Fort Meade

A congressman is pushing to build math-and-science magnet schools on or around Fort Meade to serve an expected influx of children from the national base realignment and expansion of the National Security Agency - the world's largest employer of mathematicians. The school would raise future generations of scientists, engineers and other specialized workers to support a growing cadre of defense agencies coming to Maryland, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger told more than 100 commercial developers, lawyers and government officials in Linthicum yesterday.

Fort Meade is proposing to build a sewage sludge incinerator, a prospect that has drawn outrage among western Anne Arundel County civic leaders and criticism from the county's top health official about the potential environmental and health impacts. The Maryland Department of the Environment is holding a public hearing tonight in Odenton to discuss plans by a Tennessee contractor, Ameresco Federal Solutions, to build the incinerator near the Army post's sewage plant adjacent to the intersection of Routes 32 and 198. The incinerator would run 24 hours a day on weekdays, disposing of hundreds of tons of sewage a year more cheaply than by trucking the waste away, county and Fort Meade officials said.

Army commanders will meet with Anne Arundel County officials in the coming weeks to discuss plans to have a private developer build a $700 million office complex at Fort Meade, a proposal that would transform the Army post but that would cost the county millions in tax revenue. One of the nation's largest real estate developers, Trammell Crow Co., has entered into exclusive negotiations with the Army to build at least 2 million square feet of office space to handle 10,000 defense contract workers drawn by base realignment and closure, or BRAC, and an expansion of the National Security Agency.

McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant will open its new location at Westfield Annapolis mall at 3 p.m. tomorrow. It will be the third McCormick & Schmick's in Maryland. The company has two restaurants in Baltimore. Job fair planned at Fort Meade The Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation-Anne Arundel One Stop Career Centers and Fort Meade Directorate Morale Welfare and Recreation will sponsor a job fair Wednesday. The job fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Club Meade, 6600 Mapes Road, Fort Meade.

Women's `Hall' game, ceremony tomorrow The 11th Howard County Women's Athletics Hall of Fame game and induction ceremony will be held tomorrow at Atholton High School in Columbia. Inductees are Tierney Clark Ahearn, Sylvia Groomes, Kisha Jett and Genny O'Donnell Kozusko. The event, which is sponsored by Patuxent Publishing, will be held between the alumnae basketball game, which starts at 5 p.m., and the Centennial vs. Atholton girls varsity basketball game, which starts at 7 p.m. There is an admission charge; proceeds will go to the Women's Giving Circle.

Annapolis Contractor dispute could go to court A dispute between Annapolis officials and a contractor renovating and expanding the Police Department could be headed for legal action. A week after officials halted work on the $8.8 million project, consultants hired by the city are ripping out portions of the ceiling and walls in search of incomplete or faulty construction. The contractor says the city is nitpicking and is behind on payments. Anne Arundel section, Friday Anne Arundel New trial denied for Navy athlete A military judge declined yesterday to grant a new trial to a former Navy football player who was convicted of sexual assault.

The Odenton Town Center is poised to be a key element in our county's future growth and economic development. The center's location in the heart of the Fort Meade BRAC expansion area adds to its importance and the need to implement this project as part of a coordinated plan for West County. The county's planning staff and economic development are working with the property owners in the Town Center to ensure that this growth is effectively managed. The infrastructure needs of this mixed-use community will be met through a combination of state and county funds.

BOWIE -- The economic promise for Maryland of military base realignment could falter if lawmakers fail to approve tax increases the O'Malley administration is seeking to upgrade highways and transit systems, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown warned yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of Cabinet secretaries, Brown added an inability to cope with base-related growth to the litany of dire consequences that state officials say could befall Maryland if Gov. Martin O'Malley's package of tax increases and revisions is not adopted.

Maryland officials outlined yesterday a smorgasbord of initiatives intended to smooth the way for an influx in the next few years of thousands of high-tech defense workers and their families. The plan, the product of nearly six months of meetings between state and local officials, calls for a variety of moves to steer at least some of the expected business and residential growth into Baltimore City and other communities near the expanding bases, particularly Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade.

City may best handle new-worker influx Baltimore may be in the best position to absorb thousands of new workers expected to surge into the region as part of a national military base realignment, the state's planning secretary nominee told legislators yesterday. Because of existing housing that is vacant, the city would have the easiest time accommodating new federal employees, private-sector workers and their families as Maryland's military bases expand over the next five years, said Richard Eberhart Hall, who has been nominated by Gov. Martin O'Malley to head the state Department of Planning.

A job fair will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at Fort Meade, with more than 80 potential employers recruiting. The Fort Meade Veterans Job Fair, run by military offices and the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, is open to veterans and nonveterans. The program will take place at Club Meade, 6600 Mapes Road, and will include information sessions on federal resumes. Among the jobs are those in health care, public safety, administrative work, logistics and computers.

It's said that the first step toward fixing a problem is recognizing you have one. So when the producers of the TV show "Making Over America" needed a subject for an August episode, they stumbled upon gold in LaShunda Rodgers, an Army staff sergeant and self-described "crazy person" based at Fort Meade. The cheerful Rodgers, who was getting ready to turn 30 this year, had a feeling her style of dress was less than appropriate for her status as a maturing single mother. The show "sent an e-mail to every female stationed at Fort Meade, asking us to describe our style problems, what was in our closets and other things," says Rodgers, an Iraq war veteran who teaches multimedia illustration on the base.

It's said that the first step toward fixing a problem is recognizing you have one. So when the producers of the TV show "Making Over America" needed a subject for an August episode, they stumbled upon gold in LaShunda Rodgers, an Army staff sergeant and self-described "crazy person" based at Fort Meade. The cheerful Rodgers, who was getting ready to turn 30 this year, had a feeling her style of dress was less than appropriate for her status as a maturing single mother. The show "sent an e-mail to every female stationed at Fort Meade, asking us to describe our style problems, what was in our closets and other things," says Rodgers, an Iraq war veteran who teaches multimedia illustration on the base.

A federal Government Accountability Office report says Maryland may need an additional $315 million to $470 million to complete transportation projects near three military facilities that will gain thousands of jobs under the Pentagon's base realignment program. The newly released study, which reports to Congress on the impact of the Base Realignment and Closure process on 18 communities nationwide, noted that Maryland has already allocated almost $95 million for intersection improvements near Aberdeen Proving Ground, Fort Meade and the Bethesda National Naval Center.

A skydiver who died in what police believe was an accident over the weekend was identified Monday as Command Sgt. Maj. Harry Parrish, 53, of Fort Meade. An Army Reservist on active duty, Parrish was in charge of training for Army Reserves and Guard members in the 1st Army Division East at Fort Meade, according to Army spokeswoman Raina Williams. He was well-known at Fort Meade, as the division includes nine brigades east of the Mississippi River, and Fort Meade is the training site for most of them bound for Iraq, Afghanistan and other duties.

The National Security Agency could be adding thousands of jobs as it revs up plans to build a new complex near its Anne Arundel County headquarters - or possibly just relocating the thousands of people working clandestinely in unmarked office buildings around the region. The tight-lipped agency, which said little in response to requests for comment Friday, has notified the federal government that it wants to build 5.8 million square feet over 20 years. The land it has in mind is elsewhere on the Fort Meade base it already calls home.

ARC home for disabled in Howard wins top LEED certification 3 A private nonprofit group's home for people with disabilities in Howard County is the first in Maryland to qualify at the highest level of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, according to County Executive Ken Ulman. The ARC of Howard County's new home, the Awake House in the 9300 block of Torrent Row in Columbia, won the platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, which evaluates buildings in five categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and indoor environmental quality.

Anne Arundel office construction begins Corporate Office Properties Trust began construction Monday of a $36 million, five-story, 150,000-square-foot office building at the National Business Park in Anne Arundel County, even though it has no tenants signed up. Randall M. Griffin, president and chief executive officer of COPT, said the company doesn't usually begin construction on a large office building before it is substantially preleased, but it...

For the first time, more than half the defense workers whose jobs are moving from Northern Virginia to Fort Meade as part of the federal base realignment and closing process say they are coming too, according to a new survey. Most intend to initially commute from their Virginia homes, according to Jack Penkoske, director of manpower, personnel and security for the Defense Information Systems Agency, which conducted the anonymous survey in late May. The 58 percent of the 4,300 DISA workers who now plan to keep their jobs even after the move represent a 19 percentage-point increase from last spring's survey, Penkoske said, a larger increase than he expected.

Federal jobs available Ward 7 Alderman Sam Shropshire will host a meeting discussing jobs coming to the area and how to apply, 6 p.m. Tuesday the City Council chambers, 160 Duke of Gloucester St., Annapolis. Guest speaker will be Nancy Fink, assistant director of the Professional Outplacement Assistance Center in Columbia. Fink is certified as a federal job search trainer and counselor and also holds a global career development facilitator certification. Fink will explain POAC's free program for training and assisting Marylanders in the federal job application process.