Realignment

Nine Maryland colleges and universities will receive more than $865,000 in state grants through the Base Realignment Higher Education Fund. Johns Hopkins, Morgan State and Towson universities along with the Community College of Baltimore County and Anne Arundel Community College are among the grant recipients, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown announced Friday. This is the third and final year of the program, which targets academic training for workers from the federal military Base Realignment and Closure effort, known as BRAC.

Realignment in Major League Baseball, which could move the Orioles out of the American League East one day, was touched on Thursday during the players' annual spring meeting with their union chief. But because it is only conceptual, not a lot of time was dedicated to it, according to new union chief Michael Weiner , who spent nearly two hours with the Orioles. "On-field issues are very important to the players, so we mentioned a number of those issues. My understanding is that realignment is not a front-burner issue," said Weiner, the union's former general counsel who took over as executive director from Don Fehr last year.

Realignment in major league baseball, which potentially could move the Orioles out of the hyper-competitive American League East one day, was touched on during the players annual spring meeting with their union head on Thursday. But because it is only conceptual, not a lot of time was dedicated to it, according to new union chief Michael Weiner, who spent nearly two hours with the Orioles' players. "On-field issues are very important to the players, so we mentioned a number of those issues.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Public Service Commission are doing their best to save Maryland from Constellation Energy. Just when the state was plunging into its biggest recession since the early 1990s, Constellation threatened to spend $8 billion and create 4,000 construction jobs on a new nuclear power plant on the Chesapeake. Fortunately, the commission has ordered endless, expensive, irrelevant hearings that are likely to make Constellation and its partner, EDF Group, give up. So diligent is O'Malley that his energy department tried to suppress testimony from the commission's own expert showing that Marylanders would save a billion dollars over eight years from the new electricity supply and resulting lower prices.

In another sign of the impact that BRAC is having on Harford County, Martin's Inc., the Maryland catering company, is exploring the idea of building a banquet facility near Aberdeen Proving Ground. Company founder Martin Resnick will meet Wednesday with representatives from the county and the Army, including Col. Jeffrey Wiseman, APG garrison commander, to discuss the possibility "in an exploratory but very serious way." "We've been looking at Harford County as a potential site for quite a while," Resnick said.

Across from the precisely manicured lawns of Fort Meade stands a row of boarded-up businesses, tattoo shops, an adult bookstore and some faded bars. Once a bunch of bustling bars and arcades earned the area across from the military base the nickname Boomtown. But while nearby communities have blossomed in recent decades, Boomtown has fallen into decay. The shooting of four men, two fatally, early Sunday morning in a parking lot here is only more evidence, neighbors say, that many businesses and abandoned properties have become magnets for criminals.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore chose J. Thomas Sadowski yesterday as president and chief executive officer to replace Christian Johansson, who stepped down in July. Sadowski, who joined the economic alliance as executive vice president in January 2006, has been serving as interim president and chief executive. The alliance, a private economic development marketing group, has been working to entice companies in the life sciences, financial services, information technology and defense sectors to the region.

In addition to keeping his chin up, Ravens rookie quarterback Joe Flacco might have to worry about staying up on his feet. Long considered a cornerstone of offensive coordinator Cam Cameron's philosophy, the offensive line is in a state of flux caused by a spate of injuries, most notably the season-ending knee injury to right guard Marshal Yanda. "We've just got to get it done," left tackle Jared Gaither (Maryland) said before practice yesterday. "When you lose a soldier, you mourn, but then you keep on going.

Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown announced yesterday about $600,000 in federal funds for projects designed to ease the impact of the military base realignment process known as BRAC. Funding includes $94,000 for a new construction technology center at Baltimore City Community College; $100,000 for Towson University to bring an "elementary engineering" program to Harford County public schools; and $100,000 for Monster Government Solutions to create a Web site for Maryland military families. The funds are part of a $4 million BRAC-related grant to Maryland's labor department from the U.S. Department of Labor.

The federal government's military Base Realignment and Closure and other shifts are expected to add as many as 60,000 jobs - about 20,000 of them government employees - and 28,000 households in Maryland over more than a decade: military personnel, civilian employees, contractors and supporting roles. They also will heighten demand here for everything from transportation improvements to a well-educated work force. Since 1999, Maryland's Department of Business and Economic Development has had an Office of Military and Federal Affairs.