Review Board

A Roman Catholic priest reinstated as pastor of a West Baltimore church where he had been accused of sexual abuse of a minor "should not have been reassigned to parish ministry," a blue-ribbon review board has advised Archbishop William H. Keeler.But Archbishop Keeler defended his decision to return the Rev. Maurice J. Blackwell in December to his pastorate at St. Edward Church at Poplar Grove Street and Lafayette Avenue. The priest had been removed from the post for nearly three months while he underwent counseling at an evaluation and treatment center in Hartford, Conn.

Officials criticized new plans for the redevelopment of North Baltimore's Rotunda mall on Thursday, questioning whether turning the landmark shopping center inside out - making stores accessible only from outdoor sidewalks - would best serve residents of the surrounding communities. New Jersey-based developer Hekemian & Co. has tried for more than five years to revitalize the 11-acre Rotunda site, but Thursday's presentation was the first time that details of the $100 million rehabilitation plan had been shown to a citywide group.

State legislators who helped create Baltimore's police Civilian Review Board said yesterday that they intend to amend the legislation to shorten the term of the board's first members from three years to six months. The change would counter City Council's approval Monday of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's seven nominations to the review board, created this year to monitor police misconduct.The state legislators who helped get the measure passed in Annapolis complained that Schmoke failed to open the appointment process to all residents and that three of his nominees were recommended by the police.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has selected a panel of law enforcement experts, including two respected former police chiefs and a former U.S. attorney for Maryland, to review last month's police shooting outside a Baltimore club that killed a veteran officer and a 22-year-old man. Officials say the independent review board will issue a comprehensive report on the circumstances that led to the agency's first fatal police-on-police shooting in...

THE MESS OF blond curls that Ken Holtz wore under his sailor's hat when he was a gunner's mate on an aircraft carrier more than 40 years ago is gone now. In its place are white hairs on a pate going slowly bald.But shake his hand and you'll learn the hard way that the 67-year-old Holtz still has the grip of the tough, beat-walking cop who patrolled East Baltimore for 14 years. He sits behind a desk in the living room of his Severna Park home and gazes at the framed newspaper article on his wall.

The state board that licenses and disciplines physicians should distance itself from the medical establishment and open its records to the public, legislative analysts say.The 15-member Board of Physician Quality Assurance, which by law has only three non-physicians, should also add two more consumer members, according to a review by the legislature's Department of Fiscal Services.The recently released audit concludes that while the board's performance has improved in its three years of work, several major changes are still needed to ensure the competency of Maryland's doctors.

IT'S no coincidence that 30 of the nation's 50 largest cities have implemented one type of police advisory board or another since 1986. Most of the boards, which monitor police complaints and make recommendations, involve private citizens.Baltimore, Detroit, Newark, N.J., Houston and New York are among the cities that have proposals before them to review police behavior by involving private citizens in monitoring of officer brutality cases.In some cities, the road to review boards has been paved with political hazards.

The Baltimore City Council introduced a resolution last night supporting a civilian police review board.Baltimore Democratic State Sen. Ralph M. Hughes introduced legislation last month that would create an 18-member panel to examine the conduct of police officers. Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, who has opposed previous efforts to create the board, is supporting the legislation that would give the board subpoena power to call witnesses, gather documents and discipline officers.Southwest Baltimore Councilman Norman A. Handy Sr. introduced the resolution last night.

Three nominees for the 12-member Police Civilian Review Board say Baltimore police officials recommended them for the panel, adding fuel to state lawmakers' criticism that the selection process was exclusive.Speaking before the City Council's executive nominations committee yesterday, the nominees said a police major or sergeant asked them if they would sit on the board, before other people in the community knew about the posts.State legislators have criticized Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke in recent weeks for the nomination process.

Developer David Cordish's proposal to remove the four smokestacks atop Baltimore's Power Plant yesterday sailed through Baltimore's design review process.While stopping short of giving him permission to dismantle the stacks, members of the city's Architectural Review Board indicated that they support his logic and are intrigued by his plans for the city-owned landmark.M. Jay Brodie, president of Baltimore Development Corp., said he and other city officials would have to review the panels' comments before making final decisions on removing the smokestacks.

Once a month in a conference room on the ninth floor of the Equitable Building on North Calvert Street, a small group of regular citizens from around Baltimore huddles over piles of complaints filed against Baltimore police officers. The public is invited, though the public rarely attends. No one did at the meeting Thursday evening. Discussions are intentionally vague; the agenda is cryptic, with only an occasional hint of what a case is about, who was involved and where it occurred. Board members appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council review internal affairs reports, but those documents don't get distributed beyond the board's inner circle.

Council may give nominees more scrutiny Usually, an appointment to a volunteer panel like the Adult Public Guardianship Review Board would sail right through the Baltimore County Council. Fledia Powell's nomination was on the agenda for last night's council meeting - until, that is, her pending criminal trial came to light. Powell, who works in the county's Office of Workforce Development, is charged with first-degree assault, accused of aiming a shotgun out of a Towson-area home at a man standing on a corner.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- At one end of a converted trailer in the U.S. military detention center here, a graying Pakistani businessman sat shackled before a review board of uniformed officers, pleading for his freedom. The prisoner had seen only a summary of what officials said was a thick dossier of intelligence linking him to al-Qaida. He had not seen his own legal papers since they were taken away in an unrelated investigation. Lawyers are working on his behalf in Washington, London and Pakistan, but here his only assistance came from an Army lieutenant colonel.

Three years after their teenage son, Michael, died from taking a prescription painkiller, George and Alicia Osgood are still waiting for the outcome of a state investigation into his death. The couple wants the Maryland Board of Physicians to discipline the doctor who prescribed the strongest dose on the market of the drug, OxyContin, to treat the 19-year-old's sore throat. "I can't believe that the Board of Physicians is not doing anything about it," said George Osgood, a civil engineer who lives in Upper Marlboro.

Everything surrounding Gary Neal's debut in a Towson basketball uniform was quiet -- and considering the circumstances of his arrival, it was for the best. Nothing Neal did in that uniform last night, however, was quiet. He was like nothing anyone has seen at this school in years. Within two minutes of his entrance into the game against Virginia Military Institute at Towson Center, he was not only the best player on his team, or the best player on the court, he also was the best college player in the city.

The past few months have been tough for the Food and Drug Administration. The agency has been accused of turning a blind eye to the suicide risks of antidepressants, of being slow to recognize potentially deadly problems with Vioxx and of allowing other drugs to stay on the market despite known hazards. "They're giving a free pass to drugs on safety," said FDA safety officer Dr. David J. Graham, who raised early concerns about Vioxx and says some other popular drugs also pose too much risk.

An overhauled bill that would create a civilian review board to investigate complaints against the Baltimore Police Department gained needed support yesterday from representatives of the department and from the police officers' union.Attorneys for Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier and the Fraternal Order of Police told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee their clients would support the new version of the bill.The amended bill eliminates the board's ability to punish police officers, instead saying the panel can recommend discipline to the commissioner.

WASHINGTON -- Instead of imposing controls on drug prices, President Clinton's health care task force may suggest forming a review board to help keep prices down.The board would be loosely modeled after a Canadian agency that has helped control prescription drug prices in that country, according to confidential work papers obtained from the Task Force on National Health Care.The Canadian agency, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, has helped slow the rise of drug prices in Canada, according to a recent congressional study.

Willis M. Hawkins, 90, designer of the military transport aircraft known as the C-130 Hercules and a former top Lockheed executive, died Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. The C-130 is one of the few planes in the history of aviation that has stayed in continuous production for 50 years. He spent more than 40 years with Lockheed Corp., now Lockheed Martin Corp. He became senior vice president of Lockheed and served on its board of directors. He contributed to the design and development of a wide variety of military and commercial aircraft, including the Polaris Missile, the first missile to be launched underwater using a submarine as a firing platform, and the C-130 cargo- and troop-carrying airplane.

Accused of backsliding in their commitment to protect children from pedophile priests, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops voted overwhelmingly yesterday to begin a second round of audits to ensure that dioceses comply with provisions to prevent sexual abuse. The vote - 207 bishops in favor, 14 against and one abstention - came at a private, semi-annual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Colorado. It followed scathing criticism by the head of the church's lay review board, who accused bishops of trying to return to "business as usual" after some tried to delay or derail a second audit.