Village Association

The Columbia Council struggled at a work session last night to figure out how to trim the Columbia Association budget -- and to define the nonprofit organization's mission and the purposes of some of its programs.Four hours into the session, the council had decided on little in the way of changes in the association's proposed $33.4 million operating and $6 million capital budgets for 1995-1996, but it had engaged in spirited debate on a number of items.Several council members expressed frustration throughout the evening that the board lacked detailed information to judge where to make cuts in individual programs or specific items.

The charm of Mount Washington Village in North Baltimore is a little hard to find these days amid jackhammers, cranes and caution tape, which some business owners say have hurt sales. In January last year, the city's Department of Public Works began what was supposed to be a one-year project to replace a sewer main. But the project to install about 1,000 feet of sewer 25 feet below ground stopped two months later when workers hit granite boulders that equipment could not penetrate. Workers were forced to abandon the micro-tunneling machinery, which had allowed them to complete 25 feet per day, and resume work by hand, which slowed progress to 4 feet.

Sting targets had convictions for drunken drivingI read your editorial on Jan. 13 on the Howard County sting operation ("Driving without a license"). I appreciated your article on Jan. 8 and the subsequent editorial, but all of the people ordered in were previously convicted of a drunken driving offense that caused the suspension of their driver's licenses.They were ordered to see their monitor of the Drinking Driver Monitor Program, part of the state Division of Parole and Probation. The public should know that a good percentage of the probationers caught for driving while suspended -- and therefore breaking the law and violating their probation -- may be drinking and driving again.

Criticism about the way the Columbia Association collects and spendsmoney and a dispute over batting cages may help enliven the normallyuneventful Columbia village elections this year.Two members of the Columbia Council -- which is composed of one representative from each village -- face challenges in the April 25 village elections. Challengers also are trying to wrest seats from village association board members in four of Columbia's 10 villages. The newly inhabited village of River Hill will have its first elections next year.

The power struggle between Columbia's two branches of government promises to heat up tonight when Columbia Council members and village leaders meet to debate their deteriorating relations and the future shape of local rule.Village leaders say they're extremely angry about what they view as the latest effort by the 10-member council to undermine them: an announcement that many village employees will no longer be eligible for the Columbia Association's employee benefits plan.At a strategy meeting Tuesday night at Linden Hall in Dorsey's Search, about 25 to 30 village representatives discussed hiring a lawyer to seek a restraining order against the council.

Anne S. Darrin, a former Columbia village manager, pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing about $65,000 in village funds during a four-year period to pay for personal expenses, ranging from cellular phone bills to aprons for a family-owned restaurant.The embezzlement, which officials put at more than $120,000, focused intense attention on village finances and deepened a rift between the 10 villages and the Columbia Association, which provides much of their funding. The case also highlighted how much the Dorsey's Search Village Board relied on its once-trusted manager.

Facing the first fiscal year in which the Columbia Association will have a spendable surplus, the Columbia Council last night heard the financial wishes of the planned community's 10 villages during the annual unveiling of pre-budget requests.At least two villages -- Dorsey's Search and Harper's Choice -- have suggested using the projected fiscal year 2000 surplus to reduce the rate of assessment for the lien fee, a kind of property "tax" on Columbia homeowners, as well as lower the cost of the Package Plan, a membership package that provides residents admission to certain community pools and health clubs.

The directions to the alleged brothel told the men that if they saw a house with green awnings, they'd gone too far. But some of them apparently misunderstood; would-be customers have shown up for years at the nearby house in Towson. Despite neighbors' complaints, police say, Di Zhang, 42, continued to operate the brothel from a white Colonial-style suburban home on Joppa Road, advertising on websites until this month, when county police and federal agents moved in. Neighbors said they weren't surprised to learn that Zhang, the operator of Jade Heart Health, had been charged with prostitution and human trafficking.

Denise Whiting has not only built her life around the fabled Balmer Hon, opening Cafe Hon and founding the city's annual Honfest — she's helped to make the three-letter term of endearment a household word around town. Now she owns it. Whiting has officially trademarked the word "Hon. " Over the years, she has trademarked almost every play on the word she could think of. Like the words " Cafe Hon " and "Honfest" and "Hon Bar" and "Hontown," the name of her newest Hampden shop.

A shave and a haircut of yesteryear cost the proverbial two bits, 25 cents. A shave alone at The Old Bank Barbers, a soon-to-open barber shop on The Avenue in Hampden, will cost $25. It won't be any old shave, though. Owner Daniel Wells promises an old-fashioned, full-face, straight-edge shave, complete with hot lather, in a leather chair with a headrest that leans back. "It's an old-school barber shop with the tile floors," said Wells, who hopes to open this month at 1100 W. 36th St., the former site of Sixteen Tons, a men's clothing store.