustainability every time they hand patrons a straw.

Many small businesses are worried that rising health insurance costs are choking their growth and hindering the creation of new companies, and they fear health care reform plans being debated in Congress and by the Obama administration could end up costing them even more in taxes, according to business advocates. A survey of views on those costs released yesterday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which includes its counterpart Maryland PIRG, found that 29 percent of the 343 small businesses they interviewed were able to offer insurance.

As a young girl, Zina Pierre said, she watched her pastor tackle social issues in Annapolis. And by high school, she had an idea of what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. "I grew up understanding that helping someone else was more important than helping yourself," said Pierre, 44, a Democrat who's channeling that spirit in her candidacy for Annapolis mayor. "It's about serving above oneself. My grandmother, Edna Weems, taught me that. We did it from a church perspective, not from a political perspective."

Lately we've been hearing a lot of cheerful talk about "green shoots" of economic recovery, but out in the real world unemployment keeps on rising. Lack of business is forcing companies to slash their payrolls, and even before all the downsizing expected at Chrysler and General Motors, the number of active U.S. job-seekers who can't find any work has just topped 14.5 million. That's the worst labor market collapse in 26 years, and it can't be allowed to continue. It's time for the government to launch an all-out effort to bolster consumer purchasing power so private-sector employers can generate the sales revenue they need to save existing jobs and create new ones (about $50,000 per year per employee)

Beth Adams spends the day fulfilling people's to-do lists, everything from cleaning closets to picking up prescriptions to buying flowers. Then the co-owner of a Baltimore-based personal assistant firm and mother of four returns home - where she runs errands at no charge. "I'll have to take someone to the game, or I'll have to take someone to the orthodontist, or 'How come no one told me that we're out of dog food,' or 'When am I going to get my husband's shirt from the cleaners," said Adams, who could use a break this Mother's Day from her jobs running both My Girl Friday, Baltimore and her own home.

Constellation Energy reported a $123.5 million loss for the first three months of 2009 Tuesday, as it continued to pay the costs of last year's brush with bankruptcy and the near-collapse of its commodities trading business. Excluding those one-time costs, Constellation's operations were profitable, and company officials said they were optimistic their recovery is on track. "We're pleased with our company's earnings for 2009 thus far," said Chief Executive Officer Mayo A. Shattuck III, in a conference call for analysts and investors Tuesday morning.

Since November, taxpayers have been footing the tab to police club-goers and college students in the downtown Market Place area, an unintended consequence of a plan to stop officers from moonlighting as security outside city businesses. Bars and clubs that once hired uniformed city officers to work secondary employment outside the establishments have not been paying into a pool intended to fund an extra shift of patrol officers downtown, a plan meant to give police authorities more control over how officers are deployed.