State Officials

The Baltimore County Council has twice passed legislation designed to stop the project, and it has been taken to court both times. State lawmakers introduced measures with the same goal in mind, but in two years, nothing has come of their effort. County executives, two Maryland governors and the state's representatives in Congress all have come out against the proposal for a liquefied natural gas terminal on Sparrows Point. But even a collective this powerful faces what could be an insurmountable obstacle: A federal commission has the final authority to decide the project's fate.

Day care workers rallied in front of state education headquarters in Baltimore yesterday in hopes of getting money they say is owed to them for caring for children of low-income working families and families moving off of welfare. The child care providers have been complaining of late and have missed payments for several months. They say that the state has done little to help them. They say that a telephone help line set up by the state has been useless and that they are falling behind on their bills.

Maryland officials outlined yesterday a smorgasbord of initiatives intended to smooth the way for an influx in the next few years of thousands of high-tech defense workers and their families. The plan, the product of nearly six months of meetings between state and local officials, calls for a variety of moves to steer at least some of the expected business and residential growth into Baltimore City and other communities near the expanding bases, particularly Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade.

Maryland gets a grade of "D" when it comes to the information governors are required to provide about their finances, according to a national watchdog group. The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based nonprofit dedicated to making the nation's institutions more transparent, gave the state a marginal rating of 62.5 on a 100-point scale measuring how extensively governors are required to report their personal finances and how accessible those records are to the public. Leah Rush, the center's director of state projects, said full disclosure allows people to know whether elected officials are acting in the public's interest or in their own. "Getting this information out in the public domain is an important function as far as gaining the public's trust in their government to be open about all the different hats public officials wear," she said.

Officials for the East Coast's largest railroad have outlined a package of "significant capital investments" that they say are needed for Baltimore to accommodate the giant marine terminal state officials hope to build in Dundalk.To handle the cargo that shipping companies Sea-Land Service Inc. and Maersk Inc. might bring to Baltimore, the CSX railroad needs improvements costing as much as $575 million, company officials say.Projects include new tracks to Philadelphia and Washington and a new rail yard in northern New Jersey.

The Carroll County commissioners agreed yesterday to visit an abandoned hospital in Marriottsville in hopes of finding a use for the site.The 70-acre Henryton Hospital property, which adjoins Patapsco Valley State Park, has been vacant since 1985. Steven Horn, the county's planning director, told the board of commissioners during a routine staff meeting yesterday that state officials have requested a review of the property.Commissioners Robin Bartlett Frazier and Donald I. Dell said they had no particular development ideas for the site.

Lawyers for former state Sen. Larry Young won a key victory yesterday as an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge issued a ruling sharply limiting the testimony of state officials in the bribery and extortion trial of the West Baltimore Democrat.Judge Joseph F. Manck ruled that state prosecutors could not question state officials about Young's vote on a change in regulations that was crucial to the survival of the health care firm the former legislator has been accused of extorting money from.

WASHINGTON -- Antitrust officials at the Federal Trade Commission have notified state officials that they intend to recommend the approval of Exxon's $81 billion acquisition of Mobil next week, state officials said yesterday. The move came after the companies agreed to the largest divestiture in the commission's history.The centerpiece of the agreement which emerged this week requires the sale of about 2,400 gas stations, about 15 percent of the two companies' retailers around the nation.

Several dozen state workers in Baltimore braved a chill wind yesterday to press Maryland officials for bigger pay checks.The rally at the state office complex by members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees comes on the eve of pay negotiations between the union and state officials.AFSCME leaders highlighted what they say is a substantial gap between many state salaries and those of government workers in Maryland counties and in nearby states.With that gap as a rallying cry, union officials hope to capitalize on the state's substantial budget surplus, which is projected to reach $600 million this year.

The Board of Public Works approved yesterday a $20.7 million contract to build a new state Senate office building, which state officials said will feature larger hearing rooms and public meeting areas than are now available.The new, four-story building will be built behind the 60-year-old William S. James Senate Office Building in Annapolis. A covered pedestrian walkway will connect the two structures, state officials said.The board awarded the contract to Coakley Williams Construction of Gaithersburg, which has agreed to use minority-owned business enterprises for 20 percent of the work, or $4.2 million of the total contract amount.

The Maryland Republican Party and state elections officials reached an agreement Tuesday that allows the financially beleaguered party to incrementally repay $75,000 to Michael S. Steele's campaign account so that it can still meet monthly expenses. The State Board of Elections had determined that Steele's account made an improper contribution to the Republican State Central Committee by covering legal fees it incurred during a redistricting fight several years ago. Steele, a former lieutenant governor and now the national GOP chairman, was the state committee's chairman back then.

The latest round of Maryland budget cuts would cost 205 state employees their jobs and slash more than $210 million in funding for road maintenance, health care, community colleges and police funding in Baltimore and the 23 counties. Under the plan Gov. Martin O'Malley outlined Tuesday for $454 million in cuts, the state also would shut a minimum-security prison in Jessup by March and would close units at health facilities. The layoffs would be twice as many as in all previous rounds of O'Malley administration budget-cutting.

Maryland's pioneering effort to conserve Chesapeake Bay blue crabs by buying back commercial crabbing licenses has come up short, state officials say. Too few crabbers were willing to sell, they say, and too many of those who were asked for too much - up to $425 million in one case. "We didn't get the participation we wanted, so we're well short of the goal we wanted to achieve," said Lynn Fegley, assistant fisheries director at the Department of Natural Resources. So state officials have decided to reject all 494 bids they received in the state's first-ever Priceline-style "reverse auction."

In anticipation of a mass vaccination campaign against swine flu this fall, Maryland health officials are communicating with doctors' offices, clinics and hospitals about the details of administering a vaccine to nearly 3 million of the state's most vulnerable residents. Providers who plan to administer the vaccine should begin signing up at the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Web site, www.dhmh.state.md.us. Officials created an online database Friday to take requests from family doctors' offices, clinics and hospitals that would likely give the inoculations.

The Motor Vehicle Administration has taken steps to revoke more than 150 driver's licenses - issued before a new law barring illegal immigrants from obtaining licenses took effect - in connection with a federal investigation into fraud. Civil liberties and immigrant rights groups have raised concerns about the process for canceling the licenses as well as the potential use of racial profiling in the decisions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland wrote state lawmakers Thursday addressing those concerns and others, including whether the intent of the new law might have been violated.

Ventilation systems are being installed by the state in three homes in Baltimore's Westport neighborhood, according to state officials, after tests found toxic vapors seeping into the dwellings from long-abandoned industrial sites nearby that had been the focus of an emergency hazardous-waste cleanup decades ago. In addition, said James Carroll of the Maryland Department of the Environment, efforts are under way to treat potentially cancer-causing solvents...

Crabbers, name your price. In an unprecedented move to protect Chesapeake Bay crabs, the state is offering to buy back more than half of the commercial crabbing licenses held by Marylanders. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced Thursday that it wants to retire up to 3,676 of the "limited crab catcher" licenses it has issued over the years and is willing to pay for them. The voluntary buyback is the state's most recent bid to protect the bay's iconic crustacean from overfishing as it recovers from a near-disastrous decline.

A judge could decide as early as today whether to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Constellation Energy Group that challenges the authority of energy regulators to investigate its deal to sell half its nuclear power assets to a French utility. The legal battle between state officials and the company stems from the Maryland Public Service Commission's ruling last month that Constellation's $4.5 billion deal with Electricite de France must be in the public interest to go forward, thereby initiating a regulatory review.

Maryland legislators are all for transparency when it comes to those who work outside of the government. But they prefer to hide from scrutiny when it comes to their own finances and affiliations. State senators and delegates failed to pass a law in the 2008 legislative session requiring state officials to file financial disclosure documents electronically and ignored it in the most recent session. They so despise disclosure that the bill (SB190) did not pass even after an amendment exempting elected officials was added.

Local and state officials are at odds over who is responsible for conducting background investigations as they seek a replacement for former Baltimore school board chairman Brian D. Morris. Most involved suggest it is someone else's job to search for the kind of troubling history of bad debts and court judgments that led Morris to resign last week from a $175,000-a-year system job, which he received after serving for six years on the city school board. Gov. Martin O'Malley's office says the state school board is responsible.