General Services

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. appointed R. Stevens Cassard Jr. as secretary of the state Department of General Services yesterday, replacing Boyd K. Rutherford, who was named to a position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cassard, 48, had most recently been deputy secretary. Also yesterday, Ehrlich named B. Diane Wilson deputy secretary, filling Cassard's previous position. Wilson had been assistant secretary for facilities operations and maintenance, and previously had been a facilities manager with the University of Maryland Medical System.

It's been a busy year so far for Audrey Dyer-Brown, collections supervisor at the city Department of Public Works. Her job duties have ballooned - and so has her paycheck. By early May, she'd already made 87 percent of her yearly salary, even though the year was just one-third over. Thanks to a whopping 538 hours of overtime in that span, she took in $22,280 above her regular pay, giving her gross income of $37,500 by May 8, according to figures provided by the city. Her regular salary for the entire year: $42,900.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer has begun reshaping his Cabinet for his second term by forcing the departure of Earl F. Seboda, the long-time secretary of the Department of General Services, according to a well-placed source in Annapolis.Seboda, 52, has run the Department of General Services since 1983 and was a holdover from the Cabinet of Schaefer's predecessor, Harry R. Hughes.Two weeks ago Schaefer ordered his entire Cabinet and hundreds of top appointed officials to submit letters of resignation immediately.

Since 1901, Annapolis residents and downtown workers have been dropping off letters and buying stamps at the brick Georgian Revival-style post office on Church Circle. But not for much longer. A vote by the state's Board of Public Works on Wednesday seals the eventual fate of the post office. The state is buying the office for $3.2 million, with eventual plans to use the building for government offices. "The state saw an opportunity to retain the historic value of the building, particularly because it's in the footprint of other state-owned facilities.

An off-duty police officer for the state Department of General Services was shot to death early yesterday morning outside a Parkville bar, Baltimore County police said. Albert Jerome Roulhac, 32, was walking to his car in the parking lot outside Tee-Bee's Place, a bar on Darlington Drive just north of the city line, when several gunshots hit him in the upper body, police said. Roulhac was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2 a.m., police said. A General Services police officer for two years, Roulhac was assigned to patrol the state office complex on Preston Street in Baltimore, said Anne Hubbard, a spokeswoman for General Services.

Howard County government officials are moving to dissolve one department and create a new one a proposal that caused a few sparks during last night's County Council meeting."

the Department of General Services and the Sheriff's Department -- took their turns Thursday before the commissioners, submitting what were described as "maintenance" budgets.J. Michael Evans, director of the Department of General Services, submitted proposed spending plans for fiscal 1993 for five bureaus, including administration, development review and permits and inspections, and for other programs under his charge, such as recycling.Budget requests within the Department of General Services ranged from a 7.1 percent increase in spending for the Bureau of DevelopmentReview to a 4.6 decrease in the central warehouse, a storage facility for county agencies.

Two bomb threats triggered the evacuation of 6,000 state employees in four Baltimore state office buildings yesterday, but no explosive devices were found, authorities said.Police were investigating the anonymous threats, which were phoned in early yesterday to the Maryland Department of General Services, in a building it shares with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at 201 W. Preston St., and later to the Department of Human Resources, 311 W. Saratoga St.As a precaution, officials emptied those buildings and state-owned complexes at 300 and 301 W. Preston.

The historic Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, which lost its longtime curator and was shuttered in September amid an operational reorganization, has in the last month been defaced by graffiti and robbed of its wooden front steps, according to those involved in the museum's revitalization. City officials said they are aware of the damage and recently repainted the museum door, which had been scrawled with mostly illegible writings in marker. They also said they regularly check on the museum and respond to any complaints about its condition.

Since 1901, Annapolis residents and downtown workers have been dropping off letters and buying stamps at the brick Georgian Revival-style post office on Church Circle. But not for much longer. A vote by the state's Board of Public Works on Wednesday seals the eventual fate of the post office. The state is buying the office for $3.2 million, with eventual plans to use the building for government offices. "The state saw an opportunity to retain the historic value of the building, particularly because it's in the footprint of other state-owned facilities.

Maryland officials agreed Wednesday to buy the historic Annapolis post office building from the U.S. Postal Service for use as part of the government complex surrounding the State House. Without dissent, the three-member Board of Public Works agreed to pay $3.2 million for the 13,000-square-foot building on Church Circle. Built in 1901, the structure is listed on the Maryland Historical Trust inventory of historic properties. Under the deal, the state will lease space back to the Postal Service to continue services for eight to 20 months until it relocates.

General Services Administration officials said Wednesday they had received nearly three dozen responses to a request for ideas about a new FBI headquarters, a potentially lucrative development that Maryland leaders hope to land in Prince George's County. State and local officials have been working behind the scenes for months to lure the FBI to Maryland if the agency leaves its 38-year-old headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, in downtown Washington. The state is competing with Virginia and Washington for the roughly 11,000 jobs associated with the facility.

The historic Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, which lost its longtime curator and was shuttered in September amid an operational reorganization, has in the last month been defaced by graffiti and robbed of its wooden front steps, according to those involved in the museum's revitalization. City officials said they are aware of the damage and recently repainted the museum door, which had been scrawled with mostly illegible writings in marker. They also said they regularly check on the museum and respond to any complaints about its condition.

After two years of failing to post CitiStat reports online - and nearly two months without holding a meeting - Baltimore has named a new CitiStat director, who is pledging better transparency and performance from the vaunted good-government program. Chad Kenney, who was named director in August after two years as an analyst for the program, has made five reports available on the city's website, tracking the performance of the Departments of Transportation and General Services.

In a major shake-up at City Hall, new chiefs were announced Friday for three key Baltimore agencies. Public Works Director David E. Scott said he was asked to resign because of a "difference of opinion" with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration and that his abrupt departure has created instability in the department. Col. Alfred H. Foxx Jr., 57, who has headed the Transportation Department for a decade, will take the helm of Public Works. Khalil A. Zaied, head of the Department of General Services, will fill Foxx's former post.

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.

Maryland officials agreed Wednesday to buy the historic Annapolis post office building from the U.S. Postal Service for use as part of the government complex surrounding the State House. Without dissent, the three-member Board of Public Works agreed to pay $3.2 million for the 13,000-square-foot building on Church Circle. Built in 1901, the structure is listed on the Maryland Historical Trust inventory of historic properties. Under the deal, the state will lease space back to the Postal Service to continue services for eight to 20 months until it relocates.

After two years of failing to post CitiStat reports online - and nearly two months without holding a meeting - Baltimore has named a new CitiStat director, who is pledging better transparency and performance from the vaunted good-government program. Chad Kenney, who was named director in August after two years as an analyst for the program, has made five reports available on the city's website, tracking the performance of the Departments of Transportation and General Services.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and dozens of others who work out of the nation's oldest operating capitol will begin moving back into the Maryland State House early next week, as a more than $10 million renovation project to the stately building ends in the days before the legislature convenes for its 426th session. "I never thought we'd move back," O'Malley joked, brandishing an oversized golden key given to him by the Department of General Services at yesterday's Board of Public Works meeting.

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...