Housing Authority

It's been four months since city cops stopped running Police Athletic League Centers and locked the doors to the building that once served the children of Rosemont. Residents of this West Baltimore neighborhood have been protesting that their kids have nowhere to play and hundreds signed petitions to reopen the building and its basketball courts. This month, an ally appeared out of nowhere - Gary D. Maynard, who runs the state's prisons, wants to partner with the people of Rosemont to keep the center open.

William J. Schmidt, a former department store buyer who later became director of administration for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, died Monday at his Bel Air home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 79. The son of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. actuary and a homemaker, William Joseph Schmidt was born in Baltimore and raised on Aisquith Street. He was a 1951 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington and earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 in business administration from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

William J. Schmidt, a former department store buyer who later became director of administration for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, died Monday at his Bel Air home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 79. The son of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. actuary and a homemaker, William Joseph Schmidt was born in Baltimore and raised on Aisquith Street. He was a 1951 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington and earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 in business administration from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded $1.3 million in damages to a 17-year-old girl, finding that negligence by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City was a substantial factor in lead-paint poisoning she suffered as a young girl. Amafica Woodland lived in a now-demolished house in the Flag House Courts housing project in East Baltimore until she was nearly 3. Her attorney, Scott Nevin, said he expected the award to be reduced to $690,000 because of a state cap on non-economic damages.

Representatives from the Baltimore sheriff's office moved across a city housing authority parking lot Wednesday morning, tagging 20 of the agency's vehicles to be seized and eventually sold to pay part of a court judgment to lead paint victims. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City has resisted paying siblings Antonio Fulgham and Brittany McCutcheon the $2.59 million awarded by a jury in 2010, as the agency appeals the case. But the plaintiffs, who suffered lead poisoning while living in public housing, have filed legal actions to move forward with collecting the debts.

I read in Sunday's paper that city officials in the Housing Authority outright refuse to pay financial damages to plaintiffs who have won financial awards against due to damages their children endured while residing in public housing ( "Baltimore housing authority says it won't pay millions in lead poisoning judgments," April 3). It was noted chipped paint containing lead was all over the window sills in the public housing units. How is it acceptable that the city will not pay financial damages when they hold city landlords to a totally different standard?

As the executive director of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, I'd like to correct misleading statements contained in a recent article ("Housing authority racks up legal bills," Sept. 18). The article gives the impression that HABC has spent $4 million in legal fees merely to avoid paying $12 million in court-ordered judgments in 10 cases. That is simply not true. These funds were spent to defend the agency in hundreds of cases. In 2009 alone, our defense saved HABC more than $100 million in unfounded claims.

Baltimore's Housing Authority filed a motion Friday to prevent its property from being sold in order to satisfy a $2.6 million judgment in a lead paint exposure case, according to the agency. Last week, representatives from the Baltimore's sheriff's office tagged vehicles used by the Housing Authority in anticipation of seizing them to pay off a jury award. Siblings Antonio Fulgham and Brittany McCutcheon were provided the judgment in 2010, but the agency has resisted making payments while it appeals.

A federal grand jury has indicted a pair of Washington men, charging them with taking $1.4 million from Baltimore's public housing authority and electronically transferring the funds to a nonexistent business, according to authorities. The men, William Alvin Darden and Keith Eugene Daughtry, were indicted last month on charges of bank fraud, according to federal court documents. The pair transferred money from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City's fund for Section 8 residents to a fictitious contracting company 30 times over a two-month period last year, according to the documents.

The former executive director of the Havre de Grace housing authority was sentenced Monday to serve six months in a halfway house and fined $1,200 for taking kickbacks from contractors to replace kitchen faucets in a residential complex. U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr. also sentenced the former director, George R. Robinson, 63, to three years' probation. The Bel Air resident had faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty in January to bribing a public official, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.

At first glance, the image could be a Rohrschach inkblot, or maybe abstract art. What it doesn't resemble is public information - because, really, how informative can a blacked-out chart be? This image was given to The Sun by Baltimore's housing authority in response to a records request made under the Maryland Public Information Act. It illustrates the challenges reporters regularly face in trying to obtain public information from government agencies. (The agencies would probably say it shows how effectively the law keeps prying eyes from seeing things not meant for public consumption.)

By now, Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg says he expected big news from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City - that it had found a way to resolve the millions of dollars in court-ordered judgments it owes former public housing residents who suffered lead paint poisoning as children. Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano told him in early January that the agency was "close to an agreement with the feds to work this thing out," Rosenberg recalled. Based on Graziano's assurance, Rosenberg says, he held off pursuing a remedy in the legislature when the General Assembly's annual session began days later.

A Joppa man was sentenced Tuesday to nine months in prison for stealing funds from the Housing Authority of Baltimore and other public housing agencies across the country through software that his company developed and maintained for the agencies' use, prosecutors said. Jack G. Stout, 65, "illegally transferred funds from public housing authorities in Baltimore and in other states" using a computer program called Public Housing Authority Software that his company, Modern Software Technology Inc., developed and maintained, according to a statement Tuesday from Maryland's U.S. Attorney's Office.

A man from the District of Columbia pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to commit bank fraud as part of a plan to gain about $1.4 million from the Baltimore Housing Authority, prosecutors said. Keith Eugene Daughtry, 50, allowed his identity to be used so that co-conspirators could set up a fake company that hid funds siphoned from a housing authority bank account, according to a statement from the Maryland's U.S. Attorney's Office. Daughtry also used some of the stolen funds.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for partly sunny skies and a high temperature around 36 degrees. It is expected to be a wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain tonight with a low temperature around 29 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Purple Pride overzealous at Roland Park school, say some parents : Go purple, or go to the library. That was the warning some teachers issued to parents at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School regarding student participation at Friday's Ravens-sponsored pep rally.

Baltimore's housing bureau does not have to pay a $2.6 million jury award to two siblings who say they were poisoned by lead paint when they lived in public residences as toddlers, a Maryland intermediate appellate court ruled Thursday. The decision, written by Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff of the Court of Special Appeals, hinges on the siblings not having filed notice of their claim within 180 days of their injury, as required by the state statute that governs personal injury suits against local governments.

Baltimore's housing bureau does not have to pay a $2.6 million jury award to two siblings who say they were poisoned by lead paint when they lived in public residences as toddlers, a Maryland intermediate appellate court ruled Thursday. The decision, written by Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff of the Court of Special Appeals, hinges on the siblings not having filed notice of their claim within 180 days of their injury, as required by the state statute that governs personal injury suits against local governments.

Two siblings trying to collect a $2.6 million judgment against Baltimore's public housing agency for lead-paint poisoning argue in court papers that an auction of 20 agency vehicles must go forward because officials have refused to pay. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City "must be treated like every other judgment debtor that fails to pay its debts," their attorney, Evan M. Goldman, wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court....

Two siblings trying to collect a $2.6 million judgment against Baltimore's public housing agency for lead-paint poisoning argue in court papers that an auction of 20 agency vehicles must go forward because officials have refused to pay. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City "must be treated like every other judgment debtor that fails to pay its debts," their attorney, Evan M. Goldman, wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court....

Baltimore's Housing Authority filed a motion Friday to prevent its property from being sold in order to satisfy a $2.6 million judgment in a lead paint exposure case, according to the agency. Last week, representatives from the Baltimore's sheriff's office tagged vehicles used by the Housing Authority in anticipation of seizing them to pay off a jury award. Siblings Antonio Fulgham and Brittany McCutcheon were provided the judgment in 2010, but the agency has resisted making payments while it appeals.