Law Department

In a move to settle legal expenses from a federal lawsuit against the city, Baltimore's Board of Estimates approved a budget request yesterday that brings the total cost of private attorneys' fees in the case to $800,000.The city Law Department asked for $500,000 to settle expenses in a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment, which filed a complaint against the city two years ago over excessive dumping at the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant and Ashburton Water Filtration Plant.

A week after approving $250,000 in legal fees to defend Baltimore public works officials, Board of Estimates members are questioning a Law Department proposal to spend $500,000 for another case.The issue has been placed on the board's "nonroutine" agenda for debate today. The city has spent $300,000 in the civil suit against the city by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment, which filed a complaint over excessive dumping at the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant and Ashburton Water Filtration Plant.

City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt said yesterday that the city overpaid a police attorney $34,500 in overtime in the past three years, despite what auditors say was his ineligibility for the excess pay.Pratt raised the issue at the city Board of Estimates, while discussing a review of the contract for Gary C. May by her audit department. The former police sergeant became the Police Department's chief counsel in 1994.City auditors said the city overcompensated May from 1996 to 1999 by allowing him to earn overtime.

Heeding the city Law Department's request for help in specialized legal matters, Baltimore's top officials voted yesterday to hire three outside firms at a cost of more than $500,000, including a $100,000 retainer to former City Solicitor Neal M. Janey and another attorney.The Board of Estimates -- a five-member panel that includes the mayor, council president and comptroller -- approved the expenditures with little public discussion.The cases include a dispute about overtime for police officers and a legal tussle over water rights at the Susquehanna River.

Heeding the city Law Department's request for help in specialized legal matters, Baltimore's top officials voted yesterday to hire three outside firms at a cost of more than $500,000, including a $100,000 retainer to former City Solicitor Neal M. Janey and another attorney.The Board of Estimates -- a five-member panel that includes the mayor, council president and comptroller -- approved the expenditures with little public discussion.The cases include a dispute about overtime for police officers and a legal tussle over water rights at the Susquehanna River.

Baltimore's deputy comptroller, Shirley A. Williams, has taken an administrative job with the city Law Department and is being replaced by B. Harriette Taylor, the acting director of the Legal Aid Bureau.Williams, a longtime city employee who was acting city comptroller for nearly two years after Jacqueline F. McLean resigned in a corruption scandal in 1994, will head the Law Department's new management division. Her responsibilities will include overseeing the budget and directing the Equal Opportunity Compliance Office.

THE DECISION by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to evaluate the city law department and find ways to rely less on outside legal advice comes at an opportune time. With the mayor having crushed his opposition in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, he has a chance to change the way he runs the city and attack weaknesses in his administration's past performance.City Council President Mary Pat Clarke made good mileage in her campaign against Mr. Schmoke by pointing out how extravagant the city has been in hiring legal consultants.

After months of defending the large amount of city legal work being done by private law firms, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday that he now wants to have the city's own legal staff take on more of the load again.Mr. Schmoke disclosed in late July that the city had paid nearly $18 million in taxpayer funds for legal work by private firms during the preceding 4 1/2 years, including $2 million to Shapiro and Olander, the firm of his top two political advisers.The millions spent on legal work outside the city's Law Department, which has a staff of 78 and an annual budget of $10 million, became an issue in the just-concluded Democratic mayoral primary.

City Council President Mary Pat Clarke called on Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday to divulge all the legal fees that have been paid to a closely connected Baltimore law firm.Mrs. Clarke, who is running against the mayor in September's Democratic primary, said Baltimore taxpayers should be told exactly how much Shapiro and Olander receives for representing the city and its quasi-public agencies.Mrs. Clarke was quick to respond to a report in The Sun yesterday that revealed that Shapiro and Olander, a downtown law firm with strong ties to Mr. Schmoke, had collected at least $1.4 million for city-related legal work in the past 3 1/2 years.

Cops tell me it's common, but we'd never heard of it before. This year we heard it big-time. July 4th fireworks in Columbia, Towson and the Inner Harbor -- and probably just about everywhere else -- set off a bunch of car alarms. It was maddening, I tell you, maddening! From Federal Hill to Columbia Mall to Luskin's parking lot at Cromwell Bridge Road, vibrations from the booms tripped sensitive alarms, and the overall acoustic result was astounding -- like a P.D.Q. Bach-arranged medley of a Berg woodwind concerto mixed with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, as performed by Megadeath.

Nuclear reactor recommended An official charged with weighing the pros and cons of building a third nuclear reactor at the Calvert Cliffs power plant recommended Wednesday that state energy regulators approve the project. Constellation Energy Group and a French partner are seeking permission to expand Constellation's plant in Calvert County, work that Gov. Martin O'Malley and others say will help address a predicted electricity shortage while slowing customer rate increases. The approval proposed Wednesday by Public Service Commission hearing examiner Joel M. Bright will become final May 29, unless the commission or one of the parties objects.

We have just one question for Kim Y. Johnson, the Baltimore Police Department official who has been representing criminal suspects and shepherding clients through bankruptcy for years: How do you find time to defend alleged drug dealers, thieves and deadbeat debtors while doing the city's business? Last week, The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton reported that Ms. Johnson, who earned $85,000 in 2008 from her police job investigating racial discrimination complaints in the department, also has a private practice defending people charged with serious crimes by her police colleagues.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's legal defense received a boost yesterday from the city Law Department, less than a week after her indictment on public corruption charges. A two-page letter from the department, headed by a Dixon appointee, said a list of companies doing business with the city fails to meet technical requirements laid out in city ethics laws. That conclusion is consistent with arguments last week by Dixon's attorney, who said charges that she accepted gifts from a city developer and failed to report them wouldn't stick, in part because the city did not keep a list of eligible companies as required.

Gun owners in Baltimore whose firearms are stolen would be required to report the theft to police under legislation approved by the City Council yesterday - despite questions about whether the proposal is legal. Supporters, including Mayor Sheila Dixon, say the bill will help police track stolen weapons used in crimes, but the city's law department has questioned whether Baltimore can legislate gun control, typically a state issue. In a June memo on the bill, the law department recommended the City Council hold off on advancing the measure until the Maryland attorney general issues an opinion on the bill - but that opinion is not finished.

Renters who face eviction in Baltimore because their landlords are in foreclosure would be notified and would have more time to move under a bill advanced yesterday by a City Council committee. Officials with Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration, which sponsored the measure, said the bill is intended to prevent tenants from being notified of a foreclosure for the first time when a sheriff's deputy arrives to evict them. The proposal, which was approved unanimously by a council committee and is expected to win full approval this year, could prove particularly important if the number of foreclosures continues to rise, proponents said.

A City Council committee is expected to vote today on a bill that would allow Baltimore bars and restaurants to increase - in some cases to double - the number of video poker machines and other amusement devices they operate. The bill also would eliminate the rights of neighbors to protest the addition of the devices, some of which have been linked to illegal gambling. If the committee approves the measure, it will move to the full council. The bill was introduced last year at the request of the Baltimore Licensed Beverage Association, and is under consideration by the Land Use and Transportation Committee, which is chaired by Councilman Edward L. Reisinger.

Mayor Martin O'Malley made good yesterday on a year-old pledge to hire an inspector general to investigate allegations of fraud, corruption and mismanagement in city government. O'Malley introduced Andrew S. Clemmons, a former top U.S. postal inspector, as Baltimore's first inspector general at a City Hall news conference. Clemmons, 56, of Crofton will start Aug. 8 and operate out of the city's Law Department. The mayor said his administration has always been guided by accountability and integrity.

In Baltimore City City wants architects to pay for delays in renovation project City officials want the architects behind the expansion and renovation of Baltimore's police headquarters to pay for the project's costly delays. The Board of Estimates was scheduled yesterday to hire a private attorney to pursue claims against Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum of Washington. The matter was scratched so that the city law department could consider handling it. Begun in February 1996, the project to renovate police headquarters and build a five-story annex next door was expected to cost $27 million and be completed in November 1998.

Legal and Insurance Johnson, Danielson join Shapiro Sher law firm Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler admitted Erin E. Johnson and Paul V. Danielson as associates in the Baltimore-based regional law firm. Johnson, formerly with the Washington firm of Gilbert Heintz & Randolph, is assigned to the litigation department and will counsel clients on insurance and securities-related matters. Danielson will advise on insolvency and Chapters 7 and 11 filings in the firm's bankruptcy department. He formerly was with the Columbus, Ohio, firm of Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter.

A 19-year veteran of the city's legal department has contended in a federal lawsuit that he was fired this spring as part of an "age-based jihad" orchestrated by the city solicitor in the name of Baltimore's youthful new mayor. Stanley C. Rogosin, 54, alleges that he was forced out of the law department soon after City Solicitor Thurman W. Zollicoffer Jr. took office and made critical comments about career government employees. "Zollicoffer's employment decisions were motivated by his youth-obsessed drive to model the city law department in his own image, and in the image of his youthful boss, Mayor Martin O'Malley," Rogosin alleges in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.