Village Center

Investigator Lila Boor of the Howard County Office of Consumer Affairs and Pfc. Holly Burnham of the Howard County Police Department will speak about telemarketing fraud and weapons of fraud from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesday at Slayton House on the Wilde Lake Village Green. They will discuss Internet safety from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Feb. 17 at Historic Oakland, 5430 Vantage Point Road, and home repair fraud March 17 at Slayton House. The presentations, sponsored by the Town Center and Wilde Lake community associations, are for ages 50 and older.

Tim Young considered moving to Canton. But then the 27-year-old doctoral student looked at the Dundalk Village Center. With its park views, restored hardwood floors and stainless-steel appliances, the brick complex impressed Young. And the rent for a one-bedroom apartment - $725 - clinched the deal. "This was five minutes up the road and half the price," said Young, one of the first tenants of the renovated development off Dundalk Avenue. Work continues as part of the $4 million development of the shopping, office and apartment complex.

Helping seniors learn new job skills Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland will offer a program to help senior citizens learn new job skills while working 20 hours a week with nonprofit organizations. The organization's Senior Community Service Employment Program is part of the Older Americans Act; participants must meet certain income requirements. Family and Children's Services has offices in Wilde Lake Village Center in Columbia and Whiskey Bottom Shopping Center in North Laurel, where it shares space with other agencies in the North Laurel-Savage Multiservice Center.

Atholton High School will hold an Information Night for parents of eighth-graders who will be coming to Atholton as ninth-graders in September. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the school auditorium. Students will have an opportunity to visit the school for an activity day in June and an orientation in August. Information: 410-313-7068. Around town Volunteers sought -- In response to the closing of the Giant Food store in Wilde Lake Village Center, the village board has established the Wilde Lake Village Center Partnership Committee and is seeking volunteers to serve on the panel.

More witness testimony is scheduled today in what is expected to be a weeklong trial for a 28-year-old Columbia man accused of fatally shooting a 20-year-old man from Savage during an altercation last summer. Michael Dean Jackson Jr. of the 8900 block of Skyrock Court is charged with first-degree murder, accused of shooting Anthony James Owen-Smith at least six times with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun during an argument near Jackson's residence in the late evening of June 23. The shooting came after a fight that evening that involved dozens of young adults at Kings Contrivance Village Center, prosecutors said during opening statements this week in Howard County Circuit Court.

To ensure construction of an office building considered vital to revitalization of the Oakland Mills Village Center, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said yesterday that the county will buy one-quarter of the space for public use. Standing before a large sign picturing the planned Meridian Square office condominium building, Ulman said "the county has signed a letter of intent to buy one floor of the building" for $4 million. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year on Meridian Square, a four-story, 60,000- square-foot, environmentally "green" building.

Skateboarders of Columbia, unite!After more than six months of delay, the 10,000-square-foot Skateboard Park will hold its grand opening at 6 tonight in Harper's Choice Village Center -- with demonstrations by two professional skaters from California.The fenced-in Skateboard Park, which cost about $175,000 to build, has 13 ramps and jumps and is designed to give enthusiasts a safe, supervised -- and sanctioned -- place to enjoy their sport.Admission is $2.25 for residents and Columbia Association members, and $5 for nonresidents.

Buoyed for the third year by funds from the state's anti-crime HotSpot program, Columbia's Village of Long Reach has seen tangible results: The once run-down village center is no longer defined by loiterers and poor lighting, and the police satellite station has a full-time staff of four.But just across Tamar Drive, within walking distance of Long Reach High School and the Interfaith Center, is a street residents say continues to be troubled with crime.Howard County police recently began working undercover on Yellowrose Court -- a "hot spot" within the HotSpot -- to stem drug activity and address residents' complaints about everything from breaking and entering to destruction of property.

Howard County detectives believe they know who fatally shot two young men along an Oakland Mills bike path last month, but they are still gathering evidence, Chief Wayne Livesay said yesterday.Livesay made the remark to a liquor store owner as he walked through Oakland Mills Village Center. He spoke with business owners and reassured them that investigators will make an arrest in the double killing along the path off Stevens Forest Road.Ken Keepers, owner of Oakland Mills Liquors, told Livesay he had heard that detectives have suspects but not enough evidence to arrest them.

The Exxon station at Oakland Mills Village Center has closed, the second business to shut down there in recent weeks."I guess it worries us because it doesn't look good to come into Oakland Mills and see boarded up stores," said Erin Peacock, the village manager.But a spokesman for Exxon said yesterday the closure is not permanent."The station has been closed temporarily because of the end of our relationship with the former dealer," said Crawford Bunkley. "We expect to reopen the station in the near future."

The Wilde Lake Village Center is the prime guinea pig for change after the Howard County Council voted this week for a new zoning process to redevelop Columbia's aging village centers, but no one knows what the result will be. The planned town's oldest retail center stands half-empty now, since a small Giant supermarket closed three years ago followed by Produce Galore and several other tenants. But Kimco Realty, the center's owner along with five others, no longer has a firm idea for what to do with it. Kimco Vice President Geoffrey Glazer made it clear after Tuesday night's County Council vote that this time he will be coming to the residents for a discussion, not presenting them with a plan.

Sitting in his empty barbershop with the television blaring, 65-year-old Anthony Tringali recalled better times at Wilde Lake Village Center, where his shop opened with the birth of the new town in June 1967. "I had five barbers working for me at one time," he said. "Now I'm down to one and a half - and I'm the one." Between the recession and the closing of the center's anchor Giant supermarket and several other stores, Tringali's business is down by half again in the past two years, he said, but he's not done.

When Judge Richard S. Bernhardt ran for election to a 15-year term as a nonpartisan Circuit Court judge in Howard County a year after then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. appointed him to the bench in 2005, he talked about his experience as a judge and attorney, not individual cases. But it's tough decisions like the one Bernhardt made recently to send 16-year-old Darnell Rasheen Furby back to juvenile court that gives voters a chance to consider the quality of their selection. Furby was one of three youths charged as adults with attacking and robbing a private security guard near the Long Reach Village Center May 13, though Furby is not suspected of firing a gun or of physically hitting the victim.

A years-long fight over whether to allow a gas station/convenience store and car wash in the Waverly Woods Village Center in Woodstock is a step closer to a resolution that some residents are unhappy about. Convenience Retailing LLC co-owner Rick Levitan won a 3-1 vote by the Howard County Board of Appeals on Monday night to approve conditional zoning, opening the way for a project that scores of residents have fought against at two other nearby locations. But Levitan, who operates gas station/convenience stores in Owen Brown and Dorsey Hall village centers in Columbia, was happy.

Political heat is building over three bills involving religion, higher builders' fees and the future of Columbia's village centers as the Howard County Council heads for its annual August recess. All three bills are due for a final work session Monday and a vote Thursday, though most council members favor delaying a vote on the village center bill until Sept. 4 to give residents more time to study amendments. "Based on feedback from village members, I'm leaning very strongly toward extending its life and voting in early September," Council Chairwoman Mary Kay Sigaty said about the village center bill.

Consensus appears elusive as Howard County Council members prepare for Monday night's public hearing on changes to a complex bill on redevelopment of Columbia's village centers. After a nearly three-hour work session last week at school board headquarters, issues such as parking, affordable housing and village center boundaries were unresolved, and at least one member appeared uncertain of how the bill addresses basic goals. No further discussions were scheduled before the 7:30 p.m. hearing.

The movement to alter or defeat a zoning bill intended to create a way to redevelop ailing Columbia village centers got an unexpected boost when the county Planning Board chairman revealed Monday night that he opposes the measure. The five-member board had split 2-2 on the issue March 23, passing the zoning bill on to the Howard County Council without a recommendation. David Grabowski, an Elkridge resident with a background in construction, had been out of town that night and Vice Chairman Gary Rosenbaum said he forgot to make a prearranged call to get the chairman's vote.

The next important election in Howard County is less than a month away, though no public offices are at stake. The members of the Columbia Association board of directors may not draw salaries, but they, along with incoming CA President Phil Nelson, could play a vital role in plans to remake central Columbia and its aging village centers. Each of the 10 villages has one seat on the board, and half could elect new board members when the two days of voting end April 25. Three villages - Owen Brown, Town Center and Harper's Choice - have no board contest this spring, while incumbents in Oakland Mills and River Hill are running unopposed.

A proposed office building once hailed as a key sign of resurgence at the Oakland Mills Village Center has been scuttled, according to county officials. The site, a 1.7-acre lot on Stevens Forest Road, was last used for a gas station. That business closed in 1999 and the buildings were demolished two years later. County Executive Ken Ulman said the project was scrapped after ExxonMobil, which owns the lot, refused to hold the land any longer for Metroventures, the Baltimore-based developer that proposed the 59,000-square-foot, four-story building.

Investigator Lila Boor of the Howard County Office of Consumer Affairs and Pfc. Holly Burnham of the Howard County Police Department will speak about telemarketing fraud and weapons of fraud from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesday at Slayton House on the Wilde Lake Village Green. They will discuss Internet safety from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Feb. 17 at Historic Oakland, 5430 Vantage Point Road, and home repair fraud March 17 at Slayton House. The presentations, sponsored by the Town Center and Wilde Lake community associations, are for ages 50 and older.