Hale

Several executives at 1st Mariner Bancorp, including Chairman and CEO Edwin F. Hale Sr., took pay cuts of as much as 10 percent last year as the financial company suffered significant losses from bad loans. Hale, who started 1st Mariner in 1995, earned a base salary of $522,000 last year, compared with $580,000 the year before, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company's chief operating officer and the executive vice president and chief financial officer also reported 10 percent pay reductions, while another executive vice president took a 3 percent pay cut. The pay reductions come as the company's banking arm, 1st Mariner Bank, has continued to suffer from soured real estate loans and is operating under an informal supervisory agreement with federal regulators.

Baltimore Gas and Electric customers will open their whopping light bills soon and ask: "How did this happen - a 70 percent increase in utility rates?" If they say it in the style of an ominous campaign commercial voiceover, it might take them back to a happier time, when candidate Martin O'Malley was promising in a TV ad to "stop the rate hikes." You can still see the ad on www.martinomalley.com, under the heading "Big Bills." "How did this happen - a 72 percent increase in utility rates?"

WASHINGTON -- After years of seeding and feeding, the hate industry hit the jackpot with Benjamin Nathaniel Smith.Smith, 21, was the suspected gunman in a three-day shooting rampage against blacks, Jews and Asians that left two people dead and nine injured in Illinois and Indiana before he killed himself.Police say they are investigating why Smith did what he did and whether he acted alone. But it is easy to see that he did not act alone. He had many cheerleaders.Smith spoke the language of the new white "victimism," a language of "concern for my own people," he said in an interview with an Indiana University television station last October, and a sense that the white man's days were numbered.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Chicago Tribune, which was published Thursday.IT OFTEN appears that technology is advancing faster than the ability of human beings to cope with it. The latest illustration comes from a suburban Chicago divorce battle over the fate of two frozen embryos.The wife, Margaret Hale, wants them implanted in her womb to give them "a shot at life," in her words. Her estranged husband, Todd Ginestra, who filed for divorce in July, prefers to destroy them.

Some things endure from childhood on, like baseball and a caring heart.That's the case with Nancy Herman. She and her friend, the Rev. Jeffrey H. Hale, drove up from Manassas, Va., to take in Wednesday's game at Camden Yards. They arrived in town early enough to stroll around the Inner Harbor, have a meal at Phillip's and still be in their bleacher seats by 5 p.m.: Section 96, Row N.Herman took Seat 14. That left the aisle seat empty. Odd. Herman and Hale wondered who would buy one seat, an aisle seat, in the bleachers.

Taneytown voters elected Henry C. Heine Jr. mayor yesterday and put incumbent Brian E. Long and Darryl G. Hale on the City Council.City Clerk Linda Hess said 253 of the city's 1,170 registered voterscast their paper ballots.Heine, 52, ran unopposed and will replace Mayor W. Robert Flickinger, who is retiring after 28 years in office as a councilman and mayor. Flickinger received 107 write-in votes.Heine has been a councilman for 10 years. He and his wife, Linda, moved to the city in 1975 and have two daughters.

WHEN YOU'VE JUST lost your best four-legged friend, as we did last week, it's hard to pass by the shelter at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Eastport without a tear. That's where we got our dog, Jenny, about four years ago.The SPCA of Anne Arundel County is a nonprofit organization based at 1815 Bay Ridge Ave.Volunteers there receive more than 5,000 unwanted dogs, cats, and other pets every year. The SPCA doesn't receive money from any government agency or national humane organizations.

Edwin F. Hale Sr., chairman and chief executive of First Mariner Bancorp, received $550,000 in salary and bonus last year, up 83 percent from 1997.Hale, who is also a shipping executive and chairman of the Baltimore Blast indoor soccer franchise, received $250,000 in salary and $300,000 in bonus, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.Joseph A. Cicero, president of First Mariner Bancorp, received a pay package of $200,000, up 33 percent from 1997, and George H. Mantakos, president of First Mariner Bank, received a pay package of $170,000, up 31 percent.

A hearing to determine whether the trial of a 16-year-old Laurel boy should be moved to juvenile court was postponed Friday until Oct. 1.Patrick S. Gardner was indicted as an adult on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping and use of a handgun in a felony stemming from the December shooting death of Donald R. Mitchell, 43, at a North Laurel apartment.Gardner is accused of trying to shoot another man, Donovan O. Bowen, after someone else killed Mitchell on Dec. 10, police said. Gardner's gun jammed, police said.

First Mariner Bancorp, which is on a blistering growth pace, plans to keep the throttle wide open, the company's top executive said yesterday."We are committed to growing the bank," Edwin F. Hale Sr., chairman and chief executive officer of Baltimore-based First Mariner, told shareholders at the company's annual meeting yesterday at the Sparrows Point Country Club."

Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties Trust said Thursday that it paid $125 million to acquire Baltimore developer Edwin F. Hale Sr.'s 1st Mariner Tower and surrounding land slated for a large waterfront development. COPT, which already held a $30 million secondary loan on the office building, invested $95 million more to close the deal that also included a parking lot, a utility distribution center and development rights to four waterfront lots associated with the Canton Crossing planned development, said Roger Waesche Jr., COPT's chief operating officer, during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings.

Baltimore developer Edwin F. Hale Sr. will vacate his penthouse at 1st Mariner Tower at the end of the year after selling the Canton Crossing office building that had been under foreclosure proceedings to Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties Trust. Randall M. Griffin, COPT president and CEO, said in an interview Wednesday that the office developer acquired Hale's 17-story tower, a parking lot, a utility distribution center and land slated for a large waterfront development of offices, shops, a hotel and a marina in a deal that closed Tuesday.

The sale of Baltimore developer Edwin F. Hale Sr.'s 1st Mariner Tower was canceled after the building's lender withdrew its foreclosure action Tuesday. No reason was given in the notice of voluntary dismissal filed by Washington-based attorney Jerald S. Cohn, who represented the substitute trustee for Paris-based bank Natixis SA. It was not clear whether the bank plans to move ahead on the foreclosure of the 17-story Canton Crossing office building, a process that began last month after it said Hale defaulted on an $84 million loan.

The last time regulators ordered Ed Hale to fix a money-losing bank or have it seized by the government was the early 1990s. The trucking executive had gained control of the Bank of Baltimore, which lent itself into trouble in the last real estate crash. Hale and other dissident shareholders took over the board, pulled the bank from a pit and made millions of dollars when they sold it to First Fidelity a couple of years later. Now that 1st Mariner Bank is in the same flavor of soup, Hale is suggesting he can pull off a similar rescue.

A French bank has begun foreclosure proceedings on 1st Mariner Tower at Canton Crossing as the recession and housing slump spread deeper from Baltimore banker and developer Edwin F. Hale Sr.'s banking business to his commercial real estate activities. Paris-based Natixis SA informed Hale on Friday that the bank's commercial real estate lending arm in New York has scheduled an auction for the 17-story building and surrounding land for Oct. 21 after the default of an $84 million loan, according to a notice of sale.

David Hale, a seldom-used rookie a year ago in Westminster, has made the turn toward becoming a productive offensive lineman for the Ravens this summer. A fourth-round draft pick in 2008, Hale made six cameo appearances - 12 snaps - last season. But if the first two weeks of training camp are any indication, the 6-foot-6, 310-pound Hale will have a much bigger role this year. In Saturday's practice, he worked at left guard (first team) and center (second team) with center Matt Birk enjoying a 30-and-over day off. Hale has also worked at right guard.

Developer and banker Edwin F. Hale Sr. is asking a Baltimore court to stop Constellation Energy, the parent of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., from shutting off the lights of First Mariner Tower and 15 tenants occupying the Canton Crossing building. It is the latest challenge for Hale, whose First Mariner Bancorp has suffered in the past two years after making bad mortgage loans at the height of the housing bubble. Baltimore's largest independent bank reported a $2.4 million loss in the three months that ended June 30. Hale has said he wants to raise capital to shore up the company's finances.

If only the original sailors on the Constellation had it as good as the recent crew aboard the former Civil War ship. Raw bars were set up both "fore" and "aft." There were tables featuring mounds of Chinese noodles, seared tuna and shrimp galore. Not a bit of hardtack in sight. It was all part of the Constellation Historic Ships Museum's "10th Annual BLAST!" A couple hundred folks strolled the decks of the ship, enjoying a pleasant evening. "Excellent. We're in the [Inner] Harbor on a ship.

Easton woman died of smoke inhalation A 43-year-old woman died of smoke inhalation after an apartment fire Wednesday in Easton, according to the medical examiner's office. Stacey Lynn Blake was the sole occupant of the apartment, the state fire marshal's office said. The fire broke out about 12:30 p.m. in an eight-unit, garden-style apartment building. Blake was found unresponsive by firefighters in a center bedroom and taken to Easton Medical Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

If all First Mariner Bancorp's shareholders were as loyal as Frank Wesolowski, the company's stock would still be at $10 or $15. Wesolowski is a retired pharmacist from Edgemere, where First Mariner honcho Edwin Hale Sr. grew up and launched a real estate and shipping kingdom. He watched Hale win a proxy war for control of the Bank of Baltimore in the early 1990s. He figured Hale's new bank, founded in 1995, could fill vacancies left by Bank of Baltimore and other lenders that got sold to out-of-towners.