City Officials

City officials scrambled yesterday to find a temporary home for more than 50 horses residing in a crumbling West Baltimore stable while trying to assure the vendors known as "Arabbers" that the tradition of selling produce on city streets would endure. But some Arabbers and their supporters questioned the city officials' promises and warned that the practice of horse-drawn produce wagons, which dates back to the 19th century, is on the verge of being wiped out. ARTICLE, pg 6A

An ailing West Baltimore woman sat huddled in a recliner yesterday to stave off city housing officials trying to dislodge her from the dilapidated rowhouse on West Pratt Street that she bought in 1970.Once a symbol of Marguerite Greaver's independence from low-income housing, the three-story rowhouse has a collapsing ceiling, holes in the walls, dirt floors and has been without heat for three years.The holes in the door and walls admit winter's chill -- and vagrants who Greaver said lived there while she was hospitalized this summer.

OCEAN CITY -- More blacks would "capture an ocean memory" if resort advertising included pictures of African-Americans, say local black leaders."Blacks are coming to Ocean City for vacation, but all you see in advertising is white, white, white," said James Purnell Jr., president of the Worcester County chapter of the NAACP.Such advertising, which includes city-paid television commercials and brochures, sends a subtle message that minorities, particularly blacks, are not welcome, Mr. Purnell said.

An all-night vigil in Annapolis by some of Baltimore's elected officials was to be followed today by a lobbying effort by parents, school nurses, students, police officers, fire fighters, sanitation workers and others affected by proposed cuts in state aid to local governments."

Still stinging from last year's defeat, Annapolis officials say they're determined to win the annual tax battle with the county this year -- and this time they have a new game plan.But determination and a game plan may not be enough. City officials say they have yet to find a persuasive argument to get Anne Arundel County to lower the property tax rate for city property owners.Last week, accountant James Lindsey, a consultant hired by the city, determined that "all the information that goes into the county tax formula is correct," said John L. Prehn Jr., the city administrator and point man in tax rate negotiations between the city and the county.

Two state lawmakers have proposed a solution to Annapolis' parking headache, but city officials caution the cure may be worse than the malady.Delegates Leonard H. Teitelbaum, D-Montgomery County, and Tyras S. "Bunk" Athey, D-Jessup, introduced legislation Jan. 31 that calls on the state to study the feasibility of building a bi-level, 150-car parking garage beneath State Circle."

Baltimore officials -- including Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke -- have an April 21 date in New York City with three of the key municipal bond-rating agencies, where the city leaders will plead their case that Baltimore is not in a downward economic spiral.On Tuesday The Sun reported that Moody's Investors Service Inc. had soured on Baltimore's economy because of urban flight, a decline in the city's tax base and thin financial reserves. Several area officials said the pronouncement by Moody's was a serious blow to the city's reputation, ability to attract new businesses and to the Schmoke administration itself, which has touted itself for fiscal prudence.

After months of contention between county and Annapolis leaders, the County Council this week offered a solution to Annapolis' landfill crisis that city officials say they can live with.In an Oct. 1 letter to Mayor Alfred Hopkins and the City Council, the seven County Council members proposed a privately financed recycling plant to be built on the landfill expansion site, along Route 450.The county would share the facility with Annapolis, and, in turn, the city's non-recyclable trash could be dumped, free of charge, at the county landfill in Millersville.

OCEAN CITY -- After an anxious week of weather watching, merchants and city officials at Maryland's beach resort think they have dodged another Atlantic storm.Now they are beginning to turn their attention to the bottom line -- how much the gray skies, high winds and pounding surf churned up by wayward Hurricane Dennis will affect the turnout for Labor Day weekend.Yesterday, as Dennis was downgraded to a tropical storm and meandered south, again threatening the North Carolina coast, Ocean City officials relaxed their vigil.

The leaders of the city's Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths have a plan to turn Baltimore's summer into the "summer of peace." But they complained Wednesday that the mayor is making their efforts difficult because of plans to close recreation centers and pools and curtail library hours. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien mentioned the issue in passing in his remarks after meeting with city officials on preventing youth crime, but when questioned he openly leaped into the political fray and called for the city's chief executive to reverse course.