Village Officials

Feeling stung by a recent Sun series that described white flight from older Columbia neighborhoods, Long Reach officials are considering hiring a public relations company to promote a more positive - and they say more accurate - image of their village. Members of the Long Reach Village Board said at a meeting Tuesday night that the three-part series unfairly focused on Long Reach and one of its cul-de-sacs. They acknowledged that Yellowrose Court has had problems with drugs and other crime but said that was not representative of the village or Columbia as a whole.

Philip Kirsch of Wilde Lake won a new one-year term on the Columbia Association's 10-member board of directors in the planned town's only contested CA board election this year. Facing Linda Odum, a real estate agent he beat by very narrow margins in each of the last two years, Kirsch widened the gap in a 415-268 vote election, village officials said. The election was seen as important because Kirsch has represented a community-oriented outlook more common among older residents of the village, while Odum took a more developer/business-friendly approach.

Halloween can be really scary in Columbia. Just ask the McHugh family, who decorated their front yard with tombstones and a fake wrought-iron fence to mark the holiday. Apparently the McHughs did such a good job on their Long Reach front yard that they fooled someone into thinking the scene of gothic horror was permanent. Unauthorized horror is not covered under village covenants governing exterior home alternations in Long Reach, so official action followed. Yesterday, the McHughs received a letter from village officials informing them that their Halloween decorations were in violation of landscaping rules.

Say goodbye to the weathered "space for lease" sign nailed to a piece of plywood on the former M&T Bank building in the Oakland Mills Village Center. Village officials said the brick building, which has been vacant since 2002, will soon be a coffee and doughnut shop, the newest addition to the once struggling village center. The announcement of the new business, which village officials said could open in a few months, follows news this summer that the longtime vacant property of a former Exxon station would be developed into an office complex.

In a joint effort with the 10 villages, a Columbia Council committee is reviewing ways to toughen covenant enforcement in the community of 87,000.Covenant advisers and village officials have stepped up criticism in recent months of the enforcement system, which is driven by individual complaints rather than regular property inspections, saying it has no teeth."

The Columbia Council's proposed $51.7 million budget drew mostly praise, and a few suggestions, at a public meeting last night. Representatives of Columbia's 10 villages said they were pleased the draft included funds to hire extra workers to maintain the town's open space, which many of them said had not been kept up to the town's standards last year. Village officials urged the council to include money for salary increases for village employees. A compensation study is expected to recommend raises when it comes out this month.

Exxon Mobil Corp., is in talks with a Baltimore-based real estate development firm wanting to take over an Oakland Mills Village Center property that has been vacant since the oil company closed the gas station in 1999, village officials announced last week. Metroventures/USA Inc. is considering building an office complex on the 1.7-acre property at an entrance to the village center, according to an e-mail distributed by the village. Village officials did not have any further information about the size of the complex or a timeline for construction.

A still-to-be-determined event will replace one of Columbia's longest-running annual festivals, but not before that festival's last hurrah in September. The Lake Elkhorn Festival, which was started in 1974, will end after this year because of lack of attendance and volunteers, said Owen Brown village officials. "We're going to rethink the festival and, hopefully, come up with a new concept as to what we want to do for the community," said Neil Dorsey, chairman of the Owen Brown Village Board.

The Howard County Planning Board, doing the only thing it could, last week approved the final development plans for a new section of Columbia's Kendall Ridge, over the objections of the Long Reach village board.The only question before the planning body was whether blueprints submitted by the Rouse Co., the project's developer, mirrored plans approved in 1990 and 1993.In 1990, village officials supported the county Planning Board's actions, which changed 145 acres slated for commercial and industrial use to a site for more than 700 multi- and single-family homes.

Philip Kirsch of Wilde Lake won a new one-year term on the Columbia Association's 10-member board of directors in the planned town's only contested CA board election this year. Facing Linda Odum, a real estate agent he beat by very narrow margins in each of the last two years, Kirsch widened the gap in a 415-268 vote election, village officials said. The election was seen as important because Kirsch has represented a community-oriented outlook more common among older residents of the village, while Odum took a more developer/business-friendly approach.

After 4-year-old Fahad Islam was injured by a stray bullet as he sat coloring inside his home near Long Reach Village Center early this year, Howard County Police promised residents plans to make the area safer. But village officials remain concerned about loitering, a chronic complaint around the village center, despite assurances from police that overall crime in Long Reach remains under control. "What people are saying is that between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. there are activities in the village center parking lot," Bridget R. Mugane, a village board member, told acting police Chief William McMahon after being updated on the crime situation this week.

Exxon Mobil Corp., is in talks with a Baltimore-based real estate development firm wanting to take over an Oakland Mills Village Center property that has been vacant since the oil company closed the gas station in 1999, village officials announced last week. Metroventures/USA Inc. is considering building an office complex on the 1.7-acre property at an entrance to the village center, according to an e-mail distributed by the village. Village officials did not have any further information about the size of the complex or a timeline for construction.

A still-to-be-determined event will replace one of Columbia's longest-running annual festivals, but not before that festival's last hurrah in September. The Lake Elkhorn Festival, which was started in 1974, will end after this year because of lack of attendance and volunteers, said Owen Brown village officials. "We're going to rethink the festival and, hopefully, come up with a new concept as to what we want to do for the community," said Neil Dorsey, chairman of the Owen Brown Village Board.

One of Columbia's longest-running village events could be discontinued because of lack of interest. Officials of Owen Brown village recently distributed 3,800 questionnaires to its residents, asking if they would like to see the Lake Elkhorn Festival continue. The annual event started in 1974. The event was canceled because of bad weather in 2003 and 2004. Village officials said last year's event suffered from a lack of volunteers and low attendance and lost $1,100. "We want to get a feel from the community to see if they really want us to continue the event," said Neil Dorsey, chairman of the Owen Brown Village Board.

Concerned about rising energy costs, Columbia village officials are urging the Columbia Association board to consider an energy contingency fund and other possible solutions as it moves toward a final vote on the association's proposed 2007 and 2008 fiscal year budgets next month. "We don't have an extravagant budget," Bill Woodcock, chairman of the Oakland Mills Village Board, said of his village's finances. "It's just enough to do what we have to do, and utilities are a major concern in the budget.

SHANGSHAN, China - The oxygen tank at Wu Shengfu's side fills his scarred lungs with enough air to breathe but not enough to talk for long about why, at 48 years old, he will be dying soon. His friends do their best to help explain, even at the risk of being harassed by police, because many of them too will succumb to an early death. Slowly, the men of this village in central China are dying, and the local authorities here, having profited from their labors, would prefer that they die in silence.

Giant supermarket has scrapped plans to build a grocery store at Owen Brown Village Center and wants to renovate and expand its existing store instead. Officials with Giant Food Services Realty presented plans for the $12 million project at a village board meeting Tuesday. The plan would enlarge the 39,000-square- foot store to 60,000 square feet. The village board previously had approved a plan, unveiled by Giant in February, to build a supermarket next to the tennis courts and convert its existing building into space for shops.

The recent closings of High's convenience stores in Hickory Ridge and Owen Brown have left village officials and residents wondering what will replace them.Representatives at High's Baltimore office could not be reached for comment, and village officials said they don't have any information about possible new tenants."We've had people asking why the High's left [Jan. 4] and what might go there. We have not heard anything," said Ottilie Grim, Owen Brown village covenant adviser.Donna Mueller, a leasing representative of Hickory Plaza Associates, believes that a Starbucks-type store may lease the space left Jan. 25 by the High's in Hickory Ridge Plaza.

Halloween can be really scary in Columbia. Just ask the McHugh family, who decorated their front yard with tombstones and a fake wrought-iron fence to mark the holiday. Apparently the McHughs did such a good job on their Long Reach front yard that they fooled someone into thinking the scene of gothic horror was permanent. Unauthorized horror is not covered under village covenants governing exterior home alternations in Long Reach, so official action followed. Yesterday, the McHughs received a letter from village officials informing them that their Halloween decorations were in violation of landscaping rules.

Leaders in four Columbia villages are worried about the fate of their community shopping centers because the Rouse Co. has requested paperwork normally needed for a sale. Rouse has asked for "certificates of compliance" for the village centers it owns in Long Reach, Oakland Mills, Wilde Lake and Harper's Choice, village officials said yesterday. The certificates, which confirm that properties meet local architectural standards, are needed before a sale or refinancing can take place. Alton J. Scavo, a Rouse senior vice president, said earlier this week that the centers had not been sold.