City Officials

Up to half of sexually active young people will get a sexually transmitted disease by the time they are 25, yet many don't seek testing because it may be difficult, costly or embarrassing. Public health officials nationally and in particularly affected cities like Baltimore, however, say they've found a method that seems to address the major hurdles — a website that supplies free in-home testing kits for three of the most commonly reported STDs. "The highest prevalence is in young adults, and we knew we had to reach these kids," said Charlotte A. Gaydos, a professor of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

A year ago, city officials left Annapolis distraught, their plans to obtain massive funding for school construction in the General Assembly's trash bin.   What a difference a year makes. On Wednesday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Schools CEO Andres Alonso and the city's elected officials celebrated what they're calling a banner year at the General Assembly in which they pushed for and won passage of a $1.1 billion funding plan for city schools' construction. “This is a special, unique effort for Baltimore City,” Rawlings-Blake said at a City Hall news conference.

See document at http://data.baltimoresun.com/docs/occupy.html

There's no magic bullet that will suddenly solve all the problems in a community like Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood, not even the small army of city officials who descended on the East Baltimore community this week. But the effort is still worth it if it gives city police and social service workers a better understanding of the issues that put residents at risk and allows them to come up with better strategies to help other struggling neighborhoods. Oliver is not necessarily the city's most troubled community, but its problems are serious and deep-seated: poverty, unemployment, an inventory of more than 200 boarded-up, vacant houses and a flourishing street-corner drug trade that fuels periodic outbursts of deadly gun violence.

As thousands of late-night revelers partied to thumping electronic dance music in the graffiti-marked remains of an old fort in Baltimore last month, some overdosed on drugs or became overwhelmed by the heat, according to a report by the city fire marshal. While the overnight Starscape festival at Fort Armistead Park stretched into the early-morning hours, emergency medical crews from the city and Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties struggled to keep up with calls for help from the venue, responding to the park "continuously" for 12 hours, the report says.

Regarding your recent editorial advocating holding city elections on the presidential cycle, it doesn't make sense to only partially correct a situation that everyone agrees needs to be fixed ("Straightening out city elections," July 6). None of Baltimore's elected officials met with their constituents to discuss this election-cycle issue before they selfishly voted their preferences. The arguments for moving city elections to the gubernatorial cycle significantly outweigh the arguments our elected officials voted to help themselves.

City officials are completing a five-year deal with a new group to manage the Baltimore Grand Prix and plan to announce the terms of the deal Wednesday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's office said Friday. "We have worked hard to learn from past experiences to ensure that this new agreement is in the best interests of taxpayers and will bring a successful, world-class sporting event that Baltimore can be proud of for years to come," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. The mayor's office did not say who would receive the contract to operate the three-day racing festival.

Members of Baltimore's legislative delegation in Annapolis chastised city transportation officials Friday for problems with the city's lucrative network of speed cameras. Del. Brian McHale called it "unjust" that the city won't try to identify, and refund, every erroneous ticket issued. Del. Curt Anderson said he thought existing state law barred the city from paying its contractor a share of each $40 fine, a view shared by Gov. Martin O'Malley. And a skeptical Del. Nathaniel Oaks asked city officials what they'll do after finding that a motorist paid a ticket that shouldn't have been issued.

City and state legislators say they will push for greater regulation of longstanding but little-known laws that allow security guards to be granted law enforcement powers to arrest and search citizens. "If special police make sense, if they're necessary, and if they really do provide enhanced public safety, then at a minimum there needs to be oversight, accountability, training, and qualifications that are set by the state," Sen. Brian Frosh, who chairs the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said Monday.

City officials are looking at the feasibility of establishing a community garden in Laurel, which could be available for planting in spring 2013. The effort, spearheaded by council member Frederick Smalls and supported by Mayor Craig Moe, is in response to Laurel residents who asked that a community garden be established, according to city officials. The Parks and Recreation Citizens Advisory Committee will review various requirements for a community garden, including where it could be located; the size of individual plots; and fees, rules and regulations for participants.

Baltimore's new speed camera company says it took in $18 million in revenue last year — a nearly 10 percent increase from 2011 — but still lost money, thanks in part to a rocky start in the city. In a statement to investors, Brekford Corp. of Anne Arundel County said the company lost $1.2 million in 2012, in part because it had to buy and install new cameras for Baltimore to replace the old ones. In addition, the firm said, more motorists than expected in other jurisdictions where it runs cameras failed to pay their tickets.

Dizzy with the thrill of a Super Bowl victory - and late-night revelry - Ravens fans spent Monday stocking up on purple gear and planning to close offices and pull children out of school for Tuesday's victory parade. Women heaped on purple rings and bracelets, couples slapped purple paint onto the family car and parents dragged children into school a few hours late, explaining they had stayed up late for the Super Bowl . From time to time, Marylanders marveled at the news that, for many, felt like a dream come true: After 12 years, the Ravens were again world champions.

Members of Baltimore's legislative delegation in Annapolis chastised city transportation officials Friday for problems with the city's lucrative network of speed cameras. Del. Brian McHale called it "unjust" that the city won't try to identify, and refund, every erroneous ticket issued. Del. Curt Anderson said he thought existing state law barred the city from paying its contractor a share of each $40 fine, a view shared by Gov. Martin O'Malley. And a skeptical Del. Nathaniel Oaks asked city officials what they'll do after finding that a motorist paid a ticket that shouldn't have been issued.

Baltimore's speed and red light camera system has experienced a near-complete shutdown during what city officials are calling a problematic transition to a new contractor, records show, and the new vendor says it could take four months to get its system running. City officials acknowledged Tuesday that Baltimore's network of 83 speed cameras - which issued about 2,300 tickets each weekday last year - has yet to issue any in 2013. And records posted on a city website indicate that red light cameras have issued just 17 tickets, all in the first two days of the year.

An executive suite in the city school system's headquarters that underwent $250,000 in lavish renovations last year will soon be empty. Jerome Oberlton, who repeatedly came under fire for his spending habits as the system's chief technology officer, has resigned his post, city school officials confirmed last week. Oberlton, who came to the district from the private sector in March 2011, has been named the new chief of staff for the Dallas Independent School District, the Dallas school district announced Friday.

Visitors to Ocean City are often struck by the contrasting fortunes of the vacant Ocean Plaza Mall on 94 t h Street and the bustle of development along U.S. 50 in West Ocean City , with its new Walmart and other big-box stores. There are a number of reasons for this, but one in particular sticks in the resort town's collective craw: double taxation. In essence, property owners in Ocean City have been subsidizing sprawl development outside town limits, a self-destructive policy that can only be described as dumb growth.

More than half of the 1,900 city officials and employees required to complete ethics and financial disclosure forms fill out the forms incorrectly or not at all. Those are the findings of a report written by a mayoral fellow this year who reviewed the forms - the first time in at least eight years the forms have gotten a comprehensive examination. "The form was often submitted incomplete, with errors or missing schedules," wrote Olesya K. Vernyi, a city intern whom the ethics board asked to audit the forms.

The breaking point for Steve Herlth came when he saw about 25 dirt bike riders swarm around him on West Baltimore's Hilton Parkway, popping wheelies, creating a racket and showing no regard for surrounding traffic. That surreal scene led Herlth to start a campaign urging residents in his Southwest Baltimore community to turn in the youths and adults who own the illegal cycles. But his yearlong work — and the efforts of authorities — has not stemmed a problem that bedevils Baltimore each summer and threatens to worsen when schools let out soon.

It's time for Baltimore to shut its speed cameras down. On Friday, the vendor that runs the city's program reported that several cameras have error rates as high as 5 percent, and it doesn't know exactly why. Those cameras are no longer issuing tickets. That's a positive step, and so are several others city officials are making or considering in response to questions about the cameras. But the only way the city is going to restore trust that its intention is to foster public safety, not to generate millions in revenue, is to turn the cameras off until it thoroughly reviews the program and makes whatever changes are necessary to ensure the tickets are accurate and fair.

For Erica Hamlett-Nicholson's 11-year-old son, Shawn Nowlin was his most trusted confidant when the Hazelwood Elementary/Middle School fifth-grader suffered from depression caused by his parents' separation. For Duanelle Woodard's nephew, he was the guidance counselor who helped him secure placement in a high school of his choice. And for Antoine Jackson, Nowlin was the heavy-handed administrator who suspended his son for the first time in his academic career. But Nowlin was a hall monitor, not a child and family therapist as he claimed, according to Harford County prosecutors and Baltimore City school officials.