Public Buildings

Glenn Amoss Watkins Jr., a retired Joppatowne architect who designed public buildings through-out the state, died Wednesday of melanoma at Fallston General Hospital. He was 75.He designed projects for the state of Maryland and for Howard, Harford, Dorchester, Frederick, Baltimore and Prince George's counties.They included the Washington County courthouse in Hagerstown; the Howard County office building; the Springfield Hospital Center complex; Harford Senior Housing Center in Bel Air; Halethorpe Elementary School; and libraries in Parkville, Perry Hall, Randallstown and Cambridge.

At one of Annapolis' public housing buildings last week, new solar panels on the roof collected energy to heat hot water for more than two dozen apartments below. Inside, a message scrawled on the wall asked whoever had been urinating in the hallway to knock it off. It seems an odd juxtaposition - high technology above, reeking hallways below - but the two are directly related. The outdated buildings of the cash-strapped housing authority made them prime targets for a company that has come up with an innovative business plan to capture renewable energy credits by spreading green technology - in this case, installing solar panels on the roofs of two public housing complexes at no charge.

When Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Kelis, Mo'nique and Queen Latifah take the stage Aug. 13 for the Sugar Water Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion, no wisps of cigarette smoke should be visible among the fans - even those sitting on the lawn. Starting Tuesday, smoking at Merriweather will be illegal - just as it will be in all public buildings, for office workers standing within 15 feet of any building entrance, at outdoor athletic events, in 75 percent of hotel rooms and in much of the Travel America truck stop in Jessup.

After last week's column decrying the definite lack of charm in downtown Towson and its hideous collection of dehumanizing architecture, I thought I might have to enter the federal witness protection program. I feared I'd be chased from my West Towson home by a torch-carrying mob of rustics similar to the one that pursued Frankenstein's monster or have my Baltimore County citizenship revoked by the county executive. No mob came, nor did an invitation to speak from the Towson Chamber of Commerce.

The intersection of President and Fayette streets should be an inviting gateway to downtown Baltimore, the front door to the Inner Harbor for drivers heading south on Interstate 83. But those expecting a cheery welcome may get a completely different impression when they see concrete barriers around the police headquarters, and traffic cones, barrels, barricades and a sea of police cars clogging nearby Baltimore Street. Everything about the area seems to say: Keep Out. Go Home. Stay Away.

Vote for whoever promises to take William Donald Schaefer's name off all the public buildings that William Donald Schaefer is putting it on.Surprise! Bill turns out to be the best thing a lot of Democratic candidates have going for them.Imagine a town important enough to have a cardinal in residence and not big enough for the National Football League.Whoever dismissed classical music as strictly dead white European male doesn't know about contemporary East Asia, or even about who attends American conservatories.

Chicago. -- Numerical quotas have come under much criticism -- well deserved -- in the areas of hiring, academic admission and political representation. The desirable goals of fairness and inclusion are made harder to reach when rigid numbers cut across the flexibility and specific adjustments called for.Thomas Jefferson, attempting to construct a fair educational system, created a quota of students that could be advanced from each lower district for higher education. This was absurd on its face.

Few things are quite as unsightly as the piles of cigarette butts that accumulate in low spots on parking lots and the gutters on the sides of roads. It seems even as most kinds of littering have become less frequent, flicking a butt out a car window remains just another unsavory aspect of the practice of smoking. Mercifully for those of us who don't smoke, this irritating practice will be that much less part of the scene as Harford County government is poised to ban smoking — indeed all tobacco use — on county-owned and leased properties, inside and out. Here in Maryland, one of the last strongholds of smoking rights owing to the state's centuries of tobacco growing tradition, smoking indoors has been illegal for years, and it's not hard to strike up a conversation about how odd it seems to walk into a lobby in states where lobby smoking is still permitted.

Baltimore County government is moving to save thousands of dollars by cutting electric lighting bills in dozens of public buildings by 30 percent through a deal worked out with Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.The County Council is expected to approve the deal, which involves 88 public buildings, at its meeting tomorrow night.The cost-saving program continues efforts begun in April 1991, when BG&E converted lighting in the County Courts building in Towson and in the county office building. The work was done through BG&E's Energy Efficient Indoor Lighting Program.

More than three days after the huge blast that rocked New York's World Trade Center, there are far more questions than answers about how and why it happened. The first question on most Americans' minds is whether it marks the start of an outbreak of attacks. There have been other bomb atrocities in New York and Washington in past decades -- none has proved to be part of a series, or at least has succeeded in becoming one. The real danger to ordinary citizens, in the country's political and financial capitals as well as elsewhere, is the mentally unbalanced copy cat.Security measures have been strengthened at many public buildings, including Baltimore's World Trade Center.

Few things are quite as unsightly as the piles of cigarette butts that accumulate in low spots on parking lots and the gutters on the sides of roads. It seems even as most kinds of littering have become less frequent, flicking a butt out a car window remains just another unsavory aspect of the practice of smoking. Mercifully for those of us who don't smoke, this irritating practice will be that much less part of the scene as Harford County government is poised to ban smoking — indeed all tobacco use — on county-owned and leased properties, inside and out. Here in Maryland, one of the last strongholds of smoking rights owing to the state's centuries of tobacco growing tradition, smoking indoors has been illegal for years, and it's not hard to strike up a conversation about how odd it seems to walk into a lobby in states where lobby smoking is still permitted.

Few moments in history are identified in everyday conversation solely by date. The Fourth of July is one of the few. Most commemorated historic observances go by names like Veterans Day (which used to be called Armistice Day as it signified the end of World War I) and Pearl Harbor Day. The day whose solemn anniversary we mark this weekend, however, is one of the few whose frightening and painful memory, and whose hard legacy, can be brought to the forefront of any conversation simply by mentioning a date: 9/11.

Baltimore's green building law, considered one of the most sweeping in the nation, lingers in a legal limbo of sorts more than seven months after it supposedly took effect. The city has yet to publish regulations to carry out the law, which requires most private as well as public buildings to be energy-efficient and environmentally friendly in their design and construction. Though promised by the end of 2009, the rules and a set of home-grown green building standards are still being tinkered with by city officials.

A fire caused a half-million dollars in damage when it roared through a storage room in an Annapolis public works building yesterday morning, fire officials said. Shortly before 8 a.m., a malfunctioning light fixture sparked the fire in a second-floor room where lawn mowers, paper products, tires, oil filters and petroleum-based chemicals are stored, Annapolis Fire Department spokesman Lt. John Bowes said. More than three dozen firefighters from the city, Anne Arundel County and Naval Academy fire departments worked to contain the two-alarm fire as public works employees hastened to move garbage trucks from the building in the 900 block of Spa Road, Bowes said.

Senators heard testimony yesterday on two bills aimed at reducing the use of unhealthful fats such as margarine, shortening and partially hydrogenated oils. The first bill would ban food with trans fats from being served in all food facilities across the state, including restaurants, school cafeterias, and churches and community centers that regularly serve food. The second bill would prohibit the serving of foods with trans fats in public buildings, such as cafeterias in state government buildings and public school lunchrooms.

Forget the controversial Male/Female (It?) sculpture looming over Penn Station. Think of more embraceable creations: The stainless steel tubes jutting into the sky in front of the Maryland Science Center. The buoyant red sculpture gracing Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor. Or how about those concrete arcs fronting the Baltimore Visitor Center, meant to convey the "cyclical nature of human interaction"? Public art - where profundity and vagueness seemingly co-exist - sprouts in forms vast and varied in pockets across the city.

Senators heard testimony yesterday on two bills aimed at reducing the use of unhealthful fats such as margarine, shortening and partially hydrogenated oils. The first bill would ban food with trans fats from being served in all food facilities across the state, including restaurants, school cafeterias, and churches and community centers that regularly serve food. The second bill would prohibit the serving of foods with trans fats in public buildings, such as cafeterias in state government buildings and public school lunchrooms.

WHEN JOHN G. GARY announced that he planned to spend $50,000 to renovate his office in the Arundel Center, it was followed by the predictable response that the Anne Arundel County executive was squandering public money.After a recent trip to Italy, I have some advice for him:Instead of fixing up his suite of offices, he should redo the whole building.In Tuscany, public buildings are a delight to look at and walk through.Even the smallest village has a building that gives the impression that local government business is important and serious.

When Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Kelis, Mo'nique and Queen Latifah take the stage Aug. 13 for the Sugar Water Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion, no wisps of cigarette smoke should be visible among the fans - even those sitting on the lawn. Starting Tuesday, smoking at Merriweather will be illegal - just as it will be in all public buildings, for office workers standing within 15 feet of any building entrance, at outdoor athletic events, in 75 percent of hotel rooms and in much of the Travel America truck stop in Jessup.