Hearings

Key lawmakers say that Maryland's speed camera law will get a hard look during the coming General Assembly session and that changes are likely. In the wake of problems exposed in Baltimore's program, a House committee chair also said that city leaders and their initial speed camera contractor, Xerox State and Local Solutions, will be called to give an accounting. City officials "obviously need to be front and center in this," said Del. Maggie McIntosh, a Baltimore Democrat who chairs the House Environmental Matters Committee , which would consider any speed camera legislation.

The state has reversed the Baltimore County school board's decision to build a 700-student elementary school at Mays Chapel Park because it did not give proper notice of a public hearing. In a legal opinion released this week, the state school board said local officials must schedule a new hearing and properly publicize it to correct the mistake. "We find that the local board violated the notice requirements of [state law] because it failed to publish notice of the March 19, 2012 site selection hearing at least once in a newspaper of general circulation in Baltimore County," the state board wrote.

A public hearing will be held on Dec 20, starting at 6 p.m. at Joppa Magnolia VFC Main Station in regards to a proposed tanker standard for the associated fire companies of the Harford County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association. A copy of this proposed standard may be requested in advance by e-mailing PIO@bavfc.org .

Several hundred former Sparrows Point workers gathering late Monday afternoon for details of their steel mill's demise heard from union leaders that at least two groups had wanted to restart the plant but weren't given the chance. Joe Rosel, president of United Steelworkers Local 9477 in Sparrows Point, told the crowd that Sherman International, an iron and steel equipment supplier in Pittsburgh, wanted to operate the plant and tried to bid $150 million for it last week. "They were told they couldn't bid because the plant wasn't for sale anymore," Rosel said.

The staff at Anne Arundel Medical Center considered canceling some surgeries on a recent weekend because the hospital was running low on a common drug used to help bring people out from under anesthesia. It is the kind of problem hospitals and doctors around the country continue to face as drug shortages that began a few years ago threaten the way everyday medicine is practiced. The problem has persisted even after calls from Congress and President Barack Obama to find a solution and a federal investigation that found widespread abuses in the drug manufacturing and distribution system.

The lawyer for an Anne Arundel County councilman who lost his seat said Daryl Jones lived in his council district— until he was convicted last year of a misdemeanor count of not paying federal taxes, and his colleagues voted to remove him out of office. The county council wrongly redefined residency, deciding that Jones' five-month, out-of-state prison term meant he no longer lived in his district and was grounds for ousting him, Linda Schuett told the state's highest court Monday, as she argued for the Court of Appeals to erase the council's action and reinstate Jones.

The lawyer for a community association trying to stop a medical office complex from being built in Catonsville called for a mistrial Monday in a Baltimore County hearing on the project, saying his clients should be allowed to inspect records sought by state prosecutors in a recent inquiry into the proposed development. During the last day of testimony in the administrative hearing, attorney J. Carroll Holzer said the Kenwood Gardens Condominium Association had been denied "due process" in objecting to the Southwest Physicians Pavilion planned by Whalen Properties.

The proposal for a bike route through Towson will be the subject of a public hearing scheduled Monday, Dec. 17, 7 p.m., in the Historic Court House, Room 118, 400 Washington Ave., Towson. The county's Department of Public Works will on on hand to discuss the proposed route, which has been dubbed the Bike Beltway. The route is designed to circle central Towson and help provide bicycle access to Towson University, Goucher College, the downtown business district and the government center.

Baltimore is about to adopt a "climate action plan" that among other things calls for increasing energy efficiency in city homes and buildings, developing more renewable energy, getting more people out of their cars and planting more trees. The plan, drawn up over the past 11 months, spells out a laundry list of measures aimed at reducing climate-warming emissions of carbon dioxide 15 percent by the end of the decade.  The plan is scheduled for a final hearing before adoption by the city Planning Commission on Thursday, Nov. 29 at 2:30 pm at the Office of Sustainability, 417 E. Fayette St., 8th floor.

The former commander of the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., told a military court on Tuesday that accused WikiLeaker Bradley Manning was held in highly restrictive "prevention-of-injury" custody even though psychiatrists recommended the conditions be eased. Retired Marine Col. Daniel J. Choike told the court at Fort Meade that he agreed with the staff of the brig at Quantico that Manning should be kept on prevention-of-injury status based on his history, the seriousness of the charges against him and what he called his "erratic behavior.