Make Maryland

OCEAN CITY -- Gov. Parris N. Glendening unveiled plans yesterday to rewrite the rules on education aid to promote the renovation of older schools in established neighborhoods, rather than new construction in sprawling outer suburbs.The change in the state's formula for awarding school construction money would bring millions of dollars in extra assistance to jurisdictions with large numbers of older buildings.Glendening's announcement came in a speech here to the Maryland Association of Counties in which he outlined aggressive plans to further his agenda of education, gun control, Smart Growth and opposition to smoking.

TECHNOLOGY companies will play a major role in Maryland's future. That's why state officials have hired the top economic development official at the U.S. Department of Commerce to attract more technology companies.Phillip A. Singerman left his post as an assistant secretary at Commerce to begin what amounts to a start-up venture for Maryland. He will be the first president of the Maryland Science, Engineering and Technology Development Corp., known as TEDCO.The quasi-public group's purpose is to make Maryland a mecca for high-tech firms.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Wonderful! Kurt Schmoke, having done such a splendid job making Baltimore the thriving city it is today, is thinking about asking Marylanders to send him to the United States Senate in the year 2000. That would really get the new millennium off on a positive note.Certainly Marylanders out in the provinces will look forward with keen anticipation to expressing their opinions at the polls concerning Mr. Schmoke's proposed new career. From the Appalachian west to the Eastern Shore, which the mayor's predecessor once described in quaintly scatological terms, rural people have some well developed views about Baltimore and its current leadership.

The Maryland Technology Showcase, the state's annual exhibit of high-tech goods and services, is set to kick off this week with a new venue, a new managerial team and big expectations.This year the showcase -- the third -- is moving to the Baltimore Convention Center, where it will stretch out over 240,000 square feet in three rooms. In addition, the state is using a private company, American Show Management Inc. of Portland, Ore., to manage and plan the show, which will have more than 300 exhibits, including displays devoted to education, career opportunities and online government services.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Just as Republicans have long been known as the Stupid Party, not for what they believe but for their tactical incompetence, Maryland seems to go out of its way to earn its reputation as the Stupid State.The governor has had a lot to do with that, and his dismal popularity ratings reflect Marylanders' willingness to give credit where it's due. But the General Assembly made its own contribution to the stupidity quotient last week as it struggled to find yet more ways to shoehorn state government into private lives, and especially private automobiles.

Due to a problem in typesetting, there was a garbled line in the Friday editorial "Brady for Maryland's Economy." The line should have read that a top priority for James T. Brady's economic-development team is persuading Dr. Robert C. Gallo "to locate a world-class virology laboratory at the University of Maryland instead of Virginia."The Sun regrets the error.Gov. Parris N. Glendening picked wisely in selecting Baltimore business executive James T. Brady as his top economic development aide yesterday.

ANNAPOLIS -- An attempt to make English the official language of Maryland, a perennial loser in the General Assembly, is getting serious consideration for the first time.An array of ethnic and human rights groups yesterday attacked the proposal, which would make Maryland the 20th state to adopt some form of "official English" legislation.Representatives of Latino, Asian, Native American and even deaf Marylanders who use American Sign Language led a news conference to brand House Bill 982 and its companion, Senate Bill 467, as discriminatory.

One of the most exciting developments in years for the nonprofit sector is just now beginning to unfold in Maryland. A group of 40 volunteers, known as the Nonprofit Policy Agenda Project and coordinated by the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations (Maryland Nonprofits), has just published the Partnership Platform 1995-1998. The report represents eighteen months of intense effort. Its release was timed to coincide with the current election campaigns.Maryland Nonprofits remains on the cutting edge of policy development for its members, which is critically important in today's fast-paced world.

Make it an annual event -- the Dunbar High reunion at the Baltimore Arena. Tonight, Maryland's Keith Booth opposes Towson State's Scooter Alexander. Next year, Booth could team with Michael Lloyd against Massachusetts' Donta Bright.It's no mere fantasy. Maryland is trying to schedule UMass for a game at the Arena next season. And Lloyd, averaging 35 points at San Jacinto (Texas) Junior College, has narrowed his college choices to Maryland, Syracuse and Florida State.Two Dunbar players at Maryland?

The television went on, and Mark Duffner started describing the video highlights from Maryland's latest disaster, a 38-0 loss at Georgia Tech.Alistair Cooke as host of "Masterpiece Theater" it wasn't.The Terps were sort of fun when they were losing 59-42 and 42-37, but that euphoria lasted only four games. The past two weeks they've been outscored by almost 17 touchdowns -- to be exact, 108-7.Their record is 0-6.Their ranking in total defense is 106 out of 106.Their next winning season might be in 2006.

DBED isn't gambling with state's resources I read with interest the editorial "Gambling blindly" (Dec. 2), which aptly summarized a host of past problems at the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development that were recently brought to light by a legislative audit. Sadly, our agency's recordkeeping was lax, but we have identified and corrected all the auditor's concerns. And we have refocused the agency, streamlined operations and targeted resources to maximize productivity.

The financial crisis that's affecting every sector of the economy, from home values to manufacturing to consumer spending, has taken its toll on the arts, too. Theaters, symphony orchestras, opera companies and museums have been hit by a triple whammy of falling box-office revenues, plummeting donations and shrinking endowments as the values of their stock portfolios decline. The Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith reported recently that some organizations are considering cutting expenses or trimming staff to weather the storm.

Just as the best, most thoughtful writing in a newspaper isn't always the front page story, so the most visionary environmental legislation isn't always what grabs attention in Maryland's General Assembly. That's not to say this session's big issues weren't critical: trying unsuccessfully to put the brakes on polluting power plants; trying with some success to slow the erosion of farmland and open spaces. All credit to the mainline environmental groups who fought those battles. But long-term, focusing just on making things less bad is only a slower way to hell.

Bigger doesn't mean better for Illinois, which has followed three outstanding guards, none taller than 6 feet 3, to a 28-0 record, 12 weeks atop the polls and a serious run at history. Major college basketball's last unbeaten was Indiana, in 1976. As convenient as it is to seize that bit of Big Ten inspiration, the stylistic muses are harder to find for the Fighting Illini, but one can be found in the same era. A recent Sports Illustrated article traces the current emphasis on perimeter play to Arizona, where Lute Olson took a three-guard attack to the 1994 Final Four, but that view is a tad shortsighted.

Excerpts from Gov. Parris N. Glendening's State of the State address: For the eighth time I come before you to deliver the State of the State. But before I report to you on the progress we have made in the last year, I want to take just a moment and reflect on what we have accomplished. ... Eight years ago, Maryland was in the bottom 10 in job creation. By last year, we had overtaken 26 states to be ranked 15th in the nation. In the last eight years, the rate of violent crime committed with a gun in Maryland has dropped by 40 percent.

Inside the state, it's no secret that the Maryland of today is a much-improved version of the Maryland of a decade ago. But it's taken awhile for the economic makeover that created this "New Maryland" to finally get some recognition from outside the state. Just last week, for instance, Maryland earned high marks in the 14th annual "Development Report Card" created by the nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development, which tries to foster economic development by working with state and local government agencies, private companies and other organizations in various roles.

FREDERICK - Deep inside a spotless biopharmaceutical plant off Interstate 70, Marco A. Cacciuttolo is performing one of the daily rites of a soldier in Maryland's New Economy. He is getting dressed for work, something he does several times a day. Cacciuttolo has a doctorate in biochemical engineering. He oversees the college-educated MedImmune Inc. workers who daily tend to the delicate nurturing of a living soup from which, after a matter of weeks, a vaccine will be harvested. Balanced on one leg, he hunches over coveralls that he has just ripped from a plastic bag stored on a shelf in a small anteroom.

THE 2000 GENERAL Assembly session was one of our most productive and successful in recent memory. Working together, the legislature and the Glendening-Townsend administration implemented prudent, farsighted measures that will improve the quality of life for families in every corner of Maryland. Given our incredible successes, The Sun was clearly sleeping in class when it prepared its recent "report card," which ignored some of our greatest accomplishments and distorted the results of other actions.

OCEAN CITY -- Gov. Parris N. Glendening unveiled plans yesterday to rewrite the rules on education aid to promote the renovation of older schools in established neighborhoods, rather than new construction in sprawling outer suburbs.The change in the state's formula for awarding school construction money would bring millions of dollars in extra assistance to jurisdictions with large numbers of older buildings.Glendening's announcement came in a speech here to the Maryland Association of Counties in which he outlined aggressive plans to further his agenda of education, gun control, Smart Growth and opposition to smoking.

TECHNOLOGY companies will play a major role in Maryland's future. That's why state officials have hired the top economic development official at the U.S. Department of Commerce to attract more technology companies.Phillip A. Singerman left his post as an assistant secretary at Commerce to begin what amounts to a start-up venture for Maryland. He will be the first president of the Maryland Science, Engineering and Technology Development Corp., known as TEDCO.The quasi-public group's purpose is to make Maryland a mecca for high-tech firms.