Neighborhood Leaders

Allegations of prostitution and drug use made against a Catholic priest have rocked Lansdowne, the small blue-collar Baltimore County community where he was viewed as an activist champion. Whether it was fighting to preserve a church day care center, trying to keep a county library branch from closing or making sure children received vaccinations, the Rev. Steven P. Girard regularly stood at the forefront of the battles in Lansdowne, neighborhood leaders said yesterday. And in a community that abuts the city line and has had its share of rising social ills, Girard's advocacy was welcomed.

Helen Shaw has gone to court six times in the last few years to complain about two dilapidated properties in her Belair-Edison neighborhood that were being used to store junk -- from motorcycles to musical instruments.Each time, the judge fined the property owner and ordered him to clean the buildings. Each time, the order was ignored.In October, members of the Belair Improvement Association played their trump card: They invited Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to come with them to court."He told the judge that he had seen the buildings and that they were eyesores and something had to be done," Mrs. Shaw said.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke walked around tiny, cancer-ridden Wagner's Point last night and made an offer he had all but ruled out last month: to have the city negotiate to buy the neighborhood's 98 homes.Standing in the neighborhood's playground before a skeptical crowd that included more than three-quarters of the 270 residents, Schmoke indicated that a city sewage treatment plant -- long considered a foul-smelling curse in Wagner's Point -- could be a blessing for residents who want to move.

Charles Smith has an uncompromising vision for a tattered neighborhood just north of Pennsylvania Station."We could be the San Francisco of the East Coast," said the 31-year-old director of the Greenmount West Community Association. "Where else in America can you buy a marble-clad house for $60,000?"His domain is a chunk of Baltimore bounded by Green Mount Cemetery, North Avenue, an alley behind St. Paul Street and the Amtrak railway lines.It is a part of 19th Century Baltimore pockmarked by vacant houses and where government-subsidized housing units far outnumber the 150 or so individually owned homes.

The Enterprise Foundation's point man in the effort to transform West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood has left the project, and a New York City transportation official has been selected to succeed him.Patrick M. Costigan, who was the Columbia-based foundation's director of neighborhood transformation, has taken a one-year leave of absence to attend Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He may return to the foundation, but not to his old job.He will be succeeded by Joan M. Thompson, an assistant commissioner in the New York Department of Transportation's Bureau of Bridges.

Mayor Martin O'Malley stood in the CitiStat room in City Hall, lobbing questions at six neighborhood liaisons recently enlisted to act as his eyes and ears on Baltimore's residential streets. At the evening drill late last month, O'Malley heard from a gathering of about 100 community leaders about a litany of problems: Leakin Park on the west side was looking worse; the 2500 block of McHenry St. was pitch dark at night because of broken street lamps; tennis shoes were left hanging over telephone lines.

The wall behind the Da Mimmo restaurant in Little Italy is so small it's hardly worth a notice -- yet it has engaged the attention of the mayor, the restaurant owner, the parish priest and an avid group of boccie players.As one of Baltimore's last ethnic enclaves strives to preserve its way of life, nothing in Little Italy seems too small to fight over -- and nothing goes unnoticed.Facing a test of its ability to survive, this tiny residential neighborhood that welcomes a half-million visitors each year is beginning to show the strain.

A shooting early Friday outside a small inn and residence next to the Belvedere Hotel in the Mid-Town neighborhood left a 41-year-old man dead and another critically wounded, police said. The wounded man was identified by Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association President Jason Curtis as 56-year-old Lawrence R. Peterson, the owner of the Empire House inn. Peterson is a well-known booster for the Mount Vernon area who is regarded by residents as its unofficial mayor. Friends also confirmed that Peterson was wounded.

A fledgling army of community activists dedicated itself yesterday to mounting a war against the urban habits that have made many of Baltimore's streams inhospitable for fish or even a leisurely walk along their banks.Organizers for the non-profit group Save Our Streams shared tactics with about 50 neighborhood leaders who gathered for a planning session at the Liberty Medical Center. But, the organizers said, it will ultimately be up to the leaders to clean up the mud, tires and assorted debris that clog city streams.

For years, Wayne Skinner has spent much of his time and energy with neighborhood groups working to safeguard their communities from threats -- including the excesses of commercial developers.Now the Towson Development Corp., a key advocate for business and development in the Baltimore County seat, has hired him to help map out its goals in a recession-weakened economy.He replaces Leslie Graef, who retired in June as the TDC's executive director.The choice has surprised many in Towson, even Mr. Skinner.