Offices Open

Taneytown Bank and Trust Co. recently announced the opening of its newest satellite office for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC).In response to the demand for consulting services and in an effort to become geographically more accessible, SBDC counselor Michael Fish now meets with clients in an office provided by the bank at 222 E. Baltimore St., Taneytown.The office is co-sponsored by the Taneytown Chamber of Commerce and the city.Information: 756-2655.FIRE* Union Bridge: Units from Union Bridge assisted Frederick County at a barn fire on Dolly Hyde Road yesterday.

The Child Abuse Prevention Center of Maryland -- a private, nonprofit organization that helps families build safe, nonviolent home environments -- will open an office in Bel Air to serve Harford County residents later this month.The Baltimore-based organization trains volunteer "lay therapists" to regularly visit families in their homes and offer moral support and alternative disciplines to parents struggling with the day-to-day stress of raising children.The Bel Air office will open at 7 W. Courtland St. as soon as a local coordinator is named, said Stephanie Davis, CAPC executive director.

Johns Hopkins Health Plan will have an open house for its newest medical office in Annapolis 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 6.The South River Health Center, 200 Harry S. Truman Parkway, will serve members of the Hopkins Health Plan and fee-for-service patients.Information: 554-7130.

An Anne Arundel County police officer shot at a car Tuesday morning as it charged toward him and then struck him, but police said they do not know if a bullet injured anyone. Lt. James Fredericks said police were called to the 2000 block of Tea Island Court in Odenton around 4 a.m. for reports of two men going through vehicles. An officer saw a Kia Sportage in the road and as it came toward him, he thought it was going to run him down, according to Fredericks. He fired at the SUV, and was knocked to the ground by the vehicle, which continued into a nearby dead-end, where two people got out and ran, Fredericks said.

Police were on an undercover sting targeting a man in a marijuana case in Anne Arundel County when one officer accidentally shot a colleague, according to court documents filed Tuesday. The suspect had already been arrested outside a home in Odenton on Monday afternoon when officers on a multi-jurisdictional task force raided the residence in the 100 block of Pinecove Ave. Police found a female occupant, described as cooperative, and spread out through the house. Authorities said a Baltimore County officer accidentally fired his gun, striking a city officer in the arm. On Tuesday, Anne Arundel County police said for the first time that the city officer returned fire with several shots, but did not hit anyone.

Howard County is launching a volunteer program this year to help people of limited means prepare and electronically file their taxes for free. The county has started the service this tax season as a pilot program, said Rebecca Bowman, administrator of the county's Office of Consumer Affairs. "We are hoping to interest the nonprofits to take on doing it in the future," she said. Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, is part of a program operating across the country.

Federal government offices in the Washington D.C. area will open with an 11 a.m. "delayed arrival" Monday, after a freezing rain advisory predicted slick roads and icy conditions throughout Maryland and the District. Non-emergency employees have the option to take unscheduled leave or "telework," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Emergency employees must report as scheduled. "Light icing on roadways and elevated surfaces will make traveling hazardous," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which issued the weather advisory about 1:30 p.m. Sunday; it remains in effect into Monday morning.

The Carroll County Permits Office has begun offering a new service to homeowners unable to make the regular weekday hours.The office will be open from 7:30 a.m. to noon one Saturday a month to allow residents to acquire permits for such home projects as swimming pools, storage sheds and minor remodeling.The next open Saturdays are June 5, July 10 and Aug. 7.Since the tax office will be closed Saturday, all payments must be made by check.A processing fee (minimum $25) is charged on all county permit applications.

Baltimore's newest community policing office opened in the Northeastern District yesterday in a community racked by crime, including the shooting of a policeman and the killing of a Towson State University student.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Councilman Martin O'Malley, D-3rd, along with an array of residents, attended the formal opening at vTC the Dutch Village Townhomes in the 7000 block of McClean Blvd., south of Perring Parkway.The office -- to be open 40 hours a week in one of the rental complex's apartments -- is the Northeastern's ninth, said Maj. Bert Shirey, the district commander.

WASHINGTON -- When the government of Vietnam opened its first diplomatic office here last week, the chief of liaison was met with angry shouts from protesters. In the days that followed, however, the downtown suite of offices has filled up with flowers from U.S. companies eager to do business with the former foe.As Vietnam and the United States move gingerly toward full diplomatic ties, the strains of the past and the hopes for the future overlap awkwardly.Le Van Bang, the chief of the new, six-person liaison office, describes his role as helping to tell America of how Vietnam has moved on since the Communists emerged victorious and unified the country nearly 20 years ago. As he shows a visitor around the largely empty downtown suite of offices, decorated with tapestries of pagodas and the orange-and-yellow Vietnamese flag, he stopped to read cards from some of the floral tributes.