Swim Club

The well-cared-for landscape that once enhanced the Joppatowne Swim Club is now a picture of neglect.The loudspeaker that used to summon the start of adult swims and hail club members to the basket room dangles from a rusting pole. The swimming pool that provided Joppatowne residents 28 summers of relaxation, exercise and a community meeting place has been taken up by several types of fowl as their makeshift sanctuary.The sounds of lifeguards' whistles and children frolicking don't fill the air this summer at the Joppatowne Swim Club.

The pending fate of Westminster's former Middlebrooke Swi Club has brought out neighbors who don't want to see the pool filled in for houses -- followed by a petition from residents who do.This was followed by reports that some petition-signers are changing their minds."

Devotees will tell you that Padonia Swim Club is more than just a place to go swimming. For some, it is where they got their first job, sent their kids to day camp, paddled on the pond, sparked summer romances, got married and sipped cocktails at the cabana bar.

The developer of a 500-acre golf course community in Finksburg has abandoned plans to make a 24-room golf lodge and 200-seat banquet facility part of its amenities.Instead, it will provide a 400-member swim club that would include a pool house, swimming pool, wading pool, croquet court and two tennis courts.The county planning commission approved the site plan for the swim club by a 5-1 vote yesterday after requiring the developer to do a traffic study for the project.River Downs developer Richard A. Moore, president of Gaylord Brooks Investment Co. Inc., initially sought planning commission support for a zoning change that would have allowed him to build a golf lodge on the site.

When 24-year-old Jamee Eben drowned two years ago at Beaver Dam Swimming Club, lifeguards at the popular Baltimore County swimming quarry all but ignored her friends' pleas for help, a lawyer for Eben's parents told a jury yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court. It was the first day of trial in the $6 million lawsuit Marilyn and Terry Eben filed last year against the swim club. The Ebens' attorney, Margaret M. McKee, was trying to show how the club's negligence caused the Columbia woman's death on July 2, 2000.

The owners of the closed Middlebrooke Swim Club have taken the Westminster City Council to court to fight for their plan to build houses on the property.George and Tim Grogan said in a civil suit that they want the city to buy the pool site for $141,320, the current assessment, or amend the development plan to allow construction of houses on the site.The council denied the Grogans' construction request in July. The suit was filed in Carroll County Circuit Court Thursday.The civil suit is the latest chapter in the saga of Macro Management Inc., the Grogans' family-run business, and their dealings with the city government on the issue over the past two years.

River Downs, a 500-acre golf course community in Finksburg, wants to make a 24-room golf lodge and banquet facility part of its amenities.To do that, the developer needs a change in county zoning law that would make a "golf and country club lodge" a conditional use in a conservation district.The lodge is needed to pay for a swim club, Westminster attorney John T. Maguire II told planning commission members yesterday.Maguire wanted the planning commission to recommend that the County Commissioners approve the zoning change.

Name: Ken Spencer Job description: In second year as head coach, Columbia Clippers, the swim club sponsored by the Columbia Association. Year-round club has 350 swimmers, about 150 seriously competitive, the rest in various development stages. Ages range from 4 to college, with biggest age group between 8 and 11. Supervises 11 part-time coaches who help at four indoor pools, two at Columbia Swim Center in Wilde Lake, one at Columbia Gym in River Hill, and one at Supreme Sports Club in Owen Brown.

A popular Baltimore County swim club was negligent two years ago when ill-equipped lifeguards responded slowly to cries for help after a 24-year-old competitive swimmer disappeared, and later drowned, in the deep waters of its quarry, a county Circuit Court jury decided yesterday. Jamee Eben's parents, aunt and sisters watched as the jury foreman announced that the Beaver Dam Swimming Club must pay Eben's estate and parents $760,000 - an amount less than the Ebens had asked for in their lawsuit, but more than enough, they said, to send a message that the swim club should strengthen its safety regulations.

Criminals did time in jailhouses at the corner of Towsontown Boulevard and Bosley Avenue as far back as the mid-19th century. At least two were hanged on the property. Now Towson-area community leaders have their eyes on the land as a spot for fun and relaxation. Some favor a park with a gazebo and benches. Others see it as a good site for indoor basketball courts. And one group thinks it would be a good place for a swim club. "If you build it, people will walk to it," said Mike Ertel, president of the Greater Towson Council of Community Associations and a committee member of Towson Swim Center, the organization that would run a members-only pool at the site.