Small Business

After a seven-year delay, Randallstown residents cheered Monday over an announcement that a Walmart will open on Liberty Road next year. Officials and residents have long hoped that the store — a planned $9 million, 160,000-square-foot supercenter with groceries and a pharmacy — would revitalize the aging commercial corridor, encouraging other national retailers and restaurants to set up shop in the affluent, largely black community....

Maryland small businesses gripe that they can't get loans from banks. Lenders complain of a dearth of borrowers. Is there any way to get these two together? The state is going to try, under legislation expected to be signed into law today. Maryland will use a carrot — or, rather, up to $50 million in deposits — to encourage banks here to lend to small businesses. Basically, participating banks that make loans to small businesses will receive an equal amount of deposits from the state.

My Small Business Saturday got off to an early start on Wednesday.    At noon I picked up our Thanksgiving pumpkin pies and snowflake rolls at the re-located Roland Park Bakery and Deli . No longer at the back of the historic Roland Avenue shopping center, it is now on Chestnut Avenue, below The Avenue (West 36th Street) in Hampden. When I walked in almost all of the tables were full. A woman I know from Stevenson was there with her five grandchildren. Neighbors from Goodwood Gardens showed up shortly thereafter, so it seems that many of Anita Ward's longtime customers have followed her and her delicious baked goods to the new location.

March 15--YORK, Pa. -- Each candidate running for the District 31 state senate seat in the April 24 primary has big plans if they make it to November's election. This district covers all of Cumberland County; and in York County -- Carroll, Fairview, Franklin, Monaghan, Warrington and Washington townships; and Dillsburg, Franklintown and Wellsville boroughs. Experience Attorney Andrew Shaw, 36, of North Middleton believes his experience as a small business owner has helped him prepare for his campaign.

America needs the reforms included in the president's health care reform act, and Congress should stop attempting to repeal the law. As a small business owner who supplies health insurance to his employees, I understand how important a good group insurance market is. My Maryland based company has been in business for just over eight years, and our premiums have more than doubled during this time. However, after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, our premiums actually declined in 2010.

There are so many made-up days of celebration or awareness - National Mayonnaise Day or Annual Broccoli Week - that I don't even pay attention to them anymore. But something caught my eye when the BBB of Greater Maryland sent out a release on Small Business Saturday on Nov. 26 th . If you have an American Express card and use it to spend $25 or more at a small business on that Saturday, the credit card company will credit your account with $25 later. The company's generosity only goes so far. The offer is good for the first 200,000 cards registered.

As the economy continues to struggle and America tries to reclaim its place in the global economic and financial markets, small business once again is left holding the proverbial bag. As attorney and author Steve Strauss asked in his Aug. 8 column in USA Today, how do we pump the entrepreneurial well even deeper in the face of so much legislative, political, and global red tape? With unemployment constantly hovering around 9 percent and fear grasping every American from Main Street to Wall Street, how does the small business owner stand a chance of survival, let alone the ability to grow and prosper?

In May, I started a tour of Carroll County businesses and farms. As I've met with small business owners and employees, they've been telling me how Maryland's business climate is affecting them.  It's been very insightful to hear their thoughts and ideas for improving our local and state economy.  Two issues in particular continue to come up over and over — Maryland's high business tax rates and high unemployment insurance rates....

Dixie Bacon traveled to Baltimore from Annapolis to insist: Keep out-of-state sales tax collectors away from her second-hand sail business.Chip Berman, owner of a Rockville restaurant, pleaded for the return of the fully tax-deductible business lunch.Arthur Holland couldn't say exactly what he wanted, but generally felt small businesses like his Baltimore-based insurance consulting firm should have an easier time maneuvering through governmental bureaucracies.From the purely self-interested to the wildly idealistic, about 400 owners of Maryland small businesses gathered at the Baltimore Convention Center yesterday to develop a slate of proposals and elect delegates for the third White House Conference on Small Business to be held in June.

With large corporations downsizing and many corporate giving programs cutting back, it may seem like corporate philanthropy is dying. But don't let anyone tell you that the corporate service ethic is dead in Maryland.Most economists say they believe we are in an era of transition, where big business is being replaced as the main economic engine by smaller, more entrepreneurial companies.They point to the fact that the majority of new jobs are created by this segment of business, while the Fortune 500 have actually netted a loss of jobs over the past decade.

I run a small business - about 20 employees - in the Baltimore area. We are a manufacturing company in the construction industry. I have worked extremely hard and sacrificed my own pay to keep our people employed over the last five years. I have not had a layoff and had previously earned a low unemployment tax rate. It used to be 1 percent. In 2011 it was up to 4.463 percent and I got a letter this week saying it will be 11.99 percent for 2012. It is ridiculous that I am shouldering the costs of all others.

Robert Tomkies raced yachts in his native New Zealand, with a reputation respectable enough to be hired to work for a fellow named Ted Turner. But as Tomkies' dreams grew, so did his family, until he figured that he had to do something else to take care of his wife and four kids. Tomkies opened a shop in Wellington selling lighting and electrical parts, and bought a small farm off Moonshine Road. Tomkies never got rid of the racing bug, designed and built a 30-foot yacht he named the "Moonshine Express" and tried to pass his passion for fast boats and the open sea on to his brood.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's bid to hike the "flush fee" to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay got some pushback in Annapolis Tuesday when lawmakers expressed concern about big jumps in what businesses would have to pay under the administration's plan. O'Malley has proposed doubling the revenues raised for the Bay Restoration Fund by the fee, which is paid by every household and business in the state.  The funds are needed to finish upgrading the state's 67 largest sewage plants so they'll take out more of the nitrogen and phosphorus fouling the bay's waters.

The state is kicking off a $150,000 campaign to advertise financing help for small businesses in Maryland. The state Department of Business and Economic Development said Tuesday that it will be running ads — online and on radio stations for 10 weeks — to spread the word that four of the state's financing programs still have money to extend after receiving $23 million in federal funding through the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. The state, which has spent or earmarked about $1.3 million since getting the OK to start using the money last June, has until 2018 to allocate it all. The "Financing that Fits" campaign advertises the Maryland Small Business Development Financing Authority, which gives credit guarantees; the Maryland Industrial Development Financing Authority, which gives loan guarantees; the Maryland Venture Fund, which invests in startup companies; and Neighborhood Business Works, which provides gap financing.

Mayor Craig Moe will recognize those individually owned or family owned businesses that have operated in Laurel for more than 20 years at the Jan. 23 City Council meeting. In a statement, Moe said "locally owned and operated businesses … are integral to the creation and maintenance of Laurel's sense of community," and that city records indicate some of these businesses have been operating for more than 50 years, and several have been in business for 75 years. Moe intends the recognition to be a continuing program as other businesses achieve the 20-year milestone.

A program that helps small businesses in Baltimore County to get loans will expand, with five new banks pledging to the fund, county officials announced Wednesday. With the new pledges, the Baltimore County Small Business Loan Partnership's fund will grow to $12.35 million, up from about $10 million, said Fronda Cohen, spokeswoman for the county's Economic Development Department. Businesses that are located in Baltimore County or planning to move there can get real estate and equipment loans from the program, which is a partnership between the private lenders and the county's Economic Development Department.

Thank you for The Sun's insightful article "Health plan costs jump 11%" (Sept. 10), which discusses the struggle small businesses face in light of continued increases in the cost of health care. Small business drives the economy, both nationally and in Maryland. Consider statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2002: Maryland's small businesses constitute 97 percent of all employers in the state and employ 52 percent of Maryland's workforce. They employ more than 1 million workers and generate an annual Maryland payroll of more than $30 billion.

WASHINGTON -Working to jump-start the economy's engine of job creation, President Obama announced yesterday that up to $15 billion will be spent to boost lending to credit-hungry small businesses. The new effort was also meant to allay criticism that the White House has focused too much on the needs of fallen financial titans on Wall Street and not enough on the economic damage to small businesses. The financial crisis has dried up most commercial lending, including the lines of credit that are the lifeblood of small business, which historically has created about 70 percent of the economy's new jobs.

My Small Business Saturday got off to an early start on Wednesday.    At noon I picked up our Thanksgiving pumpkin pies and snowflake rolls at the re-located Roland Park Bakery and Deli . No longer at the back of the historic Roland Avenue shopping center, it is now on Chestnut Avenue, below The Avenue (West 36th Street) in Hampden. When I walked in almost all of the tables were full. A woman I know from Stevenson was there with her five grandchildren. Neighbors from Goodwood Gardens showed up shortly thereafter, so it seems that many of Anita Ward's longtime customers have followed her and her delicious baked goods to the new location.

Doris J. Roseborough, a retired Small Business Administration executive supervisor, died Nov. 15 of an aneurysm at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The longtime Ashburton resident was 73. The former Doris Richardson was born in Essex, N.C., and moved with her family to South Baltimore. After graduating from Carver Vocational-Technical High School in 1956, she earned a bachelor's degree in 1961 from Morgan State University. Mrs. Roseborough worked for the Small Business Administration in Washington as an executive supervisor for 31 years before retiring in the mid-1980s.