Incorporation

Ruth Mierzwicki leads the way from her double-door front entrance, through a cinnamon-colored foyer and into the circular, open layout of her Monkton home. A glassed-in north wing is beyond the living room where her tropical paradise awaits. Here, a 16-by-40-foot indoor pool is framed in limestone and surrounded by sandstone blocks. Wicker easy chairs sit on the deck, along with a bar area, wrought iron table and chairs, a jukebox and several plants. Waterfall in pool A waterfall gurgles in the northeast corner of the pool, while the living room stereo system pipes music throughout the 82-degree climate-controlled space.

Forget about the Garden in the Sky. The latest design for the new tower on the World Trade Center site, scheduled to be unveiled next week, calls for latticework and energy-producing windmills. Sources confirmed yesterday that the main tower will still stand at 1,776 feet, making it the world's tallest structure. But the original asymmetrical and angular design with an aerial garden envisioned by lead architect Daniel Libeskind has been eclipsed by a more utilitarian plan that might incorporate cables, trusses and antennas, sources said, along with the windmills.

The 88-year-old Hippodrome Theater, one of Baltimore's most distinctively named landmarks, will be renamed for the France-Merrick Foundation when it reopens in 2004 after a $60 million overhaul paid for in large part by taxpayers. A new name has not been chosen. The plan is for the marquee to proclaim it the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, although "Hippodrome" likely will be incorporated into the new name in some fashion. The Towson foundation won naming rights last year by pledging $5 million - 8.3 percent of the total renovation cost - and doing so at a time when some skeptics wondered whether the project would succeed, said its chief fund-raiser.

THIS WEEK, a bit of contention broke out between some candidates in this weekend's elections in Columbia -- a small sign of life in the Howard County community's somnambulant political life. Columbia, the center of one of the nation's richest counties, long has had too little true political debate and, sadly, that appears unlikely to change even as the community faces enormous challenges. It's tempting to dismiss the lack of genuine democracy in the planned suburb as unimportant. Columbia is not a city or even a town; the closest thing it has to a government separate from the county's is the Columbia Association (CA)

Thirteen years after the University of Baltimore acquired the former Odorite building with the intention of razing it for a parking lot, campus leaders now are exploring the idea of saving at least part of it. The fate of the Elizabethan-Tudor style building long has been a source of concern to local preservationists, who regard it as a significant part of Baltimore's Mount Vernon historic district. Constructed in 1915 as a showroom for the Monumental Motor Car Co., it is distinguished by large plate glass windows at street level and projecting windows above.

Dear Mr. Azrael, I recently purchased property that is within an incorporated association. Although articles of incorporation and bylaws exist, they are not followed by the controlling members. They state that the only reason for the documents was to form an association such that dues could be collected for maintenance of certain property. Although directors are elected, they do not have any meetings and do nothing to manage the association. A budget is never prepared, as required by the bylaws, and most other provisions are ignored.

If you want to use the Chesapeake Bay in your lesson plans, you have to experience it first: on the deck of a skipjack in the brutal heat of an August day or on tiny Fox Island in Tangier Sound. You have to hear bay troubadour Tom Wisner sing of the rivers Susquehanna, Wicomico, Severn and Nanticoke, and listen to Earl White, the 83-year-old mate on the Stanley Norman, tell of his days oystering aboard the graceful, 63-foot-long "drudge" boat to get a sense of the history and lore. And you have to get a "bay shower," a bucket of water pulled from the Chesapeake and dumped over your head to cool you off. So nine teachers and two principals boarded the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Stanley Norman at City Dock in Annapolis yesterday for the first day of a weeklong program in which they will dredge for oysters, set crab pots, explore the marshes of Smith, Tangier and Fox islands, and hear from scientists, watermen and others connected with the bay as part of a teacher training program.

After years of renovations, the Children's Guild of Baltimore has transformed its school in Northeast Baltimore into an innovative learning environment for pupils with special needs. Mayor Martin O'Malley will join city and state education officials and pupils at 9 a.m. tomorrow to celebrate the completion of a $1 million renovation of the Children's Guild's property at 6802 McClean Blvd., near Perring Parkway. "It's an exciting environment and very different for a school," said Andrew Ross, president of the guild.

More than one computer artist, struggling with a mouse, has asked this question: "Why can't you just put the monitor in your lap and draw on the screen?" You can certainly try it, but it's not likely to work, and you'll wind up smudging the glass. Or you can buy a pressure-sensitive liquid crystal display if you have a few thousand dollars to spare. For the rest of us frustrated artists, a graphics tablet with a stylus that works like a pen comes pretty close to the golden days when Etch-A-Sketch was king.

Three Maryland Municipal League officials tutored Columbia residents last night on the mechanics of turning their community into an incorporated city. From the basics of signature-gathering to the nitty-gritty of Article 23A of the Maryland Annotated Code, the officials listed the steps for bringing municipal government to Columbia, now governed by a homeowners association. But even the experts were stumped on one point. "How do you get past the apathy?" Bill Eckman, past president of the league and mayor of La Plata in Southern Maryland, posed the question to the 15 of Columbia's 87,000 residents who attended the meeting at the Other Barn in Oakland Mills.