NEWS
By Arin Gencer | April 24, 2009
Four Towson families filed suit Thursday in Baltimore County Circuit Court against the Board of Education, contending that it failed to comply with laws and policies in deciding to build a new elementary school - and calling for a stop to the project. The residents, whose properties border the proposed site for West Towson Elementary, contend that adding another building next to Ridge Ruxton School on North Charles Street - along with several hundred more students - raises safety and environmental concerns, according to the suit.
NEWS
By Larry Carson | January 25, 2009
Proposed state budget cuts are expected to cost the Howard County government up to $13 million next fiscal year, but county officials say they are relieved because it could have been worse. County Executive Ken Ulman said county budget officials are working on a detailed accounting of Gov. Martin O'Malley's $310 million in proposed cuts to local government. But he is particularly relieved that the cost of teacher pensions wasn't shifted to local governments. "Once you start down that road, every year there's a tough time, you increase it a bit," Ulman said.
NEWS
January 19, 2009
When Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. suggested recently that Maryland ought to spend $325 million on public school construction next year, quite a few people in Annapolis scoffed. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller opined that the state had been "overly generous" with such funding in the past, and aides to Gov. Martin O'Malley expressed doubts that Mr. Smith's recommended number could possibly be met. How quickly they forget. While it's true that the last three years have brought a record investment in schools, not only to build new ones but to repair or replace aging structures, far more is needed.
NEWS
By Gadi Dechter | January 11, 2009
What is the mood coming into the legislative session this year? We are very carefully optimistic. We've overcome much more severe crises in our state's history than what we consider a yearlong blip on our economic radar. ... I'm an historian, and I know what our country has gone through in the past, and this is nothing. It's a deep recession. We're not facing a world war, we're not facing a depression, we're not facing a plague. We can learn from it, and we can survive. How do you manage a projected revenue gap of $1.9 billion?
NEWS
By LARRY CARSON | July 13, 2008
Though County Council chairman Courtney Watson's push for a citizens committee to discuss ways to provide more schools and public infrastructure has drawn a tepid response from elected officials wary of tax increases, she maintains it is a vexing problem that must be addressed. "We have to come up with some consensus or we're going to really affect development options on U.S. 1," the Ellicott City Democrat said. School enrollment projections show all the elementary schools along the corridor could be overcrowded at some point in the next decade, which would trigger development delays.
NEWS
By Larry Carson | June 18, 2008
The county is slipping into a financial straitjacket: School construction and renovation costs are rising as the revenues to cover them are static or falling, county officials said. At yesterday's quarterly meeting of the County Council and the school board, suggestions on new sources of revenue were not forthcoming. But any discussion of tax increases was put off, with officials instead sticking to a broad discussion of the issue during the gathering at board headquarters. "I'm interested in having a robust discussion about public policy," council Chairman Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, said after the meeting.
NEWS
May 28, 2008
Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. is taking a drubbing from vocal county residents who are upset over his support of some public school construction projects. The latest involves a 400-seat addition to Loch Raven High School, an expansion designed to help alleviate overcrowding in the Perry Hall and Towson areas. But on this project, the criticism of Mr. Smith is unfair. Some county residents want a new high school, but the projected enrollment figures aren't enough to justify state funding, and the Loch Raven addition is a reasonable alternative.
NEWS
By Gina Davis | May 27, 2008
The Baltimore County school system's recent handling of requests for state money for its building projects was riddled with missteps, including late submissions, continual changes and lack of documentation, according to a memo from the head of the state's school construction program. "It appears that communication between the local government and the [school system] is very poor, resulting in miscommunications, hasty changes of scope, and lack of direction on major projects," David G. Lever, executive director of the state's Interagency Committee on School Construction, wrote in the April 22 memo to the other members of the panel.
NEWS
By Gina Davis and Laura Smitherman | May 22, 2008
The state Board of Public Works took the unusual step yesterday of withholding full approval of Baltimore County school officials' request for nearly $4 million to help expand Loch Raven High School - a move that fell short of calls to reject the project outright. The board's conditional approval was a response to mounting questions from local legislators and residents about the school system's plans to build the addition to alleviate crowding at high schools in the county's central and northeast regions.
NEWS
May 11, 2008
With his approval ratings down and three legislative sessions now behind him, Gov. Martin O'Malley has recently taken to the radio airwaves to publicize his accomplishments. But his message differs strikingly from the AM stylings of Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who leads a weekly rage-filled bashing of his successor. Sorting through the rhetoric is no easy task, but at least Mr. O'Malley's message reveals some shades of gray. In Mr. Ehrlich's world, it's much simpler: Everything that happened since he left office is bad, no matter the inconvenient facts.