Coalition Members

Black members of the Baltimore City Council met secretly yesterday at a suburban hotel despite public outrage that their white colleagues were barred from attending the event.At least five of the 10 black council members and a handful of city officials, including Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III, attended the event at the Timonium Holiday Inn.The Hyatt Regency hotel downtown abruptly backed out as host Thursday. Holiday Inn officials said the council'sAfrican-American Coalition, which includes all 10 black members, told the hotel staff not to make it public that the group was there.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will bar companies from France, Germany, Russia and other countries that opposed the war in Iraq from bidding on $18.6 billion in prime contracts for reconstruction of the country, according to a memo released yesterday. The memo, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, says that "for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States," only companies from the United States, Iraq and 61 countries that joined the coalition against Saddam Hussein will be allowed to bid on the 26 contracts to be announced soon.

Using a small West Baltimore liquor store as a backdrop, the City Wide Liquor Coalition announced its support yesterday for several state Senate bills that would tighten the city's liquor laws and ban outdooradvertising of alcoholic beverages.The small group of coalition members assembled in front of Jackson's AMKO Liquors at the corner of Edmondson Avenue and Dukeland Street. The store is about as wide as a typical city rowhouse and no fewer than 36 beer and liquor ads appear on its facade.

MEMBERS OF the Coalition to Protect Maryland Burial Sites met at the Blue Point Grill in Ellicott City on April 20 for the coalition's annual meeting. About 35 members from throughout the state ate a buffet brunch, heard guest speakers talk about Maryland cemeteries, and then visited two Baltimore cemeteries. The coalition, a nonprofit organization based in Ellicott City, was founded in 1991 and is involved in "educational advocacy for burial sites," said Kristin Kraske, who has been president for two years.

A coalition of Baltimore community groups has filed suit against Boisclair Advertising Inc. seeking the removal of the firm's billboards from residential areas.Billboard ads for liquor and cigarettes in the inner city "send a very negative message . . . to our young people," one of the plaintiffs, Leslie Howard, said yesterday. "A message of death and destruction."Filed Oct. 11 in Baltimore Circuit Court, the suit seeks the removal of Boisclair's 900 mini-billboards in residential areas, an injunction preventing any additional ones, and $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Public outrage over a blacks-only Baltimore City Council retreat planned for today caused a downtown hotel, originally the host site for the event, to abruptly back out yesterday.The Hyatt Regency near the Inner Harbor had agreed to provide a free meeting room for the two-day annual retreat, but hotel officials canceled when calls from city residents criticized the hotel."I think that was a good idea," said white 2nd District Councilman Anthony J. Ambridge, a critic of the council's African-American Coalition members who organized the retreat.

Residents battling construction of the Wyndham Inner Harbor East Hotel headed back to the courtroom yesterday with their third lawsuit, this one challenging the legality of the hotel's tax exemption.Judge Richard T. Rombro took the matter under advisement, after about two hours of arguments.At issue is whether the city had the authority to grant a tax exemption under which the Wyndham is to pay $1 a year for 25 years -- an agreement that hotel opponents say amounts to about $85.6 million in lost property taxes over 25 years.

Brooklyn and Curtis Bay community groups are organizing to help reverse a tide of home foreclosures and to encourage homeownership in the area. The Brooklyn and Curtis Bay Coalition, a nonprofit neighborhood improvement group, held the area's first housing fair Saturday to teach renters about home-owning opportunities in the area. The goal was to encourage residents, rather than investors, to purchase homes, coalition members said. Representatives from 12 federal, state and private agencies spoke to residents about home-buying initiatives, credit and mortgage programs, health insurance and neighborhood safety programs.

A coalition of county and community leaders is scrambling to gather money for a West County center they say could turn lives around in the Meade Village and Pioneer City areas.The group cleared one hurdle Thursday morning, when the county Board of Education agreed to house the center at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, neutral ground in a troubled section of Reece Road.Tentatively called the West County Multiservices Center, the structure would house a variety of outreach programs.Coalition members envision services ranging from teaching child-rearing to literacy, from preschool to health programs.

Patients escaped or walked away from Springfield Hospital Center at the rate of more than 10 per month last year, according to state figures released by the center's superintendent to the South Carroll Coalition.The figures show that 129 patients left the hospital grounds without authorization in 1992. The total includes 24 escapees who were court-committed, 39 patients who had been committed by physicians and 66 people who had voluntarily committed themselves.Dr. Bruce Hershfield, Springfield's superintendent, released the information on past walk-offs and escapes to the coalition after the group filed a Maryland Public Information Act request for it.In 1991, 269 patients -- an average of more than 20 per month -- left the center without authorization, the figures show.

Brooklyn and Curtis Bay community groups are organizing to help reverse a tide of home foreclosures and to encourage homeownership in the area. The Brooklyn and Curtis Bay Coalition, a nonprofit neighborhood improvement group, held the area's first housing fair Saturday to teach renters about home-owning opportunities in the area. The goal was to encourage residents, rather than investors, to purchase homes, coalition members said. Representatives from 12 federal, state and private agencies spoke to residents about home-buying initiatives, credit and mortgage programs, health insurance and neighborhood safety programs.

Maryland's largest group of advocates for children called on Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend yesterday to quickly close a violent jail for teen-age offenders and to allow independent monitors inside all of the state's juvenile detention facilities. The Maryland Juvenile Justice Coalition said the Victor Cullen Center in Frederick County should be closed because guards have routinely assaulted youths in their care. The coalition also criticized Townsend for conditions at Victor Cullen and two other large jails that hold hundreds of the state's male juvenile delinquents.

JERUSALEM - In the most serious political challenge yet to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israel's parliament took the first step yesterday toward calling early elections, and did so with the support of some members of Barak's ruling coalition. Barak reacted by vowing to sack the coalition members who had voted against him and jettison the broad parliamentary alliance that he once hoped would give him solid backing for peace deals with Syria and the Palestinians. Sounding a defiant tone, Barak said his reshuffled coalition would have "totally different modes of action."

WASHINGTON -- Led by Gov. George W. Bush, a parade of Republican presidential candidates appeared before thousands of Christian Coalition members yesterday to appeal for support from religious conservatives.Bush highlighted his anti-abortion views, an issue he has largely played down in his presidential campaign.The Texas governor called for legal protections for "every child, born and unborn," drawing cheers and applause from a standing-room audience of 3,500.Bush supports a measure, passed this week by the Republican-controlled House, that would make it a federal crime to harm a fetus during a violent attack on a pregnant woman, a Bush spokeswoman said last night.

Residents battling construction of the Wyndham Inner Harbor East Hotel headed back to the courtroom yesterday with their third lawsuit, this one challenging the legality of the hotel's tax exemption.Judge Richard T. Rombro took the matter under advisement, after about two hours of arguments.At issue is whether the city had the authority to grant a tax exemption under which the Wyndham is to pay $1 a year for 25 years -- an agreement that hotel opponents say amounts to about $85.6 million in lost property taxes over 25 years.

Black members of the Baltimore City Council met secretly yesterday at a suburban hotel despite public outrage that their white colleagues were barred from attending the event.At least five of the 10 black council members and a handful of city officials, including Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III, attended the event at the Timonium Holiday Inn.The Hyatt Regency hotel downtown abruptly backed out as host Thursday. Holiday Inn officials said the council'sAfrican-American Coalition, which includes all 10 black members, told the hotel staff not to make it public that the group was there.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will bar companies from France, Germany, Russia and other countries that opposed the war in Iraq from bidding on $18.6 billion in prime contracts for reconstruction of the country, according to a memo released yesterday. The memo, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, says that "for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States," only companies from the United States, Iraq and 61 countries that joined the coalition against Saddam Hussein will be allowed to bid on the 26 contracts to be announced soon.

The county's black-Jewish coalition has criticized a prominent Jewish service organization in Annapolis for inviting the South Africanambassador to speak at one of its meetings.After several weeks of internal discussion about Harry Schwarz's scheduled Dec. 8 visit tospeak at a B'nai B'rith meeting, the coalition issued a statement this week calling South African society "an affront to all decent people everywhere.""Ambassador Schwarz's visit to our city reminds us that the all-white minority government of South Africa continues to deny the right to vote to the majority of its black citizens," the African American-Jewish Coalition of Anne Arundel County said in the statement.

Public outrage over a blacks-only Baltimore City Council retreat planned for today caused a downtown hotel, originally the host site for the event, to abruptly back out yesterday.The Hyatt Regency near the Inner Harbor had agreed to provide a free meeting room for the two-day annual retreat, but hotel officials canceled when calls from city residents criticized the hotel."I think that was a good idea," said white 2nd District Councilman Anthony J. Ambridge, a critic of the council's African-American Coalition members who organized the retreat.

If parents want to reduce the chance of their children dying in car accidents, they must increase supervision, residents and community leaders in western Howard County say.The Western Howard County Coalition -- formed by parents, teen-agers, school staff and representatives of the Howard County Board of Education and Police Department -- has released its second annual calendar, filled with tips designed to keep youths on the straight and narrow.The calendar recommends actions some parents might find surprising, such as regularly searching a teen-ager's room or car."