City Officials

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.

City officials are drafting a letter urging the U.S. secretary of commerce to adjust the 1990 census to make up for an estimated 36,000 Baltimoreans missed in the count.Adjustment would boost Baltimore's population to 772,000 and mean millions of dollars in extra federal and state aid to the financially strapped city over this decade, officials said.It would also give Baltimore claim to a little more political power in Annapolis than it might otherwise get when the legislature is redistricted this fall.

Mayor Sheila Dixon's chief of staff and a commissioner on the Baltimore liquor board have accused each other of assault after an argument this month on an Inner Harbor cruise ship. The commissioner, Elizabeth C. Smith, also accused Demaune A. Millard of punching her in April 2008, while they were dating. "I understand that there have been charges of domestic abuse filed," Dixon said in an e-mail statement. "I am deeply concerned about any accusations about domestic violence. Domestic abuse by any city employee will not be tolerated."

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge recently dismissed a lawsuit that had called for more than a dozen high-ranking city government officials to be removed from their jobs because they do not live or vote in the city. Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan found no merit to a lawsuit brought by Frank M. Conaway, the Baltimore mayoral candidate and Circuit Court clerk. City Solicitor Ralph S. Tyler said Kaplan dismissed the lawsuit Friday and ordered Conaway to pay the city's court costs. "We said from the beginning that there was no merit," Tyler said.

The top Baltimore public works official says that the state should share the blame for the mix-up that led the city to start building a $7.7 million parking garage in a flood plain without the necessary permit.But a Maryland Department of Natural Resources official sharply rejected yesterday the allegation by city public works director George G. Balog that sloppy procedures by the state led city officials to believe that they had state approval to go ahead with construction of the parking garage, which is being built just north of the War Memorial building in a flood plain of the Jones Falls.

City officials announced yesterday that they will clean up and monitor air quality in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse in response to employees' concerns the building is making them sick. A study released last week found that the courthouse poses "no serious health risks" to employees, but that the building's conditions are the likely cause of some health problems. The study, a survey of courthouse workers, found "more incidents than you would expect" of allergy and upper respiratory conditions, said Dr. Clifford S. Mitchell, assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who conducted it. About 60 courthouse employees gathered yesterday at the War Memorial Plaza Building to hear the results of the study.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke says city housing officials have scheduled a meeting that could untangle problems that have thwarted a developer's efforts to buy from the city five vacant, rat-infested buildings."

With allegations of sexual harassment raised in two city departments, Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer said yesterday that all city managers will be required to receive "sensitivity training" next week. Moyer made the announcement as employees in the Fire and Public Works departments have lodged complaints. Moyer said she also has asked her staff to review and clarify the process for dismissing employees. "It is an issue that we need to deal with," Moyer said. "And I think I am dealing with it."

The $300 million sports and entertainment venue to replace Baltimore's aging 1st Mariner Arena should be an iconic structure developed with "maximum private financial support," city officials said yesterday in a formal request for developer proposals. State and city leaders had announced plans last month to tear down the arena and replace it with an 18,500-seat facility - one large enough to draw the biggest concerts and acts and potentially attract a professional basketball or hockey team.

The city of Westminster will not make any decisions about its continued participation in Carroll's narcotics task force until it is provided with a copy of an audit of the drug group.At an often contentious hourlong meeting yesterday, city officials told the county commissioners that they were increasingly frustrated with the county's inability to issue an audit report to them and to the public."I don't see how as a city we can even consider anything without the audit report," said Kenneth A. Yowan, City Council president.