Grassroots

Washington. -- Imagine living in your own house in close confinement with hostile strangers whom your state government prevents you from evicting. For seven years, Jerold and Ellen Ziman and their two children lived this nightmare. Theirs is a cautionary story of a growing phenomenon: grassroots tyranny.In February 1984, the Zimans purchased a townhouse in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, planning to restore it as a single-family home. The house had been configured for seven rental units, three of which were occupied and covered by the state's rent-control law, an ''emergency'' and ''temporary'' program enacted during wartime, in 1943, and still on the books.

After leading the Johns Hopkins University to a national title in lacrosse, Kyle Harrison figured he might make a living off the sport for three years. Eight years later, lacrosse continues to pay his bills. "There was no real path for a lacrosse player to go out and continue doing that for a living," Harrison said. "Candidly, that felt like an abrupt end to something I'd dedicated so much time to. It didn't feel fair. " After several years in the sport's most established pro league, Major League Lacrosse, Harrison joined some other entrepreneurial lacrosse players to forge their own path in Southern California.

The inaugural Glen Mar Golf Classic benefit for Grassroots attracted a full field at Timbers at Troy Golf Course, in Elkridge, and raised more than $16,000. All of the proceeds from the event, including sponsorships, silent auction and other fundraising activities were donated to Grassroots. Sponsors included Corporate Sponsor Brickman, Silver Sponsor Howard County General Hospital, Hole In One Sponsor Pat and Don Lee, Putting Contest Sponsor Cel and Dave Beck. Hole sponsors and other contributors also supported the event.

Mark Twain supposedly quipped, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. " For Maryland Republicans, the joke is no laughing matter. Gov. Martin O'Malley and Democrats all but engineered the demise of the Maryland GOP through redistricting at the congressional level. It showed in the trouncing of Republican candidates in the election earlier this month. The contest between 10-term Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett and challenger John Delaney in the 6th Congressional District says it all: 58.6 percent for Mr. Delaney and 38.1 for Mr. Bartlett.

Rosemarie Mecca and Hedy Dachel of Bendix Field Engineering Corp. presented an Allied-Signal Foundation grant of $3,000 to Andrea Ingram,executive director of the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center.Mecca, an associate program manager, and Dachel, a manager with employee benefits serve on Grassroots' board of directors.ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO 1CAPTION: ROSEMARIE MECCAILLUSTRATION: PHOTO 2CAPTION: HEDY DACHELILLUSTRATION: PHOTO 3CAPTION: ANDREA INGRAMSPEICE NAMED VPByron D. Speice of Ellicott City has been named vice president ofoperations at the Baltimore Aircoil Co. in Jessup.

In an effort to breath life into the quest for one-person, one-vote, some residents of Wilde Lake village in Columbia are returning to some old political traditions to build grassroots support for a change in the city's election laws. A flurry of activity aimed at getting 90 percent of the village's residents to support the change began Saturday with vintage political events, including a rally and mock protest.Residents marched from the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center to the village's nearby lake, where they tossed tea into the water, a la Boston Tea Party.

Grassroots, which operates a homeless shelter and crisi hotline in Columbia, has begun providing emergency shelter at motels to homeless persons.The group on Nov. 1 took over the $65,000 motel shelter program, which previously was run by the Community Action Council. Starting today, two full-time case managers will work with clients staying in the motels. The cost is covered through a $315,000 grant -- a combination of county and state money -- for preventing homelessness.The goal is to help the motel clients design a plan that will allow them to live independently.

Bronx, New York. -- The Republican Congress, governors and mayors, even the Clinton administration have been focusing this winter on ''devolution'' -- passing authority down from the federal government to states.Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

Grassroots, one of the county's primary homeless shelters, plans to move its 12-bed, long-term shelter from its Columbia office to a site near downtown Ellicott City, creating the opportunity for the group to establish a new all-men's shelter.The move of the shelter is expected in five to six months, when renovations on a county-owned house next to the Roger Carter Neighborhood Center on Fels Lane are scheduled for completion.The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave Grassroots a $140,000 grant for the renovations.

County Executive James N. Robey announced yesterday that he will submit legislation to lend $1.8 million to begin construction of a new facility for the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center and homeless shelter. The project is expected to cost $5.5 million and would have been delayed without the county loan because some money sources will not be available until after a construction contract is set, said Howard County Director of Finance Sharon Greisz. "This allows us to move ahead and not wait until [Grassroots]

Two companies trying to win approval of a Prince George's County casino have turned over almost $1 million to former County Executive Wayne K. Curry to run a "grass-roots" operation to deliver votes for Question 7 on Election Day. The Peterson Cos., developer of National Harbor, and Gaylord Entertainment, which owns a hotel and convention center there, have given $700,000 and $250,000, respectively, since mid-October to a committee controlled by...

Armed with a $500,000 war chest donated by the developer of National Harbor, former Prince George's County Executive Wayne K. Curry plans to conduct a grassroots campaign on behalf of the gambling expansion question on the Nov. 6 ballot. Curry's campaign committee will work parallel to the efforts of a separate group financed largely by MGM Resorts International, the prospective developer of a casino at National Harbor. That group, FOR Maryland Jobs and Schools, has already spent at least $21 million on a media blitz in support of Question 7, which would allow a Prince George's casino and permit tables games there and at already licensed Maryland slots parlors.

Each year in Arundel on the Bay, the neighborhood's power goes out five, six or seven times, leaving residents in the dark with refrigerators of spoiling food and without water, since their well pumps run on electricity. "There's a part of me that's really incredulous," resident Tim Hamilton said this week, unloading years of simmering frustration during a meeting with Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s supervisor of reliability. "I've never lived in a place where people buy generators like they live in a Third World country.

The inaugural Glen Mar Golf Classic benefit for Grassroots attracted a full field at Timbers at Troy Golf Course, in Elkridge, and raised more than $16,000. All of the proceeds from the event, including sponsorships, silent auction and other fundraising activities were donated to Grassroots. Sponsors included Corporate Sponsor Brickman, Silver Sponsor Howard County General Hospital, Hole In One Sponsor Pat and Don Lee, Putting Contest Sponsor Cel and Dave Beck. Hole sponsors and other contributors also supported the event.

Will Maryland voters see super PAC money spent here to influence the outcome of an election in 2012? If a certain congressional race gets close - say, the general election in the reshaped Sixth District - it's possible, even likely. Only two of the state's eight House seats are Republican. With the new Sixth in danger of slipping to the Democrats, some fat-cat super PAC might decide to throw money into advertising on behalf of the Republican candidate. Vice-versa if the Democrat needs an edge.

The ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" efforts around the country are bringing renewed attention to the immense economic inequality that exists in the United States. A singularly telling fact about this level of inequality has stuck in my mind since I first read it a couple of weeks ago in Nicholas Kristof's column in The New York Times: The wealth controlled by the 400 richest individuals in America is greater than that of the bottom 150 million Americans. This level of disparity is not only deplorable, it is immoral.

Four fifth-graders at Atholton Elementary School this week donated more than $225 and a truckload of school supplies, clothing and canned food to Grassroots Inc., a nonprofit social service agency in Howard County.The students -- Christina Naude, Jennifer Perkins, Rachel Nicholson and Avram Gottschlich -- raised the money and collected the donations as part of a yearlong project to help the homeless, said AlainaBeth Haerbig, one of the school's gifted-and-talented teachers.The money and other goods were given to Grassroots on Monday night during Atholton's enrichment fair.

The county school system has entered a partnership with the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, offering training for student peer counselors and home visits from counselors for students and families who need special help.The cooperative effort, formalized last week, is an attempt to augment the counseling services for students already provided by school guidance counselors and pupil personnel workers, school officials say.The partnership has three components: A Grassroots counselorwill be available two to three hours a week at a yet-to-be-chosen high school, providing a walk-in crisis counseling clinic.

The Quartet for Middle East peace met in Washington last week, and after the meeting a senior U.S. administration official said, "there are still gaps [between the Israelis and Palestinians]," and "more work needs to be done. " A new path to peace and better lives for Israelis and Palestinians are desperately needed, and the pro-democracy movements sweeping across the Middle East point the way. A key lesson of the Arab Spring - that everyday people can and must play a critical role to achieve fundamental change in the Middle East - also applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Few members of the Tea Party have endorsed Rand Paul's misgivings about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but a surprising number are calling for the repeal of … the 17th Amendment … that provides for the direct election of United States senators." The New York Times, May 31, 2010 A group of baseball fans, calling themselves Two Baggers — in honor of the game's alleged founder, Abner Doubleday — are calling on Major League Baseball to repeal its policy of having the public elect players to the All-Star Game.