Hamm

General Growth Properties has agreed with all but three county-recommended changes to its 30-year redevelopment plan for Town Center Columbia, but the disagreements are over key points. Still, Columbia General Manager and General Growth Properties Senior Vice President Greg Hamm told county Planning Board members Thursday night that his firm wants to work out the disagreements and go forward. "A collaborative community process yields better communities," he said, as a crowd of about 75 people listened at the Bain Senior Center in Harper's Choice.

Baltimore's mayor fired Leonard D. Hamm, the city's eighth police commissioner in as many years. Dixon, facing a plague of murders that could top 300 by year's end and a pivotal mayorial primary in September, decided to dump Hamm after a poll conducted by The Sun indicated a lack of public confidence in the commissioner's leadership. ?I don't do things for form and fashion, I don't do things because it's politically correct.? Sheila Dixon

After a deadly weekend with six city homicides, Mayor Sheila Dixon outlined yesterday her long-awaited crime-fighting strategy, which includes targeting the most dangerous offenders, cracking down on illegal guns and strengthening community partnerships. Many of the proposals expand on existing initiatives, such as the city's safe zones, and resurrect old crime-fighting strategies, such as zeroing in on Baltimore's most violent offenders - an approach heralded by noted criminologist David Kennedy, who worked with the city in the late 1990s and was consulted on the current plan.

The murder rate is an unfair measure of a police commissioner's performance. Mayor Sheila Dixon acknowledged as much yesterday, after canning Leonard D. Hamm. But she appears to have calculated that with the murder rate on track to return to 1990s levels, something dramatic was required - if only to show that she was taking notice - and Mr. Hamm didn't have enough positives after nearly three years in the top job to offset the nightly News at Eleven killings. His firing was a symbolic act, then, a promise by a mayor running for election that she's ready to do something about crime in Baltimore.

With the city on pace to reach 300 homicides this year, only one in four residents say Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm is an effective leader, according to a new poll conducted for The Sun. Nearly 40 percent say Hamm, who has been on the job for 2 1/2 years, is an ineffective police chief. "How can I describe Hamm? He is untrustworthy," said Jeanette Ishway, a 64-year-old resident of Old Town who was interviewed for the poll. "He and [Mayor] Sheila [Dixon] got their heads together, and the murder rate is rising.

Baltimore police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm yesterday tapped a 25-year veteran to be his top deputy to run the day-to-day operations of the 3,000- member force. Col. Frederick H. Bealefeld III, 44, was named deputy commissioner of operations, replacing Marcus Brown, who is leaving next month to head the Maryland Transportation Authority's police force, the department said. For the past year, Bealefeld has served as chief of the Criminal Investigation Division, overseeing 300 detectives and other staff involved in investigating cases of violence, property crime, sex offenses, missing persons and other crimes.

For two years Marcus L. Brown quietly served as the steady hand in a Baltimore Police Department whose top job had been beset by political turmoil and turnover. Through it all, the former deputy commissioner worked behind the scenes to execute then-Mayor Martin O'Malley's policing policies while largely avoiding the distracting scrutiny leveled against police commissioners. Until now. When O'Malley took over as governor in January, he picked Brown to lead the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, at a salary of $127,500.

My first inkling that Mayor Sheila Dixon had a different crime strategy than her immediate predecessor came when I saw the foot patrolmen on Garrison Avenue, between Beaufort and Elmer avenues. Before Dixon addressed reporters at a news conference Monday, I talked briefly with Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm about foot patrolmen, at long last, coming to that part of Garrison Avenue. "The neighborhood knucklehead contingent seems to be absent," I told Hamm. "Yeah, but these guys usually just move to another area," Hamm answered.

Courts Krauser named to lead appeals courts Judge Peter B. Krauser, a seven-year member of the Court of Special Appeals and a former federal prosecutor, will take over as chief judge of the state's second-highest court, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday. Krauser will replace Chief Judge John G. Murphy, whom O'Malley appointed this week to the Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court. A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Krauser will be responsible for assigning cases, ruling on motions for injunctions pending appeal and other tasks.

CLAREMONT, Calif. -- It is safe to say that no one from the cast of "On the Waterfront" had ever watched the women's national soccer team practice until Karl Malden showed up yesterday, along with about 2,000 members of The Sopranos, those adolescent warblers in full-throated Mia mania.The players needed a police escort in and out of practice at Pomona College, lest they be trampled by the Nickelodeon mob.A trio of cops even escorted reporters from one end of the field to the other, a sign either that the Women's World Cup has begun to take itself too seriously or Southern California's crime rate is suddenly less threatening than that of Mayberry RFD.Judging from the shrieking chorus, most people had come to see forward Mia Hamm and to get her to sign her name to anything.

On September 2, 2009, FREDERICK LONESOME (BUS); devoted husband of 51 years to the late Mary Lonesome (nee Hines). He is survived by his daughter, Zara Hamm of Baltimore, MD, and son and daughter in law, David Michael and Carlene Hamm of Rancho Cucamonga, CA; and two grandsons, four granddaughters, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter. Out of nine brothers and sisters, he is survived by his sister, Grace Shelton (nee Lonesome), four sisters-in-law, and a host of nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces.

General Growth Properties has agreed to county planners' request to provide 15 percent of new housing in a redeveloped downtown Columbia for people who make $80,000 or less annually, but company leaders are resisting another key county suggestion. The firm's executives went before the county Planning Board on Thursday evening at Wilde Lake High School to answer questions raised during the company's presentation two weeks ago and to listen to testimony from residents. "It's all the crossing of i's and the dotting of t's, as you would expect," said Greg Hamm, senior vice president and Columbia general manager for General Growth, Columbia's developer.

General Growth Properties has agreed with all but three county-recommended changes to its 30-year redevelopment plan for Town Center Columbia, but the disagreements are over key points. Still, Columbia General Manager and General Growth Properties Senior Vice President Greg Hamm told county Planning Board members Thursday night that his firm wants to work out the disagreements and go forward. "A collaborative community process yields better communities," he said, as a crowd of about 75 people listened at the Bain Senior Center in Harper's Choice.

Facing a cash crunch that has it considering selling off properties, developer and multiple-mall owner General Growth Properties is at the same time about to take the next step in what could be a big moneymaker: the makeover of downtown Columbia. The development company is planning to submit rezoning requests this week for perhaps the biggest project the county has seen since Columbia's birth four decades ago. The fate of those requests could determine how much of a financial transfusion the company can expect.

For years, Annie and Eugene Hamm worried about the stairs. Their daughter was physically and developmentally disabled, and it was becoming harder to carry her up and down the front stairs of their Aberdeen house. "It got to be where we couldn't handle the steps," says Annie Hamm, who is 81; her husband 82. "It was dangerous." What the Hamms needed was a ramp so their daughter, Betty, could roll down in her wheelchair. But a ramp would cost thousands of dollars. "More than we could afford, I'll tell you," says Annie Hamm, who is a housewife.

As part of the remaking of central Columbia, the developer hopes to provide about 20 percent of new residences for limited-income people through a private, nonprofit corporation. The idea is to provide "full-spectrum housing" by creating a multimillion-dollar housing fund, said Gregory F. Hamm, vice president of General Growth Properties. The money would come from impact fees charged to developers who buy land in Town Center and from square-foot surcharges on retail and commercial tenants.

On September 3, 2008, MICHAEL ALLEN HAMM; devoted father of the late Blayre Marie Hamm; loving son of Robert D. Garner and the late Dawn Marie Lewis; dear brother of Amanda Shell and Jennifer Garner; uncle of Hailey Shell. Also survived by many other relatives. A funeral service will be held at the family owned Duda-Ruck Funeral Home of Dundalk, Inc., 7922 Wise Avenue on Sunday at 8:30 P.M. Interment private. Friends may call on Sunday from 5 to 9 P.M. Please omit flowers, contributions may be made to the UMMS Foundation, R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, 110 S. Paca Street, 9th Floor, Baltimore, MD, 21201.

When Harriet Fisher's son Jason graduated from Centennial High School in 2000, he could not climb onto the stage at Merriweather Post Pavilion during the procession with his classmates. Jason is a lifelong sufferer of cerebral palsy, and he and his wheelchair had to be brought in separately. That story surprised Gregory F. Hamm, vice president of General Growth Properties. He assured Fisher, a member of the access committee of county's Commission on Disability Issues, that he is professionally and personally committed to involving the committee in planning for the redevelopment of Town Center.

Woman gets 15 years for theft An Elkton woman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for exploiting an elderly man and obtaining property through a theft scheme, authorities said. Tara Timing Spellman, 45, presented herself as the man's granddaughter to obtain a loan, officials said. Dixon angered by leaks in case Mayor Sheila Dixon lashed out at prosecutors and reporters in her first comments since acknowledging having a personal relationship with a developer at the same time that she voted on contracts that benefited his company.

On Thursday, the night of her 39th birthday, friends saw Nicole Sesker walking along a dingy street in Northwest Baltimore dressed in a T-shirt and flip-flops, with just a shawl tied around her waist and a scarf on her head. The next morning, Sesker, the stepdaughter of former Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm - a woman who struggled for years with drug addiction, buying drugs and selling her body on street corners like that one - was found dead in the 3500 block of Garrison Blvd.