Contractors Association

The last of the vacancies created when the late Sen. J. Robert Hooper resigned his seat in the legislature last year has been filled. The Harford County Republican Central Committee has appointed James A. Barron of Havre de Grace to its board. Barron, selected from among 13 candidates, will serve until the 2010 primary election, filling the term of Wayne H. Norman Jr., who was appointed to the House of Delegates last month. Norman replaced Barry Glassman, who took Hooper's seat in the Senate.

The last of the vacancies created when the late Sen. J. Robert Hooper resigned his seat in the legislature last year has been filled. The Harford County Republican Central Committee has appointed James A. Barron of Havre de Grace to its board. Barron, selected from among 13 candidates, will serve until the 2010 primary election, filling the term of Wayne H. Norman Jr., who was appointed to the House of Delegates last month. Norman replaced Barry Glassman, who took Hooper's seat in the Senate.

Oliver W. Clemons, a retired refrigeration contractor, died of cardiac arrest Monday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Parkville resident was 87. Born in Bluffton, S.C., he moved to Baltimore with his mother and siblings after the death of his father in 1929. In 1939, he established Clemons Radio and Television at his McElderry Street home. Family members said he repaired early experimental television sets. After serving briefly in the Army Air Forces during World War II, he worked at H.E. Crook Co., electrical contractors, and joined Local 28 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Maryland's minority business program is such a shambles that it can't reliably estimate how much business the state does with non-white firms, Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday, promising renewed efforts to steer government work to groups that have suffered from discrimination. The governor told the Maryland-Washington Minority Contractors Association that although the number of minority- and women-owned firms registered with the state has increased in recent years, it appears that minorities' share of state business might actually have declined.

School bus contractors are upset that the Board of Education has given itself the option to reduce their pay next year.Last week's unanimous decision allows the board to reduce contractors' rate of reimbursement if the school system finds itself in a budget crunch. Starting next year, contractors will have to sign an agreement with a provision that allows the board such power.Contractors called the decision unfair."This is the only business that these contractors have," said Thomas M. Meachum, lawyer for the School Bus Contractors Association.

The former bookkeeper for the Harford County 4-H Fair and the county's School Bus Contractors Association has been arrested and charged with stealing funds from both organizations, the state's attorney's office said yesterday.Debra C. Nelson, 40, of the 500 block of Chestnut Hill Road in Forest Hill was arrested Wednesday morning on two counts of theft of more than $300, said Sgt. Edward Hopkins, spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Department.She was released on $1,000 bail, police said.

Friends and associates of Robert Lee Clay, a prominent Baltimore businessman and advocate for minority firms, remained shocked and saddened yesterday over his unresolved shooting death Monday. They also refused to accept indications from city police that Clay, 58, might have committed suicide. Police said Monday that Clay had been shot, but an autopsy to determine whether his death was a homicide or suicide was not complete yesterday, a police spokesman said. "I am more than shocked," said Arnold Jolivet, president of the American Minority Contractors and Businesses Association Inc. in Washington.

Robert J. McCollom, president of the Sullivan Construction Co., died Sunday at his home on Red Fox Court in Towson after a heart attack.Mr. McCollom, who was 65, had worked for the water and sewer contracting company for more than 40 years.He was a former president of the Associated Utility Contractors of Maryland and a member of the board of the National Utility Contractors Association.He was a member of the Baltimore Yacht Club, a former president of its holding company, a former member of the Sue Island Power Squadron and a member of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick.

John J. Matricciani, CEO of Matricciani Co., an underground utilities construction company founded in Baltimore by his grandfather more than 80 years ago, died of cancer Wednesday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Lutherville resident was 61. Mr. Matricciani, who was known as Jay, was born in Baltimore and raised in Guilford. He was a member of the last graduating class, in 1960, of Calvert Hall College High School's Cathedral Street facility in downtown Baltimore. He attended Villanova University for a year before enlisting in the Marine Corps.

Carroll S. Klingelhofer Jr., retired vice president of the road building firm where he had worked for 40 years, died Monday of respiratory failure at his Lutherville home. He was 78.After his discharge from the Army in 1945, he joined Harry T. Campbell Sons' Co., a predecessor company of Genstar Stone Products. In his years with the firm, he worked on some of Maryland's most important road building projects.In his first job with the company as assistant manager of the private roads department, he got up in the early hours and drove a flatbed truck to the intersection of Pratt and Light streets to hire day laborers at a rate of 40 cents an hour.

Bernard J. Vondersmith, a former university English professor and author who for the past two decades had been an executive with mechanical contracting trade organizations, died of laryngeal cancer Friday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Timonium resident was 61. Dr. Vondersmith was born in Baltimore and raised on Louise Avenue in Hamilton. He was a 1961 graduate of Loyola High School and earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1965 from Loyola College. He earned a master's degree in English in 1967 and a doctorate in English Renaissance literature in 1971, both from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and from 1968 to 1979 taught English and writing courses at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.

Friends and associates of Robert Lee Clay, a prominent Baltimore businessman and advocate for minority firms, remained shocked and saddened yesterday over his unresolved shooting death Monday. They also refused to accept indications from city police that Clay, 58, might have committed suicide. Police said Monday that Clay had been shot, but an autopsy to determine whether his death was a homicide or suicide was not complete yesterday, a police spokesman said. "I am more than shocked," said Arnold Jolivet, president of the American Minority Contractors and Businesses Association Inc. in Washington.

An association of minority contractors who could benefit from reforms in state procurement rules proposed by a commission headed by Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele raised thousands of dollars for his campaign fund at a $500-a-plate reception it organized last month. The Baltimore-based Maryland-Washington Minority Contractors' Association Inc. held the Jan. 8 reception and solicited additional contributions of $250, $500 and $1,000. Two members of the host committee for the reception - called "an Evening Reception for Lt. Governor of Maryland Michael S. Steele" - sit on the commission Steele chairs.

Suzanne Harrison and her Fells Point neighbors have been barraged by visits from home improvement contractors in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isabel. The South Ann Street corridor where she lives experienced severe flooding last week. Harrison has spent the days since the storm evaluating the damage left by the water that surged into the basement of her historic rowhouse and up to her front door. "We had people cruising by on boats up to our doors handing out business cards," Harrison said.

Oliver W. Clemons, a retired refrigeration contractor, died of cardiac arrest Monday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Parkville resident was 87. Born in Bluffton, S.C., he moved to Baltimore with his mother and siblings after the death of his father in 1929. In 1939, he established Clemons Radio and Television at his McElderry Street home. Family members said he repaired early experimental television sets. After serving briefly in the Army Air Forces during World War II, he worked at H.E. Crook Co., electrical contractors, and joined Local 28 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

John J. Matricciani, CEO of Matricciani Co., an underground utilities construction company founded in Baltimore by his grandfather more than 80 years ago, died of cancer Wednesday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Lutherville resident was 61. Mr. Matricciani, who was known as Jay, was born in Baltimore and raised in Guilford. He was a member of the last graduating class, in 1960, of Calvert Hall College High School's Cathedral Street facility in downtown Baltimore. He attended Villanova University for a year before enlisting in the Marine Corps.

A group of public works contractors is again suing Baltimore's mayor and City Council in federal court, charging that the city's revised minority contracting goals remain unconstitutional. The Associated Utility Contractors of Maryland Inc. won its first round against the city in 1999, when a federal judge ordered Baltimore to stop enforcing a law requiring 23 percent of city contracts to go to businesses owned by minorities or women. Responding to U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis' ruling that the city had failed to prove that disparities existed, the city adopted a new policy last year based on a $200,000 study that found city contracts primarily benefited "non-minority men."

Bernard J. Vondersmith, a former university English professor and author who for the past two decades had been an executive with mechanical contracting trade organizations, died of laryngeal cancer Friday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Timonium resident was 61. Dr. Vondersmith was born in Baltimore and raised on Louise Avenue in Hamilton. He was a 1961 graduate of Loyola High School and earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1965 from Loyola College. He earned a master's degree in English in 1967 and a doctorate in English Renaissance literature in 1971, both from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and from 1968 to 1979 taught English and writing courses at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.

A group of public works contractors is again suing Baltimore's mayor and City Council in federal court, charging that the city's revised minority contracting goals remain unconstitutional. The Associated Utility Contractors of Maryland Inc. won its first round against the city in 1999, when a federal judge ordered Baltimore to stop enforcing a law requiring 23 percent of city contracts to go to businesses owned by minorities or women. Responding to U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis' ruling that the city had failed to prove that disparities existed, the city adopted a new policy last year based on a $200,000 study that found city contracts primarily benefited "non-minority men."

An ambitious project to transform nearly 200 deteriorating city rowhouses into properties to sell to low-income families has stalled after leaders of a national job-advocacy group discovered that their regional managers had entered into an unauthorized ,, agreement to renovate the homes.The president of the United Minority Contractors Association, which trains minority contractors and inner-city youth in construction, said she halted the affordable-housing project /^ organized by the nonprofit's mid-Atlantic chapter and a New York mortgage lender after she learned of it in September.