Review

Last week a reader posted the 1,000th comment on my restaurant blog, Dining@Large (baltimore sun.com/diningatlarge). I was ridiculously proud of the fact. Our Web site's marketing manager even sent him a stainless steel Baltimoresun.com travel mug. For those of you who aren't sure what a blog is (and if you're reading this in print you probably aren't in the minority), it's a personal journal of comments, thoughts and information on the Internet. Readers post responses to an entry - sometimes insightful, sometimes humorous, and sometimes critical.

Maryland's environment agency is reviewing hundreds of past wetlands and pollution complaints after discovering that officials waited nearly a year to make an Eastern Shore businessman correct a wetlands violation. "We are really focusing on enforcement because it's a core part of our mission," said Environmental Secretary Shari T. Wilson, who was appointed in January by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Wilson said she ordered the review of all pending enforcement cases after a citizen complained last week that her agency had failed to force action to fix a problem in Caroline County.

The Baltimore school system will revise its flawed $1.2 billion budget with help from top financial managers from the city government and the state education department, officials announced yesterday. But accounts differed over how much help will be provided by Edward J. Gallagher, the city's finance director, and Mary Clapsaddle, assistant state superintendent for business services. William Reinhard, a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education, said the review is designed to help the school system better format its budget before a community meeting next week.

A 15-member citizens task force charged with examining possible changes to a law giving older Howard County homeowners a major property tax cut is to hold its first meeting at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Tyson Room of the George Howard Building in Ellicott City. The committee is to limit its review to the size of the tax cut and the income limit for eligibility, and it is to report back to the County Council by mid-February. The group is then to continue a broader review of the law and issue a final report in November.

Developers in Anne Arundel County are worried that County Executive Janet S. Owens' recent demand for more oversight of subdivision approvals might discourage construction projects by adding bureaucracy and delays.Environmentalists praise the Democrat for trying to control suburban sprawl and prevent favors to well-connected developers.A spokesman for Owens said yesterday that her decision to review all applications for major subdivisions and waivers of the county's growth-control laws will add a day to the evaluation of projects and will not stop growth.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening has ordered the creation of a task force to review the state Injured Workers' Insurance Fund, after its award of a multimillion-dollar no-bid contract.In a letter made public yesterday, Glendening's chief of staff, Major F. Riddick Jr., disclosed that the task force will be asked to assess the structure of the fund's governing board and the agency's operations.In the Feb. 15 letter to Montgomery Democratic Sen. Ida G. Ruben, Riddick wrote, "Recently, there have been concerns raised relative to several issues including the management of the agency itself."

CONFLICTS OF interest are a reality of modern life. They have to be acknowledged and dealt with. But imagined conflicts shouldn't paralyze governments, businesses or other institutions.Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens' decision to review all major subdivision approvals and waivers does not get at the heart of the conflict-of-interest problem that has arisen over the county's development approval process. It does, however, threaten to overwhelm her with work that requires a technical background she doesn't possess.

The postmaster at the Havre de Grace post office has been placed on administrative leave as a result of a financial review that found irregularities in the handling of funds, a source in the federal postal inspector's office said yesterday.The employee in the postal inspector's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Postmaster John J. Vitak, 52, is on leave based on a review last week.Reached at his Havre de Grace home yesterday, Vitak declined to comment. "I'm not allowed to say anything," he said repeatedly.

AFTER the presidential impeachment trial ends, Monica Lewinsky's book will be published and some pundits wonder if it will have a large audience, considering all of the media attention the scandal has received over the past year.To sell books, the Lewinsky camp needs a sympathetic review by a noted journalist such as the one that helped to make Nan Britton's book a best-seller more than 70 years ago.Britton, the mistress of Warren G. Harding and mother of his illegitimate daughter, was getting nowhere with her tell-all book until H. L. Mencken reviewed it in the Evening Sun, excoriating those who tried to prevent its publication.

The federal regulatory review of the proposed merger between Baltimore-based publisher Waverly Inc. and a Dutch company has ended, making way for the $375 million deal to be completed this week, the companies said yesterday.In March, the Department of Justice's antitrust division requested more information from Waverly and Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Wolters Kluwer N.V. in what is typically a routine review, Waverly officials said at the time.The review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act expired Sunday night without any further government action.

The Baltimore Board of Ethics should review whether city employees have violated ethics statutes by soliciting money for a nonprofit group without receiving approval, a city councilman said Monday. In a letter to the board's chairman, Councilman William H. Cole IV asked the ethics board to examine the activities of the Baltimore City Foundation, an organization created primarily to help finance city projects for the needy. The request followed the publication Sunday of a Baltimore Sun investigation that detailed questionable transactions by city employees using foundation money.

Maryland energy regulators said Thursday that more time is required to review Constellation Energy Group's $4.5 billion deal with a French utility, forcing the company to miss its deadline to close the transaction. Constellation said it was disappointed and warned that "any delay in a transaction of this magnitude adds to the risk of it not closing, which would be a real loss for Maryland." The Public Service Commission had expected to issue a decision by Sept. 17 on whether the company's agreement to sell half its nuclear power business to Electricite de France is in the public's interest.

In a blow to Constellation Energy Group, a judge dismissed Thursday the company's lawsuit challenging the authority of Maryland regulators to investigate its deal to sell half its nuclear power business to a French utility. The ruling means Constellation has little choice but to proceed with the regulatory review of its $4.5 billion transaction with Electricite de France, a regulatory hurdle that the utility had hoped to avoid and had argued was not required under state law. In a statement, Constellation expressed disappointment with the judge's decision and said it would review its legal options.

The Maryland Public Service Commission asked for documents related to Constellation Energy Group's proposed $4.5 billion nuclear energy partnership with a French utility yesterday, to determine whether state regulators have the authority to review the transaction, a process that could complicate the deal. At a commission hearing, lawyers for the Maryland Energy Administration and the state attorney general's office argued that the panel has jurisdiction under a state law granting it authority to review transactions that give a person substantial influence over regulated utilities.

It's not crystal clear why the NFL's instant replay system has worked so poorly the past few years. It's not even clear what specifically isn't working. But there's no doubt that it doesn't work. At the very least, it should be completely overhauled in the offseason - and if it weren't so disruptive, it ought to be done sooner. At most, it should be discarded for something else. Anything else. Except that "human element," because that wasn't good enough, either. The human element is what's making a disaster of things now. Humans are either making bad rules, enforcing them poorly, interpreting them poorly or some combination of them all. Viewers can believe what they want to believe about Santonio Holmes' catch Sunday, but referee Walt Coleman was responsible for knowing the rules, reviewing the replay and explaining his decision to the crowd, both coaches and, later, a pool reporter - and he did none of that well.

One-third of Baltimore's youths under court-ordered supervision had not seen their caseworkers for three months or longer this spring, which hampered the state's ability to keep its charges out of trouble, Maryland Department of Juvenile Services officials found in an unprecedented review, . The department disclosed the city's results yesterday, the day that similar reviews across the state were scheduled to be completed. Secretary Donald W. DeVore said he ordered the review to "create a baseline" from which to build new policies.

I stayed at a place in Palm Springs, Calif., that I didn't like and posted my review on TripAdvisor.com. I received a letter from an attorney threatening to sue me for libel if I did not remove my negative review within 14 days. When I contacted TripAdvisor, I received an e-mail that said the site took the threats seriously, but they didn't even ask for a copy of the attorney's letter. Shouldn't TripAdvisor be leading the charge for protecting customers? That fine print that no one reads when you agree to the terms and conditions on TripAdvisor lets the site off the hook.

When juvenile offenders under the supervision of the state show up dead in Baltimore or are charged with murder, something's got to give. Somebody has to start asking questions about the teenagers, their daily lives and the system overseeing them. Those questions have been asked and provoked a more comprehensive review of hundreds of Baltimore cases, and the results so far are damning. A lax system of supervision, overwhelmed caseworkers and poor administrative oversight, all of which suggest a system that needs a comprehensive overhaul.

State legislators said yesterday they were outraged - but not surprised - by a Department of Juvenile Services review that revealed more than 100 examples of caseworkers who have failed to contact the young offenders they are supposed to be supervising. "As it is currently being run, DJS is a threat to public safety," said state Sen. C. Anthony Muse, a Prince George's County Democrat. "Having kids with violent offenses and violent cases and not knowing where they are? That's a threat to public safety."

WASHINGTON -- Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to U.S. and alliance officials. The reviews are an acknowledgment of the need for greater coordination in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida, halting the rising opium production and trafficking that finance the insurgency, and helping the Kabul government extend its legitimacy and control.