State Officials

Mayor Martin O'Malley assailed Gov. Parris N. Glendening and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend yesterday for failing to provide $8 million in new drug treatment money promised to the city earlier this year. O'Malley's first public criticism of the state's top officials came during an impromptu news conference after the city Board of Estimates meeting. The mayor attacked what he called the state's lack of financial support for drug treatment in a city recently named by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as the nation's leader in per-capita heroin use. "It is unconscionable that the state with the most wealth in the nation would allow this addiction to go on," he said.

NEW YORK - New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and pension executives from three states called on mutual fund companies yesterday to disclose their fees, trading costs and fund managers' compensation, saying the proposed changes would increase competition and help investors save billions of dollars a year. The officials included California Treasurer Phil Angelides and New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who called for New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard A. Grasso's resignation days before he did so Sept.

Interim state Comptroller Robert L. Swann said Maryland should convert an abandoned hospital in Marriottsville -- until this week under consideration for a controversial humanitarian center -- into parkland.At a Board of Public Works session Friday in Annapolis, Swann said it is time for the state Department of Natural Resources to take over the 70-acre Henryton Hospital property, which adjoins Patapsco State Park.The board, which includes Gov. Parris N. Glendening and Treasurer Richard N. Dixon, makes the final decision on the disposition of all state properties.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security continue to clash over who is in charge of coordinating and vetting information on terrorism. As a result, state and local authorities continue to get conflicting or incomplete information - sometimes none at all - on threats inside the United States, officials say. The feud over control of the information caused federal agencies last week to miss a White House deadline for outlining how it should be distributed to state and local authorities, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said yesterday.

Critics of the electronic voting machines used in nearly every precinct in Maryland on Election Day delivered an unflattering report to the state Board of Elections yesterday, detailing hundreds of complaints they fielded as voters tried -- and sometimes failed -- to cast their ballots. Poll watchers trained by the nonpartisan TrueVoteMD set out to collect complaints about the touch-screen voting machines that they said could not be trusted to accurately tabulate voter intent. What they said they found were even more problems unrelated to the equipment -- people who couldn't vote because their registrations hadn't been processed, people who were wrongly refused provisional ballots, people who left polling places without casting a vote because the lines were too long.

IF BALTIMORE'S drug-treatment efforts are successful, why isn't the estimated number of addicts going down? And why hasn't dramatically increased funding produced more treatment slots? Questions like these baffle Gov. Parris N. Glendening. He gave Baltimore an additional $8 million toward drug treatment in his latest budget -- even though he recently said through a spokesman that he lacks confidence in the administration of the city's drug treatment programs. The comments attributed to Mr. Glendening came after Dr. Peter L. Beilenson attacked the governor's failure to fully fund the city's request for $25 million in added state aid. Health Commissioner Beilenson performed a public service.

IN a perfect world, no state would spend taxpayer funds to lure corporations -- and jobs. But reality dictates a different approach in which states compete fiercely to hold on to big companies and lure new ones.Maryland officials have handed out some $100 million to businesses over five years. In most cases, the money was well spent, ensuring thousands of jobs for local citizens. In a few instances, though, taxpayers were royally ripped off by companies that took the state's money and reneged on their promises -- or never intended to move from Maryland.

This land is my land, this land isn't your land. The variation on Woody Guthrie's anthem is being sung by hunters, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts as they line up for their share of Chesapeake Forest, the 58,000 acres of Eastern Shore woods and wetlands the state bought last summer. Like the settlers who took part in the great land rushes of the 1800s, many Marylanders have visions of the future built around their interests. State officials will spend the next several years listening to the competing requests and setting priorities.

Nearly three months after announcing an exclusive agreement with the C&P Telephone Co. to link Maryland's high schools and colleges with a high-technology "distance learning" network, top state officials conceded yesterday that they should have given other firms an opportunity to compete.On the advice of Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. -- and on the eve of a General Assembly investigation into the way state contracts are awarded -- Schaefer administration officials disclosed that they now intend to seek proposals from any other interested companies.

City and state officials cannot be held liable for failing to protect the Dawson family from the 2002 firebombing that killed the couple and their five children, Maryland's highest court ruled yesterday. The Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling dismissing a $14 million lawsuit filed by surviving relatives of the Dawson family. In the suit, the relatives argued that Baltimore officials endangered the Dawsons with the "Believe" campaign encouraging city residents to report criminal activity and then failed to adequately protect the family after members had repeatedly called police to complain about drug activity.