Code Enforcement

Cracking down on Baltimore landlords who own about 14,000 unsightly vacant buildings is a daunting task for officials at the city's housing department, in large part because they don't know who owns all the empty shells. The city has started getting tough on owners who do not pay $15 to register their properties each year, serving them criminal summonses and bringing them into District Court. Housing officials have collected about $7,000 in fines from the initiative and estimate they will garner another $12,000, said Assistant State's Attorney Julia A. Day, who works for the department.

The County Council is voicing frustration with County Executive Janet S. Owens' administration - accusing her staff of ignoring the legislative branch. Two revelations were of particular concern to council members at their meeting Monday night. In one case, the county missed out on $330,000 in health-related state grants partly because key records were deleted from the computer system. The county has already spent the money and will have to absorb the cost unless the state agrees to a belated reimbursement.

A FAMILY LIVING through the cold and heat without electricity is headed for disaster. And it struck over the weekend, when three children and their grandmother died in a Baltimore fire that started from a candle. Could this have been prevented? Perhaps. But the harsh reality is that no amount of fire prevention activity -- and the city fire department's safety campaigns have been quite successful -- reaches all whose daily battle is about mere existence. Firmer housing code enforcement may be one way to prevent future tragedies.

Two decisions this week by county officials have brought commercial bingo under scrutiny, and could signal an end to a half-century of gaming in Anne Arundel County. This week, five County Council members sponsored legislation to limit the number of commercial licenses in the county to three and to ask the Amusement License Commission to study whether commercial bingo should be allowed any more. Anne Arundel is one of the last places in the country outside Nevada and Indian reservations that allow commercial bingo, where games are played for profit rather than charity.

After more than a year of delays, Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens has split the Department of Planning and Code Enforcement into two departments and named directors for each, promising an end to bureaucratic slowdowns and inconsistent enforcement. Developers hailed as a victory the appointment of Walter Chitwood, 51, who was chief administrative officer under Republican County Executives Robert R. Neall and Robert A. Pascal. Since September 1998, when he left his last job as city administrator in Annapolis, Chitwood has worked for Pascal's development company as project manager building marinas and subdivisions on the Eastern Shore.

IN his nationwide search for a housing commissioner, Mayor Martin O'Malley should insist on an individual who has a battle plan for two dire neighborhood problems:How to deal with owners, large and small, who ignore city codes and let their property deteriorate horribly.How to stop the city government from spreading neighborhood decay through its neglect of derelict properties it controls.In many areas of Baltimore, these are huge, interconnected problems. Why should a private property owner heed codes when city properties next door are in violation and have been for years?

The Baltimore County firefighters union assailed yesterday the promotion of two top-level firefighters with ties to County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger, fraying the union's strained relationship with the executive.The union -- which in recent years has picketed Ruppersberger over his salary offers and fought his efforts to restructure the department -- said qualified candidates were unfairly shut out of consideration for the $80,000 deputy chief jobs because the administration made its choices months before the official selection process began.

Both Turkey and Taiwan have effectively adopted the California building requirements for earthquakes, which are intended to enable occupants to get out alive in a major earthquake even if the structure is rendered unusable, American experts said yesterday. The difference is in enforcement.The basic techniques involve using reinforced concrete walls and columns, deep foundations and joints to transfer the stresses of a swaying structure from crossbeams to vertical columns."Here, we have reasonable conformity," said Peter I. Yanev, president of EQE International, a leading international earthquake engineering and safety company based in San Francisco, who recently returned from Turkey.

A zoning complaint that started as political mud slung during last year's County Council campaign has again become an issue of political strife.Neighbors in Pasadena of County Councilwoman Shirley Murphy have appealed a decision by the Anne Arundel County Planning and Code Enforcement Department that an old guest house on her property on June Lane is legal.During the council campaign last year, then-County Councilman Thomas Redmond filed a zoning complaint against Murphy one month before Election Day, charging that she was improperly using the cottage as an apartment in an area not zoned for apartments.

Garden snakes, dead rats and scrap metal have led to the lengthiest jail sentence in Baltimore's history of code enforcement violations for a Park Heights man, authorities say.Alan Verschleisser, who owns Potter's Salvage, could be released today from the Baltimore City Detention Center. He was sentenced to 30 days for civil contempt. Twenty days of the sentence were suspended, but if Verschleisser fails to clean up the scrap yard at his Baker Street property in West Baltimore by Oct. 22, he would serve the rest of the sentence.