County Council

Editor:  In response to the person who wrote a letter condemning the county for building a new Emergency Operations Center, let me ask:  What was the most important building in the county in February of 2010? Not a school. There was a blizzard - schools were all closed.  What was the most important building in the county in August of 2011? Not a school. There was a hurricane - schools were all closed.  What is the more important building in the county between the middle of June and August?

The Baltimore County Council unanimously approved Thursday the spending plan proposed by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz for the coming fiscal year, a $1.65 billion operating budget that includes no furloughs, layoffs or tax increases. The lean budget, which goes into effect in July, relies heavily on savings from retirements, attrition and reorganizations in county agencies. The county will have 7 percent fewer employees than in the previous year. The council emphasized that local government would have less to work with as employees try to deliver the same level of services.

A Howard task force is seeking to reconcile the increasing need for senior housing with the county's growth limits by recommending measures like zoning changes, incentives for homeowners and developers, and a change in attitude toward senior developments. The task force completed a draft of the Senior Housing Master Plan this week and hopes to present the final plan to the County Council by September. The draft calls for an increase in the number of senior homes allowed under the growth limit, more moderately priced housing, a decrease in the size of property allowed to be developed, tax credits for builders and other incentives to encourage senior housing development.

Editor:  In response to the person who wrote a letter condemning the county for building a new Emergency Operations Center, let me ask:  What was the most important building in the county in February of 2010? Not a school. There was a blizzard - schools were all closed.  What was the most important building in the county in August of 2011? Not a school. There was a hurricane - schools were all closed.  What is the more important building in the county between the middle of June and August?

County leaders and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie-Rawlings-Blake came together Wednesday in Annapolis to fight the governor's proposal to shift part of the cost of teacher pensions to local governments, saying they would have to cut deeply into essential services to pay for such a change. "This puts a potentially devastating squeeze on local government," said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, a Democrat. "Find the $239 million somewhere else in the budget. " The local officials pointed to libraries, public safety and education as services that could be hurt if the General Assembly transfers millions of dollars in costs to them.

The Howard County Council overrode the executive's veto last night and banned smoking nearly everywhere beginning in mid-1996, giving the county one of the toughest anti-smoking laws on the East Coast.The bill toughens smoking restrictions in 60 days, but delays the total ban until July 1, 1996. After that date, the only smoking allowed in public will be in overnight truck stops, retail tobacco stores and in self-enclosed, separately ventilated bar areas of restaurants."It's been a long struggle," said 3rd District Democrat C. Vernon Gray, the bill's chief architect.

A new election year has begun, but partisan politics don't appear to be a factor in the first major local public issue at hand - the Feb. 1 County Council vote looming on the contested plans for remaking downtown Columbia. The council members expect to vote before election campaigns get rolling, but some citizens and candidates advocate delay to consider the intricate mix of concerns that amendments to the downtown bills contain. If that happens, it could push the issue into the election season or even beyond it. Meanwhile, the debate over density vs. congestion continues.

Harford's teachers have been cleared to finally get the bonuses set aside for them by County Executive David Craig, after the county council approved a $2.1 million appropriation for the bonus money Tuesday. Teachers were supposed to get the $1,250 bonus along with all other county employees by the end of 2011, but Craig vetoed that bill after the Harford County Education Association teachers' union tried to get more control over the funding distribution. The county board of education finalized a collective bargaining agreement with HCEA on Feb. 13, according to the council bill.

Howard County's population was 62,000 when the five-member County Council was formed more than four decades ago. Now Courtney Watson's Ellicott City/Elkridge district alone holds that many people, and she'd like the citizens commission reviewing the county charter to look at whether it's time that the council grew too. "I think it should be examined," Watson said. "With 62,000 constituents, it is a big challenge to be able to respond to people in a timely manner. " With 700 emails a week coming in, Watson, who also has a full-time private job, and Terry Chaconas, her lone special assistant, have to work hard to keep up. "There's nothing more frustrating," Watson said, "than to have one [email]

Congratulations to Baltimore County Executive Kamenetz for admonishing the County Council for taking in essence a formal position regarding the in-state tuition for illegal immigrants issue. However this not unexpected form a largely inexperienced County Council. Aside from the pros or cons of the issue, it is about practical politics. The County Council has taken a formal position in opposition to something the state legislature has approved. Each year the county request funding form the state legislature for a variety of things, including education.

What started out as a fairly insightful way to involve communities in Harford County in the long and complex process of devising a comprehensive land use plan, which would be used to set land use and zoning policy, has turned into a bunch of localized committees that appear unsure of their roles beyond being forums for community concerns. What these days are called community councils, with the most active ones in Edgewood-Joppa, Abingdon, Fallston and the northern end of the county, were established as community planning councils nearly two decades ago. The idea was that land use ideas would be distilled by the citizens of each of the communities and coordinated into a land use plan.

In reference to Laurie Taylor-Mitchell's letter to the editor ("Dance is too inexperienced," April 24), the people of Baltimore County have been blindsided by the opaque political behavior of school board president Lawrence E. Schmidt and his cronies. A superintendent who has little experience in the classroom and obviously no experience with aging infrastructure will only rubber stamp the board's political leanings. Mr. Schmidt's hidden agenda goes back to his ridiculous ruling on the destruction of green space in Mays Chapel Park for a new school and not considering looking at the other viable areas presented at board meetings.

A $21 million investment at the center of a legal debate in Baltimore County government was downgraded to junk status less than a month after the county purchased it in 2007, according to county documents. Details of the investment loss were included in a November 2007 letter sent to members of the former County Council and other county officials. The county is now considering suing Merrill Lynch, and has since stopped making similar investments. The letter, from County Administrative Officer Fred Homan, said the county bought commercial paper issued by Mainsail II LLC through Merrill Lynch on July 31, 2007.

George Nellies writes in response to a letter to the editor I wrote regarding the Baltimore County school board proposal that failed in the General Assembly ("Baltimore County needs an elected school board," April 13) First, I would like to thank Mr. Nellies. I haven't gotten this much ink in the newspaper in probably 20 years. Mr. Nellies first comments are that my language "parrots" County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. I have had no communication with the county executive over this issue.

Baltimore County is considering a lawsuit against Merrill Lynch in hopes of recovering millions lost in a bad investment five years ago. County Council members met in a closed briefing with County Attorney Mike Field, members of County Executive Kevin Kamenetz's administration and the county auditor's office on Monday to discuss the matter. County Council Chairwoman Vicki Almond said it dealt with a $21 million investment made in 2007. Almond, a Reisterstown Democrat, said she believed all of the money was lost, though others who attended the meeting said the county lost most, but not all, of its investment.

The Anne Arundel County police official who wants a federal probe into his agency is asking the County Council to investigate how a member learned about a personnel complaint against him that he contends the council member raised publicly to try to discredit him. At last week's council meeting, Councilman John J. Grasso brought up a hostile work environment allegation against Deputy Chief Emerson C. Davis that dates back more than three years....

Cecil County voters Tuesday picked their first nominees for the office of county executive and for the first two seats on their new county council. They also voted to retain two of their sitting circuit court judges, rejecting the challenge to the judges posed by one of the county's state delegates. Voting was light, with more Republicans showing up to the polls than Democrats. The Democratic and Republican county executive nominees chosen Tuesday, who will square off in the November general election, are both women, which means the first person to hold the office of Cecil County Executive will be a female.

It is time for a little history lesson. In 1775 King George III so vehemently opposed the colonists having any say in who should act on their behalf that he hired Hessian troops to kill their nascent desire to have a modicum of representation in Parliament. The result was a revolution that cost King George the most valuable part of the British Empire. Fast forward to 2012, and we have the would be King Kamenetz, who is so opposed to his subjects having a say in the affairs of local government that he hired his version of the Hessians in the form of Del. Sheila Hixson to ravage our representatives in Annapolis, to say nothing of the voters of Baltimore County.

Local government and university leaders are struggling to craft spending plans amid uncertainty over the state budget — and how a package of threatened cuts might affect schools, roads, public safety and other basic services. Officials throughout Maryland are pressing lawmakers to return to Annapolis and settle budget business left unfinished when the General Assembly session ended this week. The failure to come to an agreement by Monday's deadline raised the specter of more than $500 million in reductions, much of it in local aid. "Everybody is still in shock," said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the state university system, which would stand to lose up to $50 million — a reduction that he said could lead to a sharp tuition hike.