Ultimatum

In an eleventh-hour attempt to salvage its Baltimore school privatization contract, Education Alternatives Inc. said yesterday that it's willing to meet the city's demand for a $7 million fee reduction in exchange for an extension of its pact to run nine city schools.EAI, facing cancellation of its "Tesseract" contract over its failure to meet the demand, called for a meeting with Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to discuss its latest proposition.Mr. Schmoke said yesterday that he was not aware of the EAI proposal and thus would not comment on it."

Washington -- PRESIDENT CLINTON's expressed intention to use force in deposing the junta in Haiti -- despite the long-count ultimatum -- was good for the cause of freedom in the world.The export of democracy was not the primary reason for his brinkmanship. Bill Clinton expressed his central motivation as "to secure our borders," a way to avoid saying "to stop the flow of dirt-poor, often sick, mostly uneducated and definitely persecuted black people into the United States."Because we do not want Haitian refugees here, we threatened the use of force to make it better for them there.

City Councilman Lawrence A. Bell did the right thing by calling for the resignation of Police Commissioner Edward V. Woods if Baltimore's crime rate does not decrease over the next six months.It is time to get some accountability from the municipal government. If such accountability cannot be forced by means other than threats of firing, then so be it.As chairman of the City Council's subcommittee on public safety, Mr. Bell is within his rights of both demanding action and a change of leadership, if corrective action is not forthcoming.

MOSCOW -- Chechen fighters contemptuously spurned an ultimatum by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to lay down their arms as of midnight last night, but the Russian government vowed again to crush resistance there.Shortly after the deadline passed, artillery shells were fired into an area north of Grozny, the Chechen capital. But it was impossible to know who had fired the salvos, or to identify the intended target, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported.Russian warplanes also buzzed Grozny after the deadline, and explosions were heard northwest of the city, the Associated Press reported from the capital.

A Westminster developer has two weeks to begin putting in water and sewer lines and 45 days to finish the project in the Robert Mills Rundevelopment, or the City Council will seek bids for the work.Foxfire Properties has failed to put water and sewer lines, as well as roads and street lighting, in its section of the development, holding up other builders, city officials said. The work was to be completed by September 1991.Christopher Howell and Sam Rothblum, representatives of one of the developers, Daybreak Estates Corp.

It is hard to know whether to be comforted, amused or alarmed by the latest attempt by House Republicans to set the nation on a course toward defaulting on its debt. Tuesday's vote by the House killing a proposed increase in the debt ceiling — a proposal Republicans put on the table just to kill it, like some sacrificial totem — was bizarre enough to justify all three reactions. Democrats labeled it a political stunt, and it would be difficult to argue the point. It was not unlike the firing of a warning shot during a hostage taking.

Despite some superpower tensions, the United States and the Soviet Union are continuing to play their bad cop/good cop routine, hoping to force Iraq into defeat. With each flexing of U.S. muscle and each burst of sweet talk from the Kremlin, the trap closes ever tighter on Saddam Hussein and his battered armies.At this stage, Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev find themselves a vital fortnight apart on timing, with Mr. Bush demanding Iraq's withdrawal a week from today and Mr. Gorbachev willing to give him 21 days.

When members of the Annapolis Historic District Commission (HDC) failed to approve a plan to reconstruct Main Street, they thought they would be handed a new blueprint or a revised sketch. Instead, they were given an ultimatum.City Council members say they will try to change the shape and scope of the historic preservation board if it does not move fast to approve the Main Street project. If that happens, historic preservationists who have opposed the city's development plans would see their power diminish, some council members warn.

When he returns to Frederick Douglass High School for the first time in 28 years this morning, Orrester Shaw Jr. plans to tell the teachers to start naming names.The burly, balding 45-year-old taking over as principal today wants every teacher to list at least three students -- fighters, vandals, troublemakers, hall wanderers, chronic truants, toughs who threaten teachers and terrorize other youngsters.Then, he says, he'll find every student on every list, sit them down, try to talk some sense into them and deliver an ultimatum: Come to school to learn, stop tearing down Douglass . . . or don't bother coming back.

PHILADELPHIA -- The Bush administration has been rightly and roundly criticized for its failure to plan for the post-Saddam Hussein era. That failure produced the Iraq chaos that has trapped us all. But historians will be equally harsh on those, including members of Congress, who want U.S. troops to leave Iraq but don't plan for what comes after. They will be guilty of the same willful blindness that got us into the current mess. Democrats who want to wind down the war are mostly focused on troop numbers.