Revenue Authority

Members of the Country Club of Maryland have tentatively agreed to buy the financially troubled 18-hole golf course off Stevenson Lane in Towson, ending the chance that new owners would open it to the public.The club's 300 members formed a committee in recent weeks to arrange for the purchase and raised $3 million to help pay for it, said Brad Seeley, a club member and neighbor of the site.The seven-member committee also is seeking financing from area banks, and is filing papers with state tax officials to incorporate as the Country Club of Maryland Inc., an initial step in assuming ownership, Seeley said.

Baltimore County's fifth public golf course opens Wednesday, its second new public course in 13 months and a facility that officials say will help make the county a more attractive location for businesses and their executives.Woodlands Golf Course, a premium 18-hole course on county-owned land next to the older Diamond Ridge course near Woodlawn, cost $6.5 million and features a challenging 7,000-yard course with trees hemming in the fairways designed by Lindsay Ervin.Its opening -- to be preceded by a VIP outing on the course today -- culminates a three-year effort by the county to put its public golf courses in the hands of the financially independent Baltimore County Revenue Authority, rather than have the courses compete for tax dollars as part of the Department of Recreation and Parks.

Flat foolish editorial on revenue fundsRegarding your editorial "Annapolis' flat-earth council" (Nov. 13) I appreciate that you got two things right.First, you spelled my name right, and I am very grateful. Second, I have to agree wholeheartedly with your point that Baltimore has a revenue authority.In all my "illogical" rhetoric on the subject as president of the Ward One Residents Association, I consistently used the stadium revenue authority aptly described last year by a Democratic state senator from Montgomery County as "this huge vacuum cleaner, sucking up all public funds in sight, beyond even the huge amounts provided last year" as the paramount example of just the kind of "forward-thinking" what we in Annapolis were afraid of.TTC I was a teen-ager in Baltimore in the 1960s, and I knew some of The Sun editorial greats in those days, mostly by the privilege of dating a couple of their daughters, whose identities I'd better protect lest they be tainted with flat-earth associations by their local newspaper.

Three years after the city charter was amended to give Annapolis leaders the power to set up a quasi-governmental revenue authority, city council members voted 8-0 last night to take away that controversial right.The decision to repeal the amendment puts an end to years of debate over whether the city should have an independent revenue authority that can sell bonds and collect fees to finance big-ticket projects such as parking garages. Board members appointed by local government officials govern such agencies.

The County Council is likely to delay voting tonight on whether to form Anne Arundel's first private agency responsible for raising money for public recreation projects.Republican Diane L. Evans, who is chairwoman of the council, said she plans to introduce at least one amendment that would limit the Recreational Revenue Authority."I've been very concerned from the beginning about its open-ended nature," Evans said during a council work session Friday morning. "My preference would be that the bill focus on one or two recreational facilities."

After inspiring months of wrangling and rhetoric, County Executive John G. Gary's plan to create an independent agency to raise money for public golf courses, ice rinks and swimming pools died a quiet death.The measure, which would have established Anne Arundel's first Recreational Revenue Authority, will not appear on the County Council's Feb. 18 agenda because of bureaucratic snafu: A public meeting on the bill was not advertised according to law. As a result, legislation that Gary cast as a significant initiative will automatically expire.

THERE IS MUCH to like about reopening the Pikes Theater, a sentimental Pikesville landmark, as an Italian market.Baltimore County officials had been wondering what to do with the movie house, which the quasi-public revenue authority bought in 1992. The community tried to raise money for a performing arts center, but failed. Since then, development officials have considered turning it into a chic movie theater or a kind of Italian Sutton Place Gourmet.The theater idea was sentimentally appealing, but involved a $1 million subsidy.

A lengthy hearing with close to two dozen speakers delayed a County Council vote last night on a bill to create Anne Arundel's first private agency to raise money for recreational projects.The proposal had been the subject of intensive lobbying, and passage of a bill in the Maryland General Assembly last night allowing the county to create a revenue authority to control money raised for recreation programs.But after more than two hours of council members' questioning county officials about the proposal, and testimony from opponents, it appeared possible that the members would introduce several amendments on the bill to create the Recreational Revenue Authority -- which would require a new public hearing and put off a vote.

MIDDLE RIVER -- Final design and engineering for a $5 million streetscape improvement project along a 1.7-mile section of Eastern Boulevard from Selig Avenue near the Middlesex Shopping Center to Martin Boulevard is up for County Council approval tonight.Century Engineering Inc. is expected to get the $272,000 contract, which is preliminary to construction work starting next year. The project is expected to take a year. All the money would come from state coffers.The work would include landscaping, curbs, sidewalks and gutters, drainage and median improvements along the busy section of highway.

In a public forum last night that could foreshadow a contentious primary next month in Annapolis, the two leading Republican mayoral candidates clashed on major issues.Alderman Dean L. Johnson of Ward 2 drew applause when he emphatically opposed building a conference center and creating a revenue authority with the "power to do anything it wished."Alderman M. Theresa DeGraff of Ward 7, while not supporting the proposals, said it was a "sovereign right" of the city to build such projects and to establish a revenue authority to finance them.

A reader named John Dusch sent along an article from the Gazette in Prince George's County on speed cameras, thinking I'd be interested. I was. It seems the Prince George's County Council has approved plans for speed cameras and has designated the county Revenue Authority to determine the 50 school sites where they will be deployed. The Revenue Authority? What are these people thinking? Regular readers of this column are well aware that I have no objections to speed cameras and would cheer if they were installed on every road in the state.

Though the perception might be otherwise, historic Ellicott City doesn't need a parking garage or more spaces - at least not yet. What's needed is better management of existing parking, according to a consultant's study for the Howard County revenue authority. Michael Connor said that the recommendation is preliminary and that his study won't be complete until next month. But he gave three members of the revenue authority a preview at a meeting last week. The study by Desman Associates of McLean, Va., examined parking in the congested Main Street area on a Friday and Saturday in October.

Bills allowing speed cameras and mobile home park residents the right to buy the land under their homes before a park is sold failed to win General Assembly approval before the 90-day session ended Monday night. The two bills represented the biggest issues local legislators faced this year, but they weren't the only local bills approved by the county delegation that failed to be enacted. A third measure offering liability protection, enjoyed by county government, to the new Howard County Revenue Authority under a self-insurance program also failed.

In response to a Dec. 30 letter (No public funds for 50-meter pool), I would like to point out that the county is awaiting a study (to be released mid-2008) to determine if it is feasible to build such a facility, and if so, is considering funding such a project through bonds issued by the Revenue Authority - not through the traditional funding method of the county's capital budget. Like parking garages, aquatic complexes are revenue generators. As long as a swim facility is able to cover its debt service through user fees, partial- and full-facility rentals, and concessions, it would not drain the tax base since it would not draw from capital budget funds.

Revenue Authority OKs garage funding Baltimore County's Revenue Authority board voted yesterday to spend $18.2 million on a new parking garage for Towson Circle III, a private retail development in the county seat. The authority's board of directors approved funding the 630-space garage, to be built above the $32 million center, by a vote of 3 to 1, with one member abstaining, said George E. Hale, chief executive of the Revenue Authority. Plans for Towson Circle III, a joint development by Heritage Properties and the Cordish Co., include a 14-screen, 2,200-seat, stadium-style movie theater, 21,500 square feet of restaurant space and 11,000 square feet of retail space, according to county officials.

The Baltimore County Council approved last night additional money for construction of an indoor athletic field and the county's only ice rink at Reisterstown Regional Park. The measure authorizes the county to spend an additional $445,000 on the facility, using money left over from an unrelated construction project that came in under budget. The council approved the ice rink project in March, with the county government and the Baltimore County Revenue Authority splitting the $5 million tab. But the authority recently told county officials that the project cost had increased to $5.9 million, largely because of the rising prices of building materials.

Advocating more government spending never seems an obstacle for some candidates during a political campaign, and Howard County's candidates for county executive are among that group. At a forum last week held by Transportation Advocates, all four executive hopefuls called for more convenient and frequent stops for Howard Transit's bright green buses and better connections to mass transit in Baltimore and Washington. The buses are vital for workers, senior citizens and students unable to drive or who do not have cars.

Soroptimist club to honor 3 women Soroptimist of Howard County will honor the 2006 winners of the organization's three awards for women at a dinner April 20 at That's Amore restaurant in Columbia. The Women's Opportunity Award is to be accepted by LaJuan McAteer of Columbia, a mother of two who is pursuing her dream of becoming a registered nurse at Howard Community College. The Violet Richardson Award, which recognizes girls ages 14 to 17 who volunteer in their communities, will go to Shayna Meliker, whose project "Miles for Miracles," a walk to benefit the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America, has been held for three years.

Doughoregan Manor slated as topic Preservation Howard County will co-sponsor a conference Saturday on the history of Doughoregan Manor, the 892-acre Carroll family estate, and options to protect it. The conference, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Slayton House in Wilde Lake Village Center. Co-sponsors of the conference include the Howard County Conservancy, the Rockburn Land Trust, Preservation Maryland and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Robey administration's bid to create a Howard County Revenue Authority moved closer to reality yesterday in Annapolis, but another local bill to give senior citizens a break on property taxes faces an uncertain future. The tax bill's sponsor, Republican Del. Gail H. Bates, amended it to raise the age of eligibility to 65 and limit the amount of tax relief - both designed to cut costs. With the changes, Bates estimated the county might lose up to $2.2 million annually, but Raymond S. Wacks, the county budget director, said the cost might be closer to $6 million.