Ulman

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman strongly endorsed completion of a plan for central Columbia's redevelopment in a speech before 400 people at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon last week. The speech also noted how the slumping national economy is hurting county finances, but Ulman said the plan should be finished, even as General Growth Properties, the town's master developer, experiences severe financial problems. "I am troubled by the false notion that because there are unknowns about the economy and GGP's future, we should put the planning process on hold," he said.

Call him the new Green Lantern. The original was a comic book hero, a crime fighter extraordinaire battling evil with the aid of superhuman powers emanating from a mysterious green metal light. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman seems no less determined, though his is a different, perhaps even more ambitious agenda, and he is working hard at promoting it. Ulman wants to make the county a national model of environmentally "green" practices, and he is performing his own feats to achieve it. Recently, he climbed to the roof of Merriweather Post Pavilion to publicize the use of 24 new solar panels; he stood before a neatly parked posse of new hybrid county vehicles; and he pushed a complex package of green legislation through the County Council - perhaps the most ambitious feat of all. Ulman cannot take credit for Merriweather's green conversion, which was suggested by the musician Jack Johnson, but he did his best to spread the word about it. Brad Canfield, director of operations and production at the pavilion, said the new panels will provide more power than is needed during the winter, when the stage is unused, and enough power in summer to hook up several entertainment tour buses - keeping them from idling their diesel motors for hours to run their air conditioning and appliances.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is proposing a legislative package designed to move the county to the forefront of the environmental movement's push for "green" buildings. Ulman announced yesterday that he will introduce a combination of property tax breaks, governmental reforms and incentives for private home builders designed to speed the county onto an environmentally friendly track. The incentives and new laws, he said, will help change a hidebound culture in which new homes are built in traditional ways, without thought to the environment.

Howard County's Ken Ulman is a young man in a hurry. Chatting over sandwiches at Serafino's restaurant last week in Ellicott City, the 32-year-old county executive brims with a plate full of ideas about how to manage one of the state's most dynamic counties. Mr. Ulman practically interviews himself. A simple question about what's happening in Howard triggers a 20-minute disquisition during which Mr. Ulman covers everything from his plans for a "model public health" program to the two hybrid vehicles the county now owns.

Critics of proposals to build a park and community center in North Laurel and playing fields at Blandair Park in Columbia continue to try to derail both projects as the County Council prepares to discuss County Executive Ken Ulman's capital budget this week. Ulman's budget contains $1.9 million for the $19.5 million North Laurel Park Community Center and $1.4 million for planning Blandair's development. In addition, the General Assembly approved $375,000 for Blandair and $200,000 for North Laurel Park.

As the five-member Howard County Council's only Republican, Greg Fox may have more success influencing legislation than if he had political company. In the council's toughest test so far - County Executive Ken Ulman's first budget - Fox persuaded two Columbia Democrats whose political views are generally in tune with Ulman's to support his proposal on fire taxes instead. Together, the three - Fox, Chairman Calvin Ball, a former firefighter, and Mary Kay Sigaty - cut $1.6 million from a fire contingency fund to keep the fire property tax rate from rising by 2 additional cents on rural properties.

The Howard County Police Department would dramatically expand, modernize and diversify its force under a more than 45-page vision plan Chief William J. McMahon has proposed to County Executive Ken Ulman and the County Council. Although McMahon did not request a specific number of new officers, Ulman said this week that his goal is to add about 100 officers, a 25 percent increase, during the next five years. The Police Department is authorized to employ 390 officers. "I stress that this is a ballpark figure," Ulman said.

Kevin Enright, the spokesman for Maryland's attorney general, whose brother Michael is Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley's chief of staff, is Howard County's new communications director. County Executive Ken Ulman announced the move yesterday. Enright, 41, of Towson, will replace Victoria Goodman, a 30-year county employee who held the post for the past eight years. Goodman will remain working this month, Ulman said, to provide a smooth transition. "I'm really excited that Kevin accepted our offer," Ulman said.

Howard's Ken Ulman is a Democrat and Anne Arundel's John R. Leopold is a Republican, but on environmental issues these days, it may be hard to see much difference between the two county executives. Since taking office in December, Ulman has proposed a laundry list of anti-global warming initiatives, from a carbon emissions study and the purchase of 25 hybrid county vehicles to giving tax breaks to developers and residents who go green. He screened former Vice President Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth for his entire administration in April.

Clarification An article in the Maryland section yesterday failed to make it clear that Linda Chavez, who withdrew as labor secretary nominee in 2001 after reports that she had helped an illegal immigrant, was not accused of employing an illegal worker. THE SUN REGETS THE ERROR. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said he dismissed a 62-year-old woman who cleaned his house for the past year and a half after questions were raised about her citizenship, and she admitted that she was in the country illegally.

Instead of the rutted, hilly and sometimes-dangerous half-mile private road Shirley Collier and her 19 rural neighbors have lived with for three decades, they now have a smooth, paved pathway to their secluded homes off Henryton Road in Marriottsville. "We love it," Collier said Wednesday morning as neighbors gathered at a row of mailboxes atop their long drive to celebrate the new surface and thank Howard County Executive Ken Ulman and public works director James Irvin. Ulman first heard about the community's problem July 8 at his annual town hall meeting.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman sat in a rocking chair in Maureen Holmquist's first-grade class at Thunder Hill Elementary while a room of close to 20 wide-eyed children hung on his every word. Ulman asked several students to join him in the front of the room to read parts of Eric Carle's children's classic "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." Ulman's appearance at the school was part of Jumpstart's Read for the Record, an international effort organized to break the world record for the number of adults and children reading the same book on the same day. Last year, nearly 700,000 readers around the world broke the record when they read the classic children's tale "Corduroy."

A social action group composed mainly of church members is planning a door-to-door campaign to help find people who need the health care available through Howard County's unusual access plan. The group, People Acting Together in Howard, is also considering a suggestion from County Executive Ken Ulman that would help achieve another major goal - helping working families reduce high interest costs. Ulman wants the group to help push the General Assembly to change Maryland law to allow installment payments for people forced to buy vehicle insurance from the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund.

After the second fatal car accident in less than three months on the same stretch of Route 32, local and state officials are considering a "short-term" plan to resurface and restripe the three-mile section of roadway near the Howard County-Carroll County line. Dr. Brian Emery was killed late Thursday afternoon when his Acura was rear-ended as he tried to make a left turn from a northbound lane of Route 32 onto Amberwoods Way. Emery's car was sent into the southbound lanes, where it was hit by a pickup truck.

Hoping to speed long lines of northbound commuters who slow to a crawl each afternoon on the last two-lane section of U.S. 29 near Columbia, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has made the long-anticipated road widening his top highway priority in his annual letter to state transportation officials. Ulman also wants the state to move forward on safety studies for Route 32 near River Road in the Sykesville area, where a mother and son were killed in an accident this summer, along with widening Route 32 west from Route 108 and also eastbound near Interstate 95. Then there's the widening of Interstate 70 between the Baltimore County line and the merger with U.S. 40, a new intersection at U.S. 1 and Route 175, and more.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is requesting an audit of the independent Soil Conservation District in what appears to be an escalation of a months-long dispute with the tiny, normally low-profile agency, which threatened last week to shut down processing all development plans in the county. Ulman pointed to last week's claims from soil district officials: first, that they were out of money to pay two workers who review development plans for erosion and sediment controls and that all work would stop, followed the next day by word that money had been found.

Howard County residents could face a higher risk of swine flu, an immediate halt to road repaving and higher costs at Howard Community College this winter because of the loss of $8.3 million more in state funding announced last week. Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the county health officer, said he would have to lay off up to 10 people and end some services at county clinics, such as programs for smoking cessation, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, and cancer, tuberculosis and other screenings.

A looming new round of $250 million in cuts in state aid to local governments has Howard County officials searching for ways to absorb the reductions, though County Executive Ken Ulman said he does not yet know their exact scope. Meanwhile, he is meeting with county budget director Raymond S. Wacks to look for more ways to save money. The county lost $14.5 million last spring in state funding for the current fiscal year, prompting Ulman to impose furloughs, lay off several employees, limit pay raises, leave some vacant jobs unfilled and trim general fund spending by about 4 percent.

Western Howard County residents who have battled for nearly two years to block a proposed used-car dealership in rural Daisy, dominated County Executive Ken Ulman's third annual town hall meeting Wednesday night in Ellicott City. Nine of the 16 speakers at the 73-minute forum at Mount Hebron High School talked about the car lot and business zoning in rural areas, and most urged Ulman to back the quick establishment of a citizens task force to study the issue before the county undertakes a once-a-decade general plan review.

Officials from Merriweather Post Pavilion introduced a host of updates to the Columbia amphitheater Monday, ranging from expanded bathrooms and a new concession stand to green initiatives, such as a biodiesel fueling station and hundreds of new trees and shrubs. The renovations, which cost about $1 million, also include a gaming lounge with nine pinball machines and a 15 foot, 7,500 pound statue of a chicken. The improvements are another sign of the resurgence of the decades-old concert venue.