Maryland Office

Building more roads takes social toll, but won't ease congestionThe Sun's editorial "Shortchanging transportation" (June 15) rightly urges state leaders to take action on transportation funding.But first we should ask whether we are we spending our transportation funds wisely. Throwing huge sums into road construction is a bankrupt solution that will waste taxpayer dollars.According to national and regional transportation studies, we cannot build our way out of congestion in the Washington or Baltimore regions.

TOM DONOHUE, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has a nice place in Montgomery County -- near the C&O Canal. But he might not be there long."My wife says we have to move to Florida" after retirement, says the 59-year-old, who joined the chamber in September after running the American Trucking Association for a dozen years.If the Donohues leave, they'll join a throng of refugees zooming down Interstate 95 in a Cadillac with golf clubs in tow, hoping for a better life elsewhere.Or at least a better marginal tax rate.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Lapses of political ethics are so much in the news these days that even though common sense suggests otherwise, it's easy to conclude that wickedness in government must be erupting everywhere, with unprecedented vigor and apparently without regard to party.There are currently unresolved ethical questions about the conduct of the Democratic president of the United States, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, the Democratic governor of Maryland, a Republican state legislator who's also a lobbyist, and an assortment of people and organizations from Maryland who seem to have made larger campaign contributions than state law allows.

WASHINGTON -- More than 1,000 federal workers in Maryland who lose their jobs in the downsizing of government will have access to job training and counseling under a federal grant announced yesterday.The $4.6 million Labor Department grant to Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia is expected to serve about 4,000 federal workers in the Baltimore-Washington area who are expected to lose their jobs. About 1,400 federal workers in the Washington area have been laid off since October.

The Maryland Office of Public Defender has withdrawn a proposed rule change that critics had labeled a "back-door" attempt to slow down the death penalty appeals process.As a result of public defender Stephen E. Harris' decision late Friday, legislators called off a planned hearing on the matter yesterday.The state attorney general's office had charged that the proposed rule change would have kept Maryland from complying with a new federal law that lets states avoid some death penalty appeals.

From Fort McHenry to Fort Washington, from a Garrett County grist mill to a St. Michaels maritime museum, from the tobacco plantations of the state's first capital in St. Mary's County to the Georgian gems of Annapolis, Maryland offers history aplenty.Now, hoping to tap into a booming market for history-related tourism, Maryland's Office of Tourism has assembled a free, 32-page promotional guide detailing hundreds of attractions throughout the state."Maryland Celebrates History A Guide to Maryland's Historical Attractions" includes concise descriptions of attractions, maps, timetables of historic events, color photos, phone numbers, admission prices and suggested reading.

Forced out of Baltimore by the building of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Maryland Office Interiors, an office furniture retailer based in Woodlawn, said it is returning, lured in part by the city's Empowerment Zone program."

Maryland's tourism industry moves into prime time this weekend. As always, the stakes are sizable. The trade generates $4.6 billion in annual sales.State officials estimate that 16 percent of all retail sales tax revenue is derived from travel. Last year innkeepers, restaurateurs and retailers reported mixed results. Resorts did well, but the baseball strike hurt Baltimore businesses.What kind of summer are tourism officials expecting this year?Mary Jo McCullochExecutive director, Maryland Tourism CouncilFrom what I'm hearing, the summer will be a very good one. I'm told that many hotels in the area are looking forward to capacity crowds throughout most of the summer, particularly on the weekends.

The pace of Maryland's growth will slow in the early 21st century as its population ages, according to new long-term projections by the Maryland Office of Planning.The state's population is forecast to increase from 5 million in mid-1995 to 6 million in 2018. Montgomery County is projected to reach a population of 1 million in 2020, the first Maryland jurisdiction to do so.The projections are based on fresh population estimates for mid-1995, which show that Montgomery (810,000) is the state's most populous county.

Immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship in Baltimore yesterday criticized a newly approved California measure denying basic services to illegal immigrants, saying it is a poor way to reduce the number of illegal residents."

He was the youngest of five boys, his father a high school coach, and by the time he was big and strong enough to run on a field or dribble on a hardwood floor, Terry Hasseltine was taking naturally to two positions that augured his future career: soccer midfielder and basketball point guard. For the uninitiated in the sporting world, those are athletes who aim to keep a clear vision of the field, control the ball as much as possible and get it to the scorers who can do the most damage.

Thank you for Cassandra Fortin's story of Dec. 30, 2007, on the History Channel documentary of John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of President Lincoln. The program will do a lot to bring attention to one of Maryland's many unique historic and heritage areas. I would like to mention that the Maryland Office of Tourism Development has produced a map guide titled "John Wilkes Booth: Escape of an Assassin, War on the Chesapeake" that your readers can use to follow in his footsteps. Sites on the map guide include Ford's Theatre, Surratt House Museum and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum.

William W. Cahill Jr., a retired trial attorney who was a founder of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, died of heart disease Tuesday at his Timonium home. He was 79. Born in St. Louis and raised in Baltimore's Govans, he was a 1944 graduate of Towson Catholic High School. Mr. Cahill earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Loyola College, where he played baseball and football. He received a law degree from Georgetown Law School, where he later taught trial skills. Admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1950, Mr. Cahill was a Maryland Court of Appeals clerk for a year before joining the Baltimore firm Weinberg & Green.

Howard County Tourism Inc.'s visitor information center has been on the back of the post office building in historic Ellicott City for almost a decade. But it took new paint, shutters, flags and signs to get many county residents to notice it for the first time. "Since [the redecoration] happened, a number of people have said ` ... I never knew you were here,'" said Ed Lilley, visitor center manager. In fact, the office saw a 50 percent increase in customers from 2003 to 2004, said Executive Director Rachelina Bonacci.

RIINGG. The office phone sprang to life. At first the woman's voice was pained and frantic. Then she got angry. And she wasn't shy about who knew. You have to help me. It's unbelievable. I'm gonna scream. Writing newspaper editorials, it's a job where you hear a lot of things. Not so nice things. Women in distress, that's par for the course. But this one was different. She'd been getting letters, threatening ones. And she'd been forking over money. Quarterly. Been doing it for years.

For decades, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office was regarded by many as the premier office in the country at the tricky and complicated business of prosecuting public corruption. In the late 1960s, '70s, '80s and into the '90s, the office brought down a vice president, a U.S. senator, three congressmen, a speaker of the House of Delegates, a governor, two county executives, a state senator, a city council president, a city councilman, lobbyists, contractors, builders, ministers and others.

Pete and Marie Dorso say the trouble started soon after Elton D. Smith moved next door to their stone Randallstown home. The couple - a black woman and an Italian-American man - said their new neighbor called them racist names, told them he wanted them to move and let his car idle under their window until fumes seeped into their home. "It's stunning, but things like this still happen," said Pete Dorso, 47, who with his wife recently won a judgment against the neighbor from the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings.

Jim Bell named head coach of men's soccer at HCC Jim Bell has been appointed head men's soccer coach at Howard Community College. He will replace coach Armando Guiterrez. Bell, who served as assistant coach at Prince George's Community College for seven years, works for the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission in College Park. He is a program specialist. Stephen C. Smith Jr. promoted at contractors Stephen C. Smith Jr. of the Central Maryland Office of Encompass Services Corp.

A strategic plan that maps out the next five years for Maryland's tourism industry warns that inadequate funding hampers the state's ability to compete and that limited understanding of the value of tourism prevents the sector from receiving more support from elected officials, the business community and the public. "Poor communications hinder coordination and cooperation at all levels of the industry, up and down the chain of command," says the 41-page report created by the consulting team of Economics Research Associates, a national research group, and Means and Partners, based in Montgomery County.

Building more roads takes social toll, but won't ease congestionThe Sun's editorial "Shortchanging transportation" (June 15) rightly urges state leaders to take action on transportation funding.But first we should ask whether we are we spending our transportation funds wisely. Throwing huge sums into road construction is a bankrupt solution that will waste taxpayer dollars.According to national and regional transportation studies, we cannot build our way out of congestion in the Washington or Baltimore regions.