Local Issues

In the words of Charlie "Boots" Buttiglieri, executive vice president of Local 2101 of the Communications Workers of America: "It ain't over till it's over."And for Bell Atlantic Corp. and two of its unions, it isn't over until both sides agree on remaining local issues at the individual phone companies within Bell Atlantic's family of subsidiaries.Those issues vary according to the company, but they include such things as wage differentials, grievance procedures and the use of outside contractors.

The Sun's recent article on the use of zoning laws to limit liquor stores highlights a complex issue ("Zoning should be used to limit liquor stores, Hopkins study says," April 12). We support a community's right to decide for themselves what type of businesses and services are located in their neighborhoods, and we believe that alcohol licensing regulations should be enforced to deal with those who are not in compliance with the law. These are local issues that should be discussed and decided by all members of the community, including local hospitality businesses.

ANYONE who doubts that all politics are local ought to take a backward glance at the abortion issue and the Maryland primary.No question about it: Abortion was the big bang issue. But as an electoral tidal wave, the case for abortion was overstated and overrated.In most instances, personal peculiarities and local issues contributed to the undoing of candidates as much as abortion. And in others, voters made value judgments without questioning the value they were judging. They were just plain angry.

In his letter published in the Dec. 26 issue of the Towson Times ("Banning guns is not the answer; gun abuse more complex") , R. Devereux Slingluff cites an event in China on the same day as the mass murder in Newtown, Conn., when a man slashed 22 children and an adult at a school. He tells us "this equally horrible event was perpetrated by a human, not the knife. " But Mr. Slingluff forgets to tell us that in the Chinese incident, horrible as it was, no one died. I repeat: no one died.

PROPOSED DUMPING of dredge spoil in waters off Pasadena communities was the hot local issue that helped a group of eighth-graders at George Fox Middle School win top honor in the Maryland competition of "2001 We the People ... Project Citizen." Project Citizen, a nationwide middle school civic education program and competition, is run by the Center for Civic Education, a California-based nonprofit educational corporation. The program is designed to develop pupils' interest in public policy-making and to encourage competent and responsible citizen participation in state and local government.

WASHINGTON - Hog-tied by politics from getting anything done on the job, members of Congress are rushing home this week to urge voters to send them back for more. With control of the House of Representatives and Senate up for grabs, the Democratic and Republican parties are searching for issues to galvanize voters to give them the slight edge they need to triumph Nov. 5. But while Iraq and the economy dominate conversation in Washington, the picture around the country is much different.

It's a mean electorate that House of Delegates candidates in District 31 are appealing to this fall.The residents of northeast Anne Arundel County have been waging fiery battles over a car racing track, congestion on Mountain Road, the danger of fly ash dumping by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. radium in their well water and, since last week, safety worries prompted by an explosion in a chemical plant across the county line.All of this, party officials say, has educated District 31 voters about the issues, and put them in the mood to cut out anyone who doesn't see their favorite controversy the same way they do.The primary election ouster last month of County Councilman Thomas G. Redmond Sr. by more than 2,000 votes, some residents say, is just the beginning.

SAN JOSE DEL RINCON, Argentina - Just over a year ago, this country shocked the world of international finance by defaulting on its $140 billion foreign debt, thereby crashing the national self-esteem and ushering Argentina into what the Queen of England described a decade ago, with reference to her own dominions, as an annus horribilis: one hell of a bad year. Argentina's year featured the unscheduled resignation of one president, the rise and fall of two others, the withering into political impotence of a fourth.

DOWN IN THE DUMPS after 1994's historic election in which Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, and staring at polls that predicted more Republican victories at the state level in this week's off-year voting, Democrats got something to smile about Tuesday. They held onto the governorship in Kentucky, where Lt. Gov. Paul Patton's pro-Medicare, pro-affirmative action, pro-choice campaign, anti-Newt Gingrich campaign paid off. He "nationalized" the election the way Speaker Gingrich did in 1994.

Americans identify most closely with local government in large measure because that is democracy's purest form. One would be hard-pressed to prove this, however, based on the meager turnout in most of the municipal elections held recently in Carroll County.With the exception of the towns of Union Bridge and New Windsor, where nearly half the registered voters cast ballots, turnout in four other town elections averaged less than 25 percent. If local government is to be a meaningful expression of residents' collective will, more people must take part.

When Katrina hit, President George W. Bush was excoriated for not violating Federal Emergency Management Agency mandates and asking Louisiana for permission to enter the disaster zone. When Louisiana's Democratic governor, senators and New Orleans mayor would not respond, President Bush went in anyway with the relief columns. He got nothing but lies, exaggerations and name-calling for his efforts and accusations he wasn't around. Now let us shift to 2012. President Barack Obama is mostly anywhere else but near the disaster area and not a word of criticism is leveled.

T homas Jefferson called them the "wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government." Hardly faint praise from one of the fathers of American democracy. So, what was he talking about? The town hall meeting. Fast forward 200 years to Dartmouth, Mass., where a "town hall" on health care reform finds a woman calling President Barack Obama's position "Nazi policy." Amusingly, aptly, but not very cordially, Rep. Barney Frank responds: "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

The "Meatless Monday" program in Baltimore City school cafeterias has the meat industry madder than a factory-farmed hen. A spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute warned on CNN this week that students aren't getting enough protein. The Animal Agriculture Alliance urged people "shocked" by the once-weekly absence of meat on school menus to write schools chief Andr?s Alonso "to ensure this effort does not spread." Thought to be a first for a public school district, Baltimore's Meatless Monday program is meant to conserve scarce cafeteria funds and make lunches more healthful, not to convert students to vegetarianism, district officials say. Using ingredients like beans and cheese, the meals meet the same protein requirements as ordinary school lunches, the district's dietitian has said.

It was the dark horse in the race to finally bring slots to Maryland and a gambling palace at Arundel Mills mall is still no sure bet. Although Anne Arundel County residents voted overwhelmingly to legalize slot machines in the state along with a majority of Marylanders, some communities around the sprawling mall are having second thoughts. Call it the "I thought slots would be at Laurel Park racetrack, not in my back yard" change of heart. Thursday, voters are expected to pack the County Council chambers to speak out on legislation that would permit a video lottery facility at Arundel Mills and provide added protections for communities on issues such as parking, crime and lights.

The Carroll County Board of Elections has spent the last week fielding hundreds of questions by phone, many the typical "where do I vote," but more than a few callers are asking the staff how to vote on Carroll's only ballot question and who to put on the school board. Question A on expanding the Board of Commissioners from three to five members and the nonpartisan race for two seats on the school board are the only local issues on the Carroll ballot. Carroll's League of Women Voters, which traditionally published a voters' guide, dissolved last year and no organization has filled that void.

Seeing years of lagging revenues ahead vs. growing demands for service, Howard County Executive James N. Robey plans to assemble virtually all the county's elected and appointed leaders Wednesday for what he called a "Leadership Alliance Summit" to explore solutions. "With the economic conditions we're facing - the county, the state - we obviously can no longer continue doing business as usual," he said. "While I talk with individual agencies and departments on a regular basis, we've never really sat down and compared the way we do business to look for more efficiencies for all of us."

Today marks a new era in the history of The Evening Sun -- an era in which the newspaper will cover the metropolitan counties more thoroughly than ever before. You and your neighbors in Carroll and Howard counties now receive a Sun tailor-made for you; in Baltimore City, Baltimore and Harford counties, localized editions are to be published beginning next year.Why the focus on local news? Because while we know readers depend on us for state, national and world news, we realize that they care just as much about what is happening in their hometowns.

Ginger and Tom Scott, 33-year residents of Wilde Lake, dutifully follow the actions of the Columbia Association's board of directors and staff. They attend board meetings, sometimes testifying about issues that concern them and other times listening to the group's decisions. "I just have this very optimistic idea that maybe someday we can get somebody on the [board] not to only hear us, but perhaps to act," said Ginger Scott, a vocal critic of the association's two golf courses who also has lobbied to restore one course to open space.

SAN JOSE DEL RINCON, Argentina - Just over a year ago, this country shocked the world of international finance by defaulting on its $140 billion foreign debt, thereby crashing the national self-esteem and ushering Argentina into what the Queen of England described a decade ago, with reference to her own dominions, as an annus horribilis: one hell of a bad year. Argentina's year featured the unscheduled resignation of one president, the rise and fall of two others, the withering into political impotence of a fourth.