NEWS
By Frederick N. Rasmussen | August 9, 2009
John R. Miller, retired director of Maryland's Department of General Services and longtime recreational soccer coach, died Wednesday of cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Timonium resident was 64. Mr. Miller was born in Miami and was raised in Switzerland and Bangor, Maine. He was a 1962 graduate of Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Mass. He earned a master's degree in education in 1969 from the Johns Hopkins University and a second master's, also from Hopkins, in administration in 1974.
NEWS
November 5, 2008
City voters were on their way to approving loan authorizations for $125 million in projects, including construction at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and Lyric Opera House, and renovations at the downtown courthouse and other buildings. Based on incomplete returns, voters also backed a charter amendment to create a Department of General Services.
NEWS
November 4, 2008
Baltimore city Question A: Creation of Department of General Services "To establish a Department of General Services, providing for the powers and duties of the Department of General Services, transferring certain powers and duties from the Department of Public Works to the Department of General Services, and requiring that obstructions in the public street to the work of the Department of Transportation or the Department of General Services must be...
NEWS
By Justin Fenton | April 12, 2008
Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer announced yesterday a slate of new leadership for the city Police Department, including an interim chief, the supervisor of a new state-backed anti-crime program and a volunteer adviser in the form of a nationally known former New York City police commissioner. Michael A. Pristoop, who has run the Department of General Services for less than eight months after 21 years with the Baltimore Police Department, has been tapped to take charge of the Annapolis department starting next week.
NEWS
By Gadi Dechter | March 6, 2008
A project manager at the state Department of the General Services has been referred to the attorney general's office for criminal investigation because of repeated conflict-of-interest findings by legislative auditors, officials said yesterday. It is the second audit finding in three months of potential employee ethics violations at the Department of General Services. The state agency manages state buildings and hires and supervises private contractors who build facilities for Maryland government agencies with public money.
NEWS
By John Fritze | February 5, 2008
Baltimore should borrow millions to build and renovate schools, libraries and parks, and create a department to oversee the construction, Mayor Sheila Dixon said yesterday during her second State of the City address. Speaking in the ornate City Council chamber to an audience of local and state officials, Dixon said she would ask voters to approve an additional $27 million in borrowing for city construction projects and to create a Department of General Services to supervise the work. She made her proposal for improved city facilities as Baltimore faces a potential economic downturn that could threaten not only the coming year's budget but also the long-term ability of the city to pay for critical services such as public safety.
NEWS
By Bradley Olson | November 6, 2007
The Maryland State House, a national historic landmark and the oldest capitol still in legislative use, will close from April until the 2009 General Assembly session for major renovations to its 40-year-old internal piping system, state officials said yesterday. More than 60 state employees and elected officials will move out temporarily, including the governor, Senate president and House speaker, and preservationists will take careful steps to safeguard the artifacts and trappings that make the State House one of the most visited tourist attractions in Maryland.
NEWS
By Andrew Green | August 31, 2007
A former state employee filed suit against Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration yesterday, alleging that he was fired as part of a purge of white Republicans from the Department of General Services in favor of black Democrats. Nelson Reichart, a 29-year state employee who was elevated to the head of the department's real estate division by former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., was fired June 29, the day after he was quoted in The Sun discussing a Queen Anne's County land deal. He contends in his suit that the quote hastened his firing but that his termination was part of a pattern in the department.
NEWS
By Stephanie Desmon | August 24, 2007
An employee of the William Donald Schaefer Tower downtown was stricken with Legionnaires' disease, and several others with respiratory illnesses are being examined, but state officials were cautioning yesterday that they don't believe the building is contaminated. "Right now, what we have is one case," Gov. Martin O'Malley told reporters yesterday at a news conference inside the building. "If there were a second case in this building, that would tell us we have to go into a much deeper level of forensic examination."
NEWS
By TIMOTHY B. WHEELER | August 11, 2006
The Ehrlich administration is moving ahead with plans to move the Maryland Department of Planning from its longtime state-owned offices in Baltimore to rented space in Prince George's County, despite being denied funding for the nearly $2 million relocation by the General Assembly. The Department of General Services has prepared a lease agreement effective July 1, 2007, for the planning agency to occupy new quarters in Largo, according to an internal document obtained by The Sun. The department "has been requested" to present the lease to the Board of Public Works for approval, says the document, which is dated Aug. 1. Henry Fawell, a spokesman for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., said the administration is committed to the relocation to fulfill a four-year-old pledge.