Garey

Stuck at a long red light on his way to a Christmas party eight years ago, City Councilman Nicholas C. D'Adamo Jr. started stewing over a political problem and solved it before he stepped on the gas. A dozen people were vying to fill a vacant seat in D'Adamo's council district, none appealing to him. But he had to back someone for the post. As his car idled at Hamilton Avenue and Harford Road, D'Adamo suddenly thought of a community activist he knew he would see at the party: Lois A. Garey.

On June 20, 2003 HELEN M. KOCIS (nee Jackowski) beloved wife of the late Michael J. Kocis, loving mother of Connie Garey, Lorraine Zuromski and Ronald Michael Kocis, loving grandmother of Brad Garey and Renea and Brian Zuromski, Derek M. Kocis and Daniel Cockerham, great-grandmother of Alora and Ashli. Relatives and friends will gather at the Charles S. Zeiler & Son Inc., Funeral Home, 6224 Eastern Avenue (at Folcroft) on Monday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. where a Christian Wake service will be held at 7:30 P.M. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at Our Lady of Fatima Church on Tuesday at 10 A.M. Interment in Oak Lawn Cemetery.

THE NEW police commissioner of Baltimore, Kevin Clark, arrived at City Hall on Friday with a Noo Yawk accent and a street-corner mentality. He says the street corners will now belong to him and not to the drug dealers who currently control so many of them and chill entire neighborhoods. This is good to hear, but not exactly new. Clark will replace The Deserter, also known as Edward T. Norris, who slipped out of town and gave up fighting murderers and heroin dealers for the vitally important job of supervising traffic tickets on suburban highways.

Legislation fostering the sale of 50 acres of city-owned land to Loyola College at two closed landfills could be delayed until summer, pending a completed study by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, 1st District City Councilwoman Lois Garey said last week. "The community has requested an EPA study on developing and building on a [former] landfill, and a lot of council people would like to wait," Garey said just days after chairing a contentious land-use committee hearing on Loyola's proposal to buy the land in the Woodberry area, off Cold Spring Lane.

The city Board of Estimates approved yesterday building a 13-story parking garage downtown amid criticism that the structure will benefit a company accused of predatory lending and do little to ease public parking concerns. The board voted to spend $12.5 million in parking revenue bond funds and $3 million in state money to build the garage at 210 St. Paul Place. The city will own and operate the garage after it is completed late next year. The approval was criticized yesterday by advocates for the poor and City Councilwoman Lois A. Garey, a Southeast Baltimore Democrat whose 1st District includes the garage site.

The City Council introduced a series of O'Malley administration bills last night calling for approval of $24 million in additional spending to cover cost overruns this year, much of which are due to police overtime from the city's stepped-up crime-fighting efforts. The Police Department overspent its budget by $11.5 million for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, and the Department of Public Works overspent by $7.3 million. And $1 million more is going toward a summer jobs program, officials said.

Declaring "we are tired of being good," Damian Bohager has restarted "college nights" at his Fells Point nightclub, outraging some city and National Organization for Women officials with his racy and defiant marketing campaign. Bohager's, in the 700 block of S. Eden St., has resumed college nights for 18- to 20-year-olds after halting the Thursday night events in early June when some business leaders complained that the events were tarnishing the historic community. The lawful events - which will be expanded and held Thursdays through Saturdays, permitting those under 21 to socialize but not drink alcohol - attracted more than 1,000 people each night with a radio and newspaper advertising campaign that promoted an "anything goes party."

In a game laden with memorable plays, Liberty's Greg Garey yesterday gave himself the memory of a lifetime. Called upon to pinch hit with his team trailing by two and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning, the reserve outfielder stepped off the bench and into the headlines, hitting a game-winning three-run double to the gap in right-center to lift the host Lions to a dramatic 7-6 win over North Carroll. It was a most fitting way to end an emotional roller coaster of a battle, which saw the Panthers, down 4-1 at one point, tie it in the seventh on David Doarnberger's two-out, two-run homer, then take a 6-4 lead in the ninth by sending eight batters to the plate.

After a long political passage, a bill to ban new billboard construction in the city won the strong approval of the City Council yesterday. Next week, the council is scheduled to vote again on the measure, as a matter of protocol, and is expected to pass the bill a second time. Mayor Martin O'Malley has said he would sign it into law. Because the council rarely overturns itself, the result was hailed as a hard-won victory by several neighborhood activists. "I'm stunned, exhilarated into speechlessness," said Sharon Price, a Hampden resident who has spoken against billboard construction along the Jones Falls Expressway, near her home.

In the 1st Councilmanic District of southern and Southeast Baltimore, the three incumbent representatives -- John L. Cain, Nicholas C. D'Adamo Jr. and Lois Garey -- are seeking four more years in office in next month's Democratic primary.Their principal challenger, Charles Krysiak, just wants to find nine more votes.That's how many additional ballots Krysiak needed to gain the third spot in a 12-person field in the 1995 Democratic primary.Krysiak wound up with 7,557 votes to 7,565 for Cain in a race not decided until absentee ballots were tallied.