Neighborhood Groups

One neighborhood-based organization is helping Baltimore children to become the entrepreneurs of the future.Another group has used the courts and community resolve to chase away drug dealers who once controlled their streets with dozens of foot soldiers.A third has set up an after-school program to offer children a haven from the violent streets while helping them complete homework.Those are three of the celebrated efforts started by neighborhood groups in Baltimore during the last year. Their ideas and others will be shared with community organizations today at the Citizens Planning and Housing Association's second annual Neighbor to Neighbor Expo at Western High School, 4600 Falls Road.

Each weekday at 7 a.m., seven teenagers gather at St. Stephen and James Church in South Baltimore, grab their tools and head out to clean up the streets. The young men, ages 14 to 19, collect trash on the Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood's streets and sidewalks, water the flower-filled planters and maintain two public gardens. Betty Bland-Thomas, community association leader and team coordinator, launched the effort to beautify the community and to give the teens summer employment.

Charging that the city is secretly trying to put a landfill in their neighborhood, dozens of Southwest Baltimore residents gathered at City Hall yesterday to pressure the City Council to put the brakes on the project.But planning and public works officials say no conspiracy exists and that only soil excavated from construction sites in Baltimore will be used to fill the 20-plus acre abandoned quarry near the Gwynns Falls."There is a real lack of trust, that's the issue," said Robbie Robinson, president of the Carroll Hill Community Association, one of three neighborhood groups fighting the project.

It is impossible to know what history will regard as William Donald Schaefer's greatest legacy in Baltimore. But we do know the legacy he sought to perpetuate. Governor Schaefer may be known for the Inner Harbor and Oriole Park, but he was a lifelong champion of Baltimore's neighborhoods, and he put a plan in place, long before his death, to ensure that his particular brand of support for them would continue for generations to come. Governor Schaefer listened to and worked with individual citizens and neighborhood groups even as he devised grand plans for a revitalized city and a prosperous state.

Baltimore's City Council has rejected a rule that would have required neighborhood groups to be included in filling vacancies on the council, a process that is likely to play out next month after Mayor Martin O'Malley becomes governor. On an 8-7 vote, the council defeated the rule change, proposed by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, which would have required the body to alert neighborhood groups to a hearing that must be held to fill council vacancies. The proposal needed 10 affirmative votes to pass.

150 years ago in The Sun: Nov. 3: The New Cathedral Grave Yard -- According to appointment the solemn and imposing ceremonial of the consecration of the New Cathedral Grave Yard, took place yesterday. The lot consecrated adjoins the old yard on the north, and contains between six and seven acres. It is a handsome piece of ground for the purpose, well enclosed with a substantial paling fence. 50 years ago in The Sun Oct. 31: Noisemakers, marching bands and gypsy costumes will mark community Halloween fetes tonight when several neighborhood groups celebrate the occasion and attempt to divert childish mischief to less destructive goals.

Taking a tactic from the playbook of developers, a few Ellicott City neighborhood groups have started an effort to buy a 2-acre parcel of land next to Hollifield Station Elementary School to prevent it from being converted into a retail strip.As many as five community associations have begun preliminary talks about raising $250,000 to buy the property at the northeast corner of Patapsco Valley Drive and Rogers Avenue.The unusual strategy comes during a lull in a protracted battle over the land, which the Ryland Group wants to sell as a site for a small shopping center.

Most neighborhoods with strong or improving reputations have at least one thing in common: a vibrant neighborhood association or community group. These groups often help stabilize neighborhoods that were teetering, experts say, preventing further slides and turning around a community's outlook. Through beautification efforts, public safety groups, newsletters and festivals, associations often help boost neighborhood pride and exposure among homebuyers and others. "We're no longer talking about stemming decline," said Cheryl A. Casciani, programs director of the Baltimore Community Foundation, a charity organization.

The 1000 block of Marshall is no two-way street. It is a tiny, dead-end alley (parking not permitted), just wide enough for a single truck to back into it.But that small alley -- and the four iron tables the No Way Jose Cafe wants to put in it -- has sparked a South Baltimore dispute with so many different interests and players that there appears to be no easy way to resolve it.The fight -- involving the cafe, a nearby property owner, neighborhood groups...

Leaders of three Southwest Baltimore community groups are waging a battle to stop the city from spending $5.5 million in federal funds to relocate a dilapidated bottling plant from its current site in the 900 block of W. Baltimore St.The city wants to pay the plant's relocation costs so the site can be redeveloped with new housing or businesses.But leaders of neighborhood groups in Poppleton, Union Square and Hollins Market are skeptical that the city will follow through with a redevelopment plan if the plant is moved.

Residents of the farms, rolling hills and historic villages of Baltimore County's Long Green Valley have long basked in the tranquility that comes from country living. Now, they are increasingly worried about a rash of crime in their remote communities, and are urging police to step up patrols of the area. In response to the spree, some people have bought weapons to protect themselves, according to a resident, who along with others began to agitate publicly for help after a shootout on Jan. 7 between a burglary suspect and a female homeowner on Glen Arm Road.

Three foundations plan to tap the value of older adults to strengthen five city neighborhoods and one in Baltimore County through a $1 million initiative funded by nonprofit groups. The Baltimore Community Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Foundation will contribute the money over three years to draw 1,200 volunteers expected to contribute 500,000 hours of work for organizations in their communities. By 2030, the United States is expected to have more people over the age of 60 than any other society in the history of the world, said Kevin Griffin Moreno, program officer and advocacy coordinator for the Baltimore Community Foundation.

Students and staff at Calvin M. Rodwell Elementary are abuzz over the arrival of WeatherBug Science Curriculum, a program that will allow the city school to feed data to meteorologists and give students a better appreciation of science, math and literacy. "Our students are very excited," said Saundra Adams, the school's principal. "They have the opportunity to experience in-depth learning. They are going to use this as a way to springboard off their own learning." The curriculum is supported by a $50,000 grant the school received through a partnership that urges schools and neighborhood groups to work together to improve neighborhoods - therefore encouraging families to move back to the city.

It's been four months since city cops stopped running Police Athletic League Centers and locked the doors to the building that once served the children of Rosemont. Residents of this West Baltimore neighborhood have been protesting that their kids have nowhere to play and hundreds signed petitions to reopen the building and its basketball courts. This month, an ally appeared out of nowhere - Gary D. Maynard, who runs the state's prisons, wants to partner with the people of Rosemont to keep the center open.

Baltimore's City Council has rejected a rule that would have required neighborhood groups to be included in filling vacancies on the council, a process that is likely to play out next month after Mayor Martin O'Malley becomes governor. On an 8-7 vote, the council defeated the rule change, proposed by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, which would have required the body to alert neighborhood groups to a hearing that must be held to fill council vacancies. The proposal needed 10 affirmative votes to pass.

Businesses caught placing signs on telephone poles and along street medians in Baltimore would face not only stiffer penalties but also the wrath of community groups incensed over the practice, under a proposal approved by the City Council yesterday. The ordinance - the latest intended to increase the quality of life in city neighborhoods - doubles the penalty for posting illegal signs to $200 and directs half of the revenue collected from those fines to the neighborhood groups who organize efforts to rip them down.

Businesses caught placing signs on telephone poles and along street medians in Baltimore would face not only stiffer penalties but also the wrath of community groups incensed over the practice, under a proposal approved by the City Council yesterday. The ordinance - the latest intended to increase the quality of life in city neighborhoods - doubles the penalty for posting illegal signs to $200 and directs half of the revenue collected from those fines to the neighborhood groups who organize efforts to rip them down.

No one can accuse Alan L. Keyes, the Maryland Republican running against Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski, of campaigning on vague platitudes. The outspoken former diplomat and college instructor has devoted much campaign attention this year to an issue that is probably more familiar to academics and community organizers than it is to ordinary voters. The political scientists call it "empowerment;" Mr. Keyes calls it "grass roots community self-government."Sounds like a sleep-inducer. But it is, in fact, a truly radical idea: shifting some real governmental powers to elected officials at the neighborhood level.

Creative energy zooms through a room in West Baltimore where some 30 members of WombWork Productions high step, spin and dance with arms outstretched in a series of African dance moves, all to the beat of live drums. In the far corner, Sean Keelan, the only white guy present, does his best to keep pace with the Park Heights-based troupe, gathered on a Wednesday night to rehearse performance pieces that deliver a potent HIV-prevention message to city audiences. Keelan is a candidate in a new graduate degree program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The yearlong master of arts in community arts pairs students with city nonprofit groups to learn how to use art as a catalyst for social justice and how to see the community, itself, as a medium for their own artwork.

Most neighborhoods with strong or improving reputations have at least one thing in common: a vibrant neighborhood association or community group. These groups often help stabilize neighborhoods that were teetering, experts say, preventing further slides and turning around a community's outlook. Through beautification efforts, public safety groups, newsletters and festivals, associations often help boost neighborhood pride and exposure among homebuyers and others. "We're no longer talking about stemming decline," said Cheryl A. Casciani, programs director of the Baltimore Community Foundation, a charity organization.