Hearings

A last-minute appeal from residents opposed the expansion of Harford's only county-run solid waste landfill will halt the process to issue permits for the project. "The permit cannot move forward," said Horatio Tablada, waste management administrator at the Maryland Department of the Environment, the permitting agency. The county must have the permit to commence with expansion of the Harford Waste Disposal Center, a 60-acre facility in Street that is expected to reach capacity by the end of next year.

After two months of delays, hearings before the Howard County Zoning Board on a developer's plan to convert a 507-acre turkey farm in Fulton into a mixed-used community began last night.More than a hundred residents of the area -- many of whom oppose Stewart J. Greenebaum's plan to develop the Iager family farm into a community of single-family houses, townhouses, condominiums and office buildings -- appeared at the hearing in the county office building in Ellicott City."If this comes, there's going to be traffic everywhere," said area resident Kevin Lewis, adding that Greenebaum's plan for moderately priced housing would "bring down the general value of the neighborhood."

The Board of Education of Howard County will hold public hearings on proposed changes to Policy 3413, Weapons; and Policy 5112, Pupil Transportation -- Student Conduct. The hearings will be held during the 7: 30 p.m. session of the board's meeting Aug. 26 in the Board Room at the Department of Education, 10910 Route 108, Ellicott City.Individuals who wish to present testimony should limit their presentation to three minutes and provide 15 written copies of their testimony at the time of the hearing.

The public was to get its first chance to comment last night in Annapolis on a settlement backed by the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. to deregulate the electric industry in Maryland.A second hearing will be held tonight at 7 o'clock in Baltimore at the War Memorial Building at 101 N. Gay St. The last hearing is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Harford County Multi-Purpose Building at 2 S. Bond St. in Bel Air.Along with BGE representatives, officials from the People's Counsel's office, which supports the settlement, are expected to attend the hearings.

The fierce opposition to Stewart J. Greenebaum's plan to convert a turkey farm in Fulton into a community of homes and businesses appears to be dwindling, with only a dozen Fulton residents attending a special hearing yesterday before the Howard County Zoning Board.In previous hearings -- all of which have been held on weekday evenings -- a solid showing of residents, many of them members of the Greater Beaufort Citizens Association, showed up to protest Greenebaum's plan to build the proposed development of 1,198 residential units and office buildings on the 507-acre Iager farm just west of U.S. 29, bounded by Route 216 and Johns Hopkins Road.

Howard County Zoning Board hearings on Stewart J. Greenebaum's controversial plan to convert a turkey farm in Fulton into a community of homes and office buildings likely will continue well into the early part of next year.Last night marked the 10th hearing before the Zoning Board since it took up the case last month. Three of the developer's witnesses have testified, with others expected to be called to testify in support of the plan in the next few months.Greenebaum blames area residents -- many of whom remain opposed to his plans to develop the 507-acre farm -- for dragging out the hearings with extensive questioning of his expert witnesses.

Each winter, they come to Annapolis in droves -- public-spirited citizens eager to share their views on legislation that could make a difference.Little do they know what awaits them.Interminable waiting, arbitrary time limits, brusque chairmen, absent and inattentive members -- all are often part of the experience of testifying before the Maryland General Assembly.Treatment of witnesses can be so bad that Annapolis veterans say the two main unwritten laws of public hearings are:1. Hurry up and wait.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Salary hardball is scheduled to begin tomorrow for the Orioles when they move from a winter of pleasant free-agent acquisitions to arbitration hearings with two of their own.Barely 24 hours after arriving at the Orioles' spring training headquarters, general manager Pat Gillick and assistant Kevin Malone left last night for Phoenix, where arbitration hearings are BTC scheduled with outfielders Jeffrey Hammonds and Tony Tarasco tomorrow...

WASHINGTON -- On the second day of the second round of incendiary hearings on the Internal Revenue Service last week, the witness list promised to please a crowd: Three honest taxpayers were to detail how gun-wielding IRS agents had attacked them.Inside a cavernous Senate chamber reserved for occasions sure to attract a crowd, long tables had been set aside for the press. Yet only half the seats were filled. And though the tales of IRS hubris and incompetence were as compelling as those spun during jaw-dropping hearings in September, Capitol Hill was remarkably subdued.

TUESDAY'S Wall Street Journal lead editorial, "Glenn's Reward," bravely described John Glenn's space spectacular as "one of the most cynical political transactions of the Clinton years." What the Journal was referring to was Mr. Glenn's all-but-forgotten 1997 efforts to scuttle Fred Thompson's investigation of the Clinton fund-raising scandals.The Journal rightly suggests that Mr. Glenn's liftoff yesterday has every appearance of a payoff for the lift that the Ohio Democrat gave the White House during the campaign hearings.

Hazardous waste collection set Sunday 3 Baltimore County is opening its Western Acceptance Facility in Halethorpe from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday for a one-day collection of household hazardous-waste items. County residents may bring lawn and swimming pool chemicals, paints, motor oil, antifreeze, gasoline, cleaning solvents, rechargeable batteries, medicines, mercury thermometers and thermostats, fluorescent light bulbs, fireworks and ammunition. No trash will be accepted at this collection.

Maryland's attorney general called Thursday for additional hearings on Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s deal with a French utility, arguing the companies didn't release final terms of the transaction until after hearings concluded on Monday, defying "any notion of fairness." Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler's office asked the Public Service Commission to extend the schedule for the regulatory proceedings by two weeks. The PSC, which had planned to issue a ruling by mid-October, has been considering whether the $4.5 billion sale of nearly half of Constellation's nuclear power business to Electricite de France would hurt Constellation's regulated utility, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., and its customers.

The review of Constellation Energy Group's deal with a French utility began Wednesday with debate over the proceeding's schedule. The Maryland Public Service Commission, the state's top energy regulator, said it will hold hearings beginning Aug. 19 to determine whether Constellation's $4.5 billion deal to sell half of its nuclear power assets to Electricite de France is in the public's interest. The review comes after the PSC last week ordered the proceedings, which adds a regulatory hurdle for Constellation to complete the transaction by Sept.

The board of education will hold public hearings for residents in the southern part of Anne Arundel County and the Mountain Road Corridor in Pasadena on proposed redistricting plans. Hearings are at 7 p.m. as follows: for south county, Wednesday Feb. 25 in the boardroom at the Parham Building, 2644 Riva Road, Annapolis; Mountain Road, March 11 at Northeast High School, 1121 Duvall Highway, Pasadena. Those wishing to testify on a plan must attend the hearing on that plan. Speakers will be limited to three minutes, and can sign up beginning at 6 p.m. the night of the hearing.

State regulators will begin hearings today to determine whether an affiliate of Baltimore's Constellation Energy can build a third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Lusby. The project, which could cost up to $9.6 billion, is among a handful of applications being considered as the nation's first new nuclear reactors in nearly 30 years. Government and energy company leaders are looking to the new plants to remedy energy shortage concerns across the country - beginning as early as 2011 in Maryland.

Maria Datta, the mother of Dayton Oaks Elementary School fifth-grader Nikita Datta, had been working for weeks to help her daughter prepare for the Simulated Congressional Hearings held at the school. "It's an important program," she said. "It's good that they are learning about this in elementary school." She especially likes that visiting officials, such as state representatives and county school board members, serve as judges. That makes the hearings a big deal in the eyes of the students, she said.

The Baltimore and state school boards will host four hearings in coming days to hear public comment on the city-state partnership governing public education in Baltimore. The 1997 legislation that created the partnership - under which the governor and the mayor jointly appoint the city school board - requires an evaluation of the arrangement every five years. The hearings are part of that evaluation. They will be held: Tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the school system's professional development center, 2500 E. Northern Parkway, and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Edmondson-Westside High, 501 Athol Ave. Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Polytechnic Institute, 1400 W. Cold Spring Lane.

Farrah Hall's Olympic dream might have caught its second wind. The Annapolis windsurfer finished second at the RS:X team-selection trials in October after a jury's controversial decision to grant another competitor's appeal. After Hall won the regatta on the water, a jury ruled that Nancy Rios' race was affected by a tear in her sail and awarded the Miami windsurfer the trials' win. Only the first-place finisher is slated to represent the United States at the Summer Olympics. The jury initially declined to hear Hall's request for redress because it was filed too late.

I'm impressed with Major League Baseball's ability to keep the game in front of the public all year long. The NFL pioneered that bit of marketing genius with stuff such as the NFL draft in April and then started filling in with the scouting combine in February and minicamps during the spring; all things that serve as teasers for the next season. Of course, baseball's primary way of accomplishing the same thing used to be the "hot stove league," offseason trade rumors and the like. But I think the new plan, the All-Star Congressional Steroid Hearings, is much more effective, much more dramatic.

In my continuing effort to show how sophisticated I am, I'd like to quote the French poet Paul Valery: "The trouble with our times," he said, "is that the future is not what it used to be." Never mind that he uttered that cynical little gem several generations ago; no truer words have ever been spoken, particularly when 2007 is going to be such a tough act to follow. George Mitchell shocked the world when he discovered that baseball players have been using steroids. Michael Vick went to jail for his part in a dogfighting conspiracy.