Commission Members

When Mary Ellen Duncan became president of Howard Community College six months ago, one of her first official acts was to create a Commission on the Future charged with helping to make the college more competitive as it heads into the next century.Yesterday, after months of talking, researching and brainstorming, the commission released its 40-page report to the public.It offers detailed suggestions about how the college can better serve students in an age that is increasingly global and computer-oriented.

The Maryland Commission on African-American History and Culture named an "emergency" interim director of the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis yesterday amid continued protests over the firing of the former director.In another major personnel change, Joseph Johnson, the museum's deputy director for the past four years, was reassigned to a position in the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which shares oversight of the museum with the commission.Tonya Hardy, who has no experience in museum administration, was appointed the museum's temporary director.

The Maryland Racing Commission has voted not to extend the off-track betting license of Poor Jimmy's Restaurant in Cecil County, although its management and the Maryland Jockey Club have reached a tentative agreement to improve the facility.Poor Jimmy's license expired yesterday and the matter now cannot be addressed until the April meeting of the commission.Commission chairman John Franzone was in California on business yesterday, but a phone poll of commission members was conducted.Pub Date: 4/1/99

Maryland's only historic village is slowly suffocating from neglect.Local politicians call Uniontown the "Gem of Carroll County" but have repeatedly refused to fund preservation efforts. Newcomers remodel their homes without consulting the county's Historic Preservation Commission, a board that's hampered by troubles of its own. Several residents refuse to contribute to town costs, such as the antique streetlights that distinguish the village from nearby neighborhoods."We've reached a critical point," said Russ Clarke Jr., who has lived in Uniontown since 1962 and is secretary of the Carroll County Historic Preservation Commission.

The Union Bridge planning commission began last night to review the initial design of a subdivision that could eventually double the population of the northwestern Carroll County town of about 1,000.Commission members floated ideas for bicycle paths; a pathway for the planned subdivision's senior citizens to walk to a nearby supermarket; and a bed and breakfast, or a branch library, in a historic farmhouse on the property.The panel plans to spend several months reviewing the design submitted by Manchester developer Martin K. P. Hill for the 120-acre property on the north side of Route 75. Hill has a contract to purchase the property from Towson dentist Dr. G. Jackson Phillips, who has planned to develop it for at least five years.

To the relief of activists and residents of historic Ellicott City, the Howard County Historic District Commission voted yesterday to block a proposed housing development that many believed would have destroyed the soul of the 19th century mill town.The six commission members present voted unanimously against the proposal to build 27 townhouses on about 6 acres on Fels Lane. It would have been the biggest townhouse development close to historic Main Street, known for its antique shops, museums and preserved building fronts.

Developer Gary Rappaport, who is hoping to attract a Wal-Mart to his aging shopping center in Mount Airy, has become stuck in traffic -- at least for the time being.Told by the town planning commission Monday that his traffic plan for the project is inadequate, Rappaport must scramble to come up with an alternative that will satisfy town officials and undergo scrutiny from state highway authorities.Rappaport warns that the independent traffic study ordered by the commission can delay his plans for a project he says is vital to the health of his shopping center.

Prospects may be dim for an official historic zone in Westminster, but the city's Historic District Commission hopes to highlight its goals with a free renovators' workshop next month.Experts from around the state will be available to talk about hands-on work on such artifacts as stained glass, brick walls, slate roofs, paint and chimneys, as well as design, landscaping, planning additions and tax incentives.The workshop, a first for the commission, will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Westminster fire hall, 66 E. Main St. The snow date is March 5."

Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger has replaced the veteran chairwoman of the county Landmarks Preservation Commission, a move that cements his appointees' control over a group that has questioned his commitment to saving historic buildings.Ruth B. Mascari, chairwoman for more than five years, is being replaced as a board member by W. Boulton Kelly, 69, a semiretired architect who specialized in exterior preservations and was formerly a member of the Baltimore Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation.

The volunteer chairman of a city-funded veterans organization used an agency office to conduct personal business, a former commission director claims.Maryland War Memorial Commission Chairman W. Russell Brown notarized personal loans on commission stationery, solicited donations from the office for events unrelated to the agency, and provided a job reference for an ex-convict, said Cynthia DeLeaver-Coates.Commissioner firedDeLeaver-Coates, who was fired from her $35,000 commission job two months ago for what Brown called "ill performance," provided The Sun with several documents signed by Brown and typed on commission letterhead that Brown acknowledged yesterday were for personal use.DeLeaver-Coates said yesterday her troubles began in September 1997 when she questioned Brown about his use of office stationery for personal business.

Residents of Howard County's oldest public housing complex would face higher rents this fall if county housing officials can persuade skeptical Housing Commission members to go along with their proposal. A vote on the idea for Hilltop Housing in Ellicott City split the four commission members in attendance 2-2 Tuesday night, meaning the proposal failed, but Deputy Housing Director Thomas Carbo said he and Housing Director Stacy L. Spann will bring the issue back at the Aug. 18 meeting in the county's Gateway building.

Evidence condemns the death penalty I object very strenuously to the title of Scott D. Shellenberger's column "Evidence supports death penalty in Md." (Commentary, Dec. 30). He admits that the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment voted 13-9 for repeal of the death penalty. So obviously the majority of commission members believe the evidence calls for an end to executions. Those of us who attended the commission's open hearings know that the evidence indicated that racism, classism, geographical disparities, etc., affect the application of the death penalty in Maryland.

As a police chief in New Jersey, James P. Abbott believed in the death penalty. He supported capital punishment as a way of protecting not only the public, but specifically his fellow officers and the correctional guards working in prisons. Then he spent a year serving on a New Jersey commission that studied the death penalty, and he completely reversed his view. "It turned out that what sounded good in theory was actually a complete failure in practice," he told members of Maryland's capital punishment commission yesterday in Annapolis.

Benjamin R. Civiletti, a prominent Baltimore lawyer and former U.S. attorney general who once called for a national moratorium on capital punishment, will head a state commission studying the death penalty in Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday. The commission begins its deliberations as O'Malley, a staunch death-penalty opponent, has moved toward ending Maryland's de facto moratorium on executions by ordering the drafting of procedures for the use of lethal injection. O'Malley, a Democrat, made that decision on the advice of legal counsel after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection protocols that are virtually identical to Maryland's.

Horses aren't the only thing hoofing it at Pimlico these days. The Maryland Racing Commission was run out of there last week - by Gov. Martin O'Malley, who decided that an agency that's supposed to be regulating the track probably shouldn't be in bed with its owner. Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns the Maryland Jockey Club, agreed to lease office space at Pimlico to the commission for a $1 a year, utilities included. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and the Board of Public Works approved the deal in the closing days of the Ehrlich administration.

WASHINGTON -- A draft report on strategies for Iraq, which will be debated here by a bipartisan commission beginning today, urges an aggressive regional diplomatic initiative that includes direct talks with Iran and Syria but sets no timetables for a military withdrawal, according to officials who have seen all or parts of the document. While the diplomatic strategy appears likely to be accepted, with some amendments, by the 10-member Iraq Study Group, members of the commission and outsiders involved in its work said they expect a potentially divisive debate about timetables for beginning an American withdrawal.

A court decision expected to improve the progress of a $10.8 billion merger between Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group and a Florida utility instead has made it more difficult. Yesterday, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the legislature could not remove members of the Public Service Commission as a law had ordered this summer. But the court did not address a portion of the legislation that prohibits the sitting commission from taking final action on the merger. That means the commissioners can keep their jobs, but they can't rule on the merger, according to lawyers who quickly reviewed the opinion yesterday for The Sun. But what it means for the companies is still unclear.

Ehrlich, O'Malley `don't agree on anything' Making their first joint appearance as the official gubernatorial nominees of their respective parties, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Mayor Martin O'Malley attacked each other yesterday on such issues as electricity rates and Baltimore schools. And Ehrlich said Maryland voters can expect more of the same bitter rhetoric over the next two months before the Nov. 7 general election. "Elections are about contrast," Ehrlich told the audience of more than 200 members of the Maryland chapter of AARP, which acted as host for yesterday's debate.

The Maryland Public Service Commission is an independent agency that regulates utilities through quasi-judicial hearings and by collecting evidence and issuing rulings. So when four of five commission members met privately with top aides to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. this week, some state officials and other critics raised concerns about a potential violation of Maryland's open-meetings law - as well as whether the session could compromise the agency in future deliberations. James C. DiPaula Jr., Ehrlich's chief of staff, said he summoned the commissioners to a meeting to discuss strategies to lessen the impact of a looming 72 percent Baltimore Gas and Electric rate increase.

The Howard County Council elected next year would get a 44 percent pay raise if current council members agree with a citizen panel's recommendations to boost salaries that have lagged for years. The panel's 6-1 vote, if adopted, would increase the new council members' pay to $49,000 a year, up from the $33,800 they get now, while the next executive's pay would jump a more modest 8 percent, to $147,000. All elected officials in the next term would get additional annual raises based on the consumer price index, the seven-member panel recommended at a meeting this week.