Community Group

One of Baltimore's largest community groups is threatening to evict a municipal agency from its headquarters after city workers came there Thursday and changed locks, moved furniture and commandeered additional office space.Lois A. Garey, executive director of the HARBEL community group, compared the city's methods to "Gestapo tactics," and City Council President Mary Pat Clarke accused the city of "fiscal thuggery."The confrontation grows out of a months-old dispute between the city Department of Housing and Community Development and officials of HARBEL, which includes 92 community associations in Northeast Baltimore and nearby sections of Baltimore County.

In response to a letter to the editor from Andy Lazris regarding a claim that the Columbia Association is not willing to support high school swim teams, please allow me to offer another perspective. When CA was approached by the group wanting to rent pool time for the schools' swim programs, the time slot the schools desired (and the volume of space they wanted) was unfortunately already heavily programmed; CA offered times that were, unfortunately, not workable for the program.

Washington businessman Kingdon Gould filed a petition this week to dig a quarry in Jessup, but the president of a community group near the site says he's not ready to sign an agreement the developer made with the community because of concerns about the document."

Several community groups in the Baltimore region expressed support for Constellation Energy Group's plan to sell itself to Chicago-based Exelon Corp. at a public hearing Tuesday in Bel Air. The lightly attended hearing was the first of three public comment hearings to be held by the Maryland Public Service Commission, which is reviewing the $7.9 billion deal. The next public hearings are scheduled for Thursday in Baltimore and Dec. 5 in Annapolis. Many of the two dozen people attending Tuesday's hearing were officials from Constellation and Exelon, attorneys representing the two firms and consumer advocates.

Less than a month after racial tensions flared at Southern High School with parents questioning the actions of its principal, parents and community members are scheduled to meet again tomorrow in hopes of establishing a community group to deal with issues at the Harwood school. Parents and residents are expected at the meeting set for 7 p.m. at Carter United Methodist Church in Friendship. School Principal Cliff Prince and other school district officials are also expected to attend. "Hopefully, we'll establish a community group" from the meeting, said Patti Harvey, who helped organize the first meeting for parents three weeks ago. "A lot of parents are saying we need to support [Prince]

A community group has been formed to unite and represent the residents of Baltimore's Little Italy, a neighborhood long divided over parking problems and legal disputes."

Bill Lagna doesn't feel he's leading a coup. As the first president of a community group created in the wake of a divisive plan to build condominiums at a weathered marina in Bowleys Quarters, Lagna says the goal is to unify residents on the eastern Baltimore County peninsula. "The intent of the group is to try to come up with acceptable developments that will fit in with the general theme of the existing neighborhood," says Lagna, president of the new Bowleys Quarters Community Association.

Baltimore businessman Gus Diakoulas' plan to turn the area around North Avenue and Howard Street into a full-fledged "design district" by taking control of a city-owned parcel in the 2100 block of North Howard Street has won the endorsement of the Charles North Community Association.The Rev. Dale Dusman, pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church and president of the community group, said that an eight-member advisory group from the community unanimously recommended that the city sell a 52,000-square-foot parcel at the southeast corner of Howard and 21st streets to the owners of the Design Resource Center at 200 W. North Ave. Two other bidders also want the parcel.

CHERRY HILL -- Residents of this rural community just a few miles outside Elkton are rallying their forces and plotting their strategy with hopes of halting, or at least trimming, one of the biggest residential development projects in the history of Cecil County. Windsor Development Co. of Freehold, N.J., wants to build 749 housing units on a peach orchard surrounded by homes on 1- to 5-acre lots. "This is like putting a little city in the middle of our community, and it doesn't fit," said Lindsie Carter, chairwoman of Cherry Hill Alliance for Responsible Growth and Expansion, which is opposed to the project.

COMMUNITY associations have every right to demand that their members honor their covenants, even if homeowners are prevented from painting a front door the color they want.Likewise, people who enter agreements with community associations are right to demand that the groups hold up their end of the bargain, regardless of how long ago the deal was signed.The Crofton Civic Association is showing utter disregard in this vein. It is trying to interfere with plans by a landowner to build a six-story hotel near the entrance to the western Anne Arundel County community on commercialized Crain Highway.

Teenage boys dart around a basketball court at North Baltimore's DeWees Recreation Center, calling to each other in the chilly fall air. Inside, younger kids in mud-stained football jerseys hover around a pool table and play video games. The floors are scuffed and the blinds hang askew, but for Govans residents, the small brick building is the center of community life. That's why neighborhood leaders, with the aid of nearby Loyola University, drafted a plan to run DeWees after the city announced it wanted to hand over two dozen rec centers to third parties.

Former farmland near the heart of Columbia would become a children's garden and "early childhood education nature center" if a citizens group is successful in persuading Howard County officials to carry out the project. The land is part of a 300-acre tract - once known as the Smith farm and now called Blandair Park - that the Rouse Co. was unable to acquire when it assembled 15,000 acres to build Columbia starting in the 1960s. The heavily wooded property straddles Route 175 between Tamar Drive and Thunder Hill Road, making it highly visible to people driving to Columbia from Interstate 95. Howard County acquired it in 1998, one year after owner Nancy Smith died without a will, and has an eight-phase plan to transform it for park and recreational use. The entire project is expected to cost $54.7 million and take eight to 10 years to complete.

The Hereford Community Association's members voted unanimously to expand the group's boundaries at its April 12 meeting. The original boundaries were drawn in 1989 when the association formed and covered a half-mile radius from the intersection of Mount Carmel and York roads. Those boundaries were enlarged in 1998. Paul Cummins, association president, said many people who stopped by the HCA booth at theHereford Zone Business Association Expo in February expressed interest in joining, but live outside its boundaries.

After the alleged assault of a black teenager by a member of the Shomrim neighborhood patrol group, black and Jewish community leaders met at a closed meeting to facilitate relations between the groups. Four of the leaders spoke briefly to the media after emerging from the close to 90 minute meeting, saying they had not decided whether to call for the Shomrim to disband, but that they plan to continue dialogue between the communities. Wednesday's gathering prompted "much discussion, sometimes heated discussion," Arthur C. Abramson, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council.

Patrick James Brendan "J.B. " Donnelly, an active partner with the Niles, Barton & Wilmer law firm, died Sept. 16 of congestive heart failure at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Owings Mills resident was 74. Born in Kansas, Mr. Donnelly moved with his family as a toddler to Carroll County, where his father had acquired a family farm. Mr. Donnelly graduated from Westminster High School and later attended Queen's University in Belfast, Ireland for one year in 1956. He returned to the U.S. and studied at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, where he became a lifelong fan of "Fighting Irish" football.

A group of over 200 Howard County residents pushing a new fall agenda to benefit unemployed youth and the aging got quick promises of support from Democratic County Executive Ken Ulman but not from Trent Kittleman, his Republican challenger. People Acting Together in Howard, a coalition of 15 churches, one mosque and several citizens groups, wanted both Ulman and Kittleman to support their plans for more aggressive youth employment programs and more help to allow the elderly to stay in their homes.

A few months back, the Joppatowne swim club seemed an abandoned place. Tiles hung loose in the empty pool. Weeds stood 2 feet high, providing a sanctuary for water fowl. Wires and cobwebs dangled from the greasy kitchen ceiling, and boards covered windows and entrances.But today -- after volunteers put in hundreds of hours of work and a community group agreed to purchase the pool for $350,000 -- the clear blue water beckons. Manicured lawns invite sunbathers to spread a blanket and soak up the rays, and the kitchen's ready for the lunch crowd.

Leaders of a community group opposed to development of a 682-acre residential, commercial and golfing village near their neighborhood asked county officials and the developer this week to "negotiate a reasonable solution" with them within six months.According to the proposal, the county would not act on the Waverly Woods II project, and the developer would withdraw his petition to rezone the property untileveryone can either reach an agreement or decide there is no satisfactory solution.In return, Citizens Allied for Rational Expansion (CARE)

Loyola University Maryland wants to purchase a residence in the Guilford area for use as an alumni center, but local residents must first agree to an exception to the deal that limits the school's expansion in the neighborhood. The house at 208 E. Cold Spring Lane is in the tiny Kernewood community, next door to the Loyola president's house. It is owned by Michael Harrison, a former general director of the now-defunct Baltimore Opera Company. The North Baltimore Neighborhood Coalition would have to sign off on the university expansion.