Vacancy

Housing vacancies increased at a faster rate along much of Maryland's Eastern Shore over the last decade than in the nation as a whole, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Baltimore's supply of vacant homes, though, expanded more slowly than the nation's rate. The census report contradicts the notion that the number of Baltimore's empty rowhouses is growing at a rapid pace while Marylanders are rushing to new developments in distant counties. The slow pace of construction in the city helped stabilize vacancy rates from 2000 to 2010, while the boom in new homes on Maryland's eastern periphery made the rates escalate there, experts said.

Ten lawyers, including the county's state's attorney and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, have applied for a vacancy on the Harford County Circuit Court. The 10 applicants to replace recently retired Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. are: • Joseph Ignatius Cassilly, Harford County State's Attorney since 1983; • Michael Gerard Comeau, a senor assistant attorney in the Harford County Law Department and a former state delegate; • Yolanda Lauranzon Curtin, a state administrative law judge and former Harford prosecutor; • Michael Hugh Andrew Daney, associate zoning hearing examiner for Harford County; • Howard Wayne Norman Jr., a member of the House of Delegates representing Northern Harford; • Steven J. Scheinin, a lawyer in private practice and previous judge applicant and candidate; • District Court Judge Victor Kuras Butanis, a district judge since 1996; • Melissa Lazarich Lambert, chief legal counsel to the Harford County Council and a former assistant state's attorney; • Kerwin Anthony Miller Sr., deputy state's attorney for Cecil County; • Diane Adkins Tobin, deputy state's attorney for Harford County.

Ten lawyers, including the county's state's attorney and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, have applied for a vacancy on the Harford County Circuit Court. The 10 applicants to replace recently retired Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. are: • Joseph Ignatius Cassilly, Harford County State's Attorney since 1983; • Michael Gerard Comeau, a senor assistant attorney in the Harford County Law Department and a former state delegate; • Yolanda Lauranzon Curtin, a state administrative law judge and former Harford prosecutor; • Michael Hugh Andrew Daney, associate zoning hearing examiner for Harford County; • Howard Wayne Norman Jr., a member of the House of Delegates representing Northern Harford; • Steven J. Scheinin, a lawyer in private practice and previous judge applicant and candidate; • District Court Judge Victor Kuras Butanis, a district judge since 1996; • Melissa Lazarich Lambert, chief legal counsel to the Harford County Council and a former assistant state's attorney; • Kerwin Anthony Miller Sr., deputy state's attorney for Cecil County; • Diane Adkins Tobin, deputy state's attorney for Harford County.

Downtown Baltimore gained 10,000 jobs in 2012 — after losing the same number of jobs in 2011, according to the annual State of Downtown report to be released Thursday by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc. "At the very least, this is a correction," said Kirby Fowler, the organization's president, who was skeptical of the loss reported in 2011. The same firm, Nielsen Co. LLC, calculated both this year's and last year's job numbers for the Downtown Partnership. There are 113,100 workers within a one-mile radius of the intersection of Pratt and Light streets, according to the report.

The last of the vacancies created when the late Sen. J. Robert Hooper resigned his seat in the legislature last year has been filled. The Harford County Republican Central Committee has appointed James A. Barron of Havre de Grace to its board. Barron, selected from among 13 candidates, will serve until the 2010 primary election, filling the term of Wayne H. Norman Jr., who was appointed to the House of Delegates last month. Norman replaced Barry Glassman, who took Hooper's seat in the Senate.

Once again, state officials are searching for a new executive director to run the Maryland Port Administration. Only this time, there's no sense of urgency or impending doom. Adrian G. Teel has helped reverse the port's bleak situation; his successor will have the far easier task of continuing the momentum already set in motion.When Mr. Teel took the job in 1991, his forte was finance and management. He cut the size of the bureaucracy, reorganized, boosted the port's marketing and started talking with labor leaders.

Looking to fill their head-coaching vacancy, the Chicago Bears had interest in Ravens' assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg. However, the talks between the two sides never went beyond the preliminary stages, according to team sources. Rosburg, 57, never had a formal, in-depth interview and didn't aggressive ly pursue the opening as he was busy helping the Ravens prepare for their playoff run. The Chicago Tribune first reported today that the Bears  spoke to  Rosburg before hiring Marc Trestman, the former coach of the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening appointed Susan C. Lee yesterday to fill the vacancy created in the House of Delegates when Del. Nancy K. Kopp was elected state treasurer. Lee, 47, lives in Bethesda and is an attorney with the Washington firm Gebhardt & Associates, which specializes in employment and civil rights cases. Lee also has been an attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Lee, who is co-chairwoman of the Montgomery County NAACP Multicultural Community Partnership, was selected to fill the 16th District seat by Montgomery County's Democratic Central Committee.

Vacancies in warehouse and industrial real estate in metropolitan Baltimore dropped sharply in the first half of this year, as strong demand from consumer products and health care companies translated a broader economic recovery into help for the beleaguered commercial real estate business.The local vacancy rate for industrial space fell to 17.9 percent at June 30, from 26.2 percent at this time last year and 19.7 percent at 1993's end, the Baltimore brokerage and management firm rTC Colliers Pinkard said.

Next week, when federal judicial selection resumes, participants in the process could learn much from efforts to fill Judge J. Michael Luttig's vacancy on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On May 10, 2006, Judge Luttig, one of the brightest stars in the conservative judicial firmament and who was on every Supreme Court short list, resigned from the 4th Circuit, which includes Maryland. Nineteen months later, President Bush has yet to nominate anyone for this vacancy - a failure to act that typifies the Bush administration's selection process.

It started with a conversation the day the Anne Arundel County Council announced it was seeking a successor for John R. Leopold, after the county executive was found guilty of misconduct in office. "My daughter, she is in high school. We talk around the dinner table," said Derick Young, father of three and a carpet cleaning sales rep for Stanley Steemer. "One thing she noticed was Anne Arundel County never had an African-American county executive, and she asked me why. "I said, 'I don't know,'" he recalled.

Looking to fill their head-coaching vacancy, the Chicago Bears had interest in Ravens' assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg. However, the talks between the two sides never went beyond the preliminary stages, according to team sources. Rosburg, 57, never had a formal, in-depth interview and didn't aggressive ly pursue the opening as he was busy helping the Ravens prepare for their playoff run. The Chicago Tribune first reported today that the Bears  spoke to  Rosburg before hiring Marc Trestman, the former coach of the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League.

Arthur Fong Kaff of Bel Air has been appointed to the Harford County Board of Education to fill the vacancy caused by the sudden death in September of the board's president, Dr. Leonard Wheeler. Gov. Martin O'Malley announced the appointment Kaff on Thursday, along with the appointment of Jan Stinchcomb of Abingdon to a seat on the Harford Community College Board of Trustees. According to background information supplied by the governor's office, Kaff is a lawyer who serves as an attorney advisor in the Ethics, Legislation and Government Information Practices Branch in the Office of the Judge Advocate General Headquarters for the Department of the Army.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter was hoping to keep his 2012 coaching staff together for next season. That didn't happen -- third-base coach DeMarlo Hale has left the organization to become the bench coach for John Gibbons in Toronto. That means Showalter will have to find a new third-base/infielders coach. And although it's a move that won't mean much to the casual fan, Showalter has always championed it as an exceptionally important spot. He was thrilled when Hale joined the Orioles last winter and, consequently, expect Showalter to take his time again to find the right fit. Here's a look at six potential candidates to replace Hale, though it is very early in the process.

Now that the 112th Senate is returning for its lame duck session after President Barack Obama captured a second term and Democrats retained a Senate majority, this is an ideal moment to analyze the federal judicial vacancy crisis. The bench currently has 68 vacancies in the 679 District Court judgeships - a 10 percent vacancy rate - including one in Maryland. Thus, starting with Tuesday's lame duck session, President Obama must promptly nominate, and the Senate expeditiously confirm, nominees, so that judges can deliver justice.

Editor: I support Question A, which would amend the county charter regarding vacancy in the office of county executive. Under the current charter, if a county executive leaves office early in the four-year term, an appointed replacement could serve almost the entire four-year term. Question A will amend the charter to allow the voters to elect a new county executive at the next Congressional election, so any appointed replacement could serve no more than two years. Question A also adds a requirement that if the former county executive was a member of a political party when elected, any appointed temporary replacement should be a member of the same party.

Downtown Baltimore's commercial real estate market closed out the year with a record vacancy rate of 17.8 percent for new "Class A" buildings, up from a rate of 14.3 percent at the beginning of 1991, according to a report from CB Commercial Real Estate Group Inc.The vacancy rate for older "Class B" buildings downtown was 22.9 percent at year's end, up from 20.5 percent at the start of 1991, the real estate company said.By contrast, the national vacancy rate for downtown office space was 18.0 percent for Class A and Class B combined as of Sept.

BWI's business corridor can expect another year of job growth and declining vacancy rates, according to an economic report released yesterday."In baseball parlance, we look for solid rallies throughout the year," said Neil M. Shpritz, executive director of the BWI Business Partnership Inc.Thirty-seven percent of the employers in the area around Baltimore-Washington International Airport expect to hire more workers during the first quarter of 1995. That figure is based on numbers supplied by Manpower Inc. The agency finds temporary workers and provides a job outlook based on surveys of about 15,000 employers in 469 U.S. cities.

The threat of automatic spending cuts by the federal government caused companies to press the pause button on real estate expansion in the Baltimore region during the third quarter, according to analysts. "It reflects the nature of the economic drivers in the region," said Robert Manekin, managing director of Colliers International's Baltimore office. Federal agencies and contractors make up a large percentage of office tenants throughout Central Maryland, and uncertainty about the national budget has caused them to be more cautious about leasing new space, he said.

Baltimore schools opened the year with 87 teacher vacancies, a trend that is not uncommon in the region but comes during a critical year for the system as it embarks on a new student curriculum and teacher evaluation system. City officials said they are tapping substitutes and other school staff, such as department heads or instructional support teachers, to lead classroom instruction. Electives in student schedules are also being shifted. In rare cases, they said, classes are being combined.