Residents

Here's some recent front-page news: County Executive John Leopold indicted on corruption charges alleging he used county employees to arrange sexual liaisons, pick up campaign checks, investigate political opponents and run personal errands. A county councilman imprisoned for federal tax evasion. Another county councilman using racial slurs during public testimony. A county council unable to select a replacement for a vacant seat leaves thousands of voters without representation.

Baltimore County Council members have finally approved legislation to require the county to post preliminary plans for "Planned Unit Developments" online ("Balto. Co. Council OKs PUD reform" Feb. 22). It's about time. Such projects allow developers to get around certain zoning restrictions by offering defined benefits to the community. In the matter of Mays Chapel Park, the council has decided to usurp the dedicated Recreation and Parks property for the construction of an elementary school without the opportunity for public comment.

The bad news is that the smaller of the two lakes that make up Laurel Lakes is almost filled in with trees, bushes, cattails and other shrubbery. Only a small portion of that upper lake, near Oxford Street, has a section of water visible from the decks of the surrounding town houses along its banks. The good news is that some time next year, Prince George's County officials, who have authority over the water in the lakes, plan to dredge the upper lake, something many local residents have been calling for over the past 10 years.

Elford Jackson stood across from the Yau Bros. carryout on Greenmount Avenue in Waverly Saturday afternoon, on the future site of a neighborhood resource center. The Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity purchased the building last April, but considered not moving there after two men were fatally shot and a third was wounded inside the Chinese restaurant in March last year. But two more killings last week on Greenmount Avenue, including another in the same carryout, prompted the fraternity members to change their minds again.

Bob Johnston was giving his 21-month-old son, T.J., a bath in his home on Windsor Mill Road in Franklintown the night of Dec. 18 when he felt "a god-awful shaking" and looked outside. Three lawns away, a large van had crashed into a neighbor's home. In Johnston's front yard, a small tree decorated for Christmas was in disarray. "I saw all the balls that my wife put on the tree on the ground, and I thought, 'He went right through the yard,'" Johnston said. The van, registered to the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, had actually driven through three yards, gone airborne off a 6-foot embankment and clipped the home of Samuel Johnson, who said he heard "a loud boom along with a lot of screeching" before he jumped off his couch and ran toward the rear of his home.

Surrounded on three sides by water with breathtaking views, it's easy to see why residents cherish the neighborhood of Cape St. Claire. Located in Anne Arundel County on the shores of the Little Magothy River, the Magothy River, the Chesapeake Bay and Deep Creek, the community is called home by almost 8,000 residents giving it the feel of a small town. "One of the things I love is once you get off the freeway and you go back into Cape St. Claire you could be living in a small town anywhere.

Settle or sue? That's the question facing residents of the Villas at Cattail Creek, an upscale condominium community in western Howard County that has been troubled since inception with a sewage system that never worked and a development team they don't trust. About 70 residents met Monday night with their lawyer, Howard Goldberg, and a group of Howard County officials to consider what might be the biggest decision they make in the long-running ordeal — whether to accept a settlement that the county worked out for the 93-home community for seniors or go back to court on their own. The shared septic system has been replaced with one that works, and a county consumer protection lawsuit filed in September 2008 has been settled.

Verizon restored 911 service to Howard County customers late Monday evening, police said. Police had asked residents to use an alternate emergency number for several hours before announcing just before 11 p.m. that Verizon had fixed a technical glitch. Some residents who attempted to dial 911 from landlines received a fast busy signal. County police spread word of the problem using recorded phone messages. Police said they were uncertain how many people had experienced the problem but were alerted to it when a nursing home staff member in Columbia failed to get through on an emergency call.

Cattail Creek residents voted 90-3 to accept a Howard County negotiated settlement with their developers over a nightmarish, years-long sewage disposal problem. But now they face a new issue. The residents have dropped their private lawsuit as part of the agreement that will pay each participant thousands of dollars, but one of the development partners for the upscale Glenwood retirement community is demanding they pay for operating the replacement sewage system built in February 2009 to replace one that never worked.