Commissioners

Bel Air officials welcomed two new businesses to town earlier this week and lauded the turnout for the recent authors and artists holiday gift sale. Town commissioners and staff held a work session last Tuesday in preparation for the next town meeting which will be this Monday, Dec. 17, at 7:30 in town hall. The new businesses that recently opened are Kirkland's, a home décor and gifts retailer in Bel Air Plaza on Baltimore Pike, and Bird's Nest Barbeque in the 300 block of South Main Street.

A Baltimore-based therapist who was disturbed by the response to the murder-suicide committed by a Kansas City Chiefs player has taken her cause national. Gretchen Tome, who works at House of Ruth, posted a petition on Change.org demanding NFL commissioner Roger Goodell mandate players convicted of domestic-violence related charges receive counseling. As of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, more than 6,700 people had electronically "signed" the petition. Each time someone endorses the petition, an email is sent to Goodell and three members of his staff.

A man who allegedly entered a rowhouse in the city's Central Park Heights neighborhood uninvited, hid a handgun behind a living room sofa and then assaulted the homeowner as she was trying to get him to leave was arrested Wednesday night in Baltimore while lying on the home's front porch — marking the 1,000th gun-related arrest in the city this year. The strange arrest was made by two officers on a newly created foot patrol beat in the neighborhood about 6:43 p.m., and was touted as a significant milestone about two hours later by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts during a news conference at the scene.

The number of people killed in Baltimore this year has exceeded the count from all of 2011 after a violent Wednesday that saw at least one stabbed and three shot - including two near the same corner where a 16-year-old was killed a day earlier. Less than 24 hours had passed since the fatal shooting of teenager Daniel Pearson on Greenmount Avenue when two more men were hit by gunfire in almost the same spot. Another man was killed in Northwest Baltimore, and a boy was taken to the hospital after being stabbed on his way to a school.

Former ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan said Sunday night that he is "absolutely flabbergasted" to hear that Maryland is close to leaving the league for the Big Ten after a nearly 60-year association. "It's historic, all right. It's shocking to me," the 84-year-old Corrigan said from his home in Keswick, Va. "I don't get it. I don't get it at all. It just blows me away. They're a charter member of the ACC -- they're not just a member. Virginia wasn't even an original member. " Corrigan, whose association with the ACC dates back nearly as long as Maryland's, said that the ACC has treated Maryland well from a financial standpoint "because they haven't done a good job raising funds themselves.

James Francis "Shirt-sleeves" O'Neill, a retired lawyer who had served as mayor of Bel Air in the early 1970s, died of cancer Monday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 86. "Jim was a character, spontaneous, funny and off the wall sometimes but not all the time," said Todd Holden, a former Aegis reporter and photographer who was a longtime friend. "He used to ride a minibike when gas went through the roof, and always had a Red Baron white scarf around his neck as he made his way around town," said Mr. Holden.

Anthony W. Batts was officially sworn in Thursday as Baltimore's 37th police commissioner, pledging to build trust with the community while continuing to reduce violent crime. Batts, who spent three decades with departments in California, has been guiding the city police force since his arrival in late September following the retirement of agency veteran Frederick H. Bealefeld III. The city's homicide numbers are on track to rise compared to last year, when Baltimore saw fewer than 200 killings for the first time since the 1970s, but overall gun violence continues to trend downward.

Therese M. Goldsmith spent most of last week preparing to deal with Cyclone Sandy's second wave: Thousands of Maryland residents who filed insurance claims and began working with contractors and mechanics to repair damage to their homes and cars. As the commissioner of the Maryland Insurance Administration, she's charged with regulating Maryland's insurance industry and making certain that insurance companies comply with Maryland insurance law. The MIA also handles complaints from consumers and helps them work through problems with their providers.

A group of children play ball in the courtyard after dark as Anthony W. Batts walks through a high-crime West Baltimore public housing project wrapped around the Edgar Allan Poe House. It's quiet here, with an officer permanently stationed on-site, but the new police commissioner's department is dealing with problems across the city - two people will be killed in shootings by the end of the night. As Batts travels through Baltimore to learn on the job about his new town, he'll also get a close look at the uneven relationship between police and the community.