Youth Center

The Carroll commissioners voted yesterday to deny a juvenile facility in Marriottsville an exemption for tipping fees at county landfills.The North American Family Institute, a nonprofit organization that operates at the Thomas O'Farrell Youth Center, asked for the exemption. An Aug. 2 letter from Director John R. Gray did not say how much trash the center dumps.The county charges a $40-per-ton tipping fee at its landfills.Carroll Comptroller Eugene C. Curfman said the county does not give exemptions to other agencies.

Thomasino's Pizza Subs & Pasta, LLC, has been selected as the new operator of the Hollywood Diner.  A restaurant by that name used to operate in the city's Arlington neighborhood. It was not immediately clear if it's the same entity, and, if so, whether the diner will be run with the same concept. The Board of Estimates must still approve a lease arrangement, but Thomasino's has been given a Right of Entry to go into the diner, according to a representative from the Comptroller's office of real estate.

Madeleine Wheeler Grant has been named executive director for the Edgewood Multi-Purpose Youth Center.Grant has taught for many years at John Carroll School and currently is a member of the Harford County Liquor Control Board.

For years, lawmakers and child advocates have been urging Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services to speed up the process of getting troubled youths out of the state's overcrowded juvenile lockups and into residential treatment facilities where they can get help. And year after year, the answer is always the same: There aren't enough treatment slots for all the kids who need them. So it was already more than a twice-told tale when DJS Secretary Sam Abed appeared before the state Board of Public Works recently and said he is considering expanding the size of some privately run residential treatment programs because of the shortage of beds at state facilities.

Police broke up a fight yesterday involving about 44 youths at the Cheltenham Youth Center in southern Prince George's County, authorities said. The disturbance involving the teen-agers, ages 14 to 18, started in a gymnasium around 3:30 p.m., said state police Cpl. Rob Moroney. Counselors at the facility also became involved as they tried to calm things down, Moroney said. A 14-year-old boy suffered a head injury and was taken to Prince George's Hospital Center. The injury was not life- threatening, police said.

Anne Arundel County officials say they expect to know in mid-January how much additional money they'll be giving the Harundale Youth and Family Service Center."

AFTER TWO years of renovation, the little brown church on Old B&A Boulevard in Old Severna Park, built in 1926 as St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, officially opened Sunday as the Holy Grounds Youth Center and Coffee House.The center was opened to provide a safe place for teen-agers to go on Friday night instead of just "hanging out."The center, next to Woods Community Center, was renovated with money from Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church and the community, and with thousands of hours of volunteer time.

Leah Cronin repeatedly hacked at a partially destroyed foyer wall with a crowbar, causing plaster and wood to crash to the floor. With a swift yank of the tool, she was able to leverage enough power to separate a wooden panel from the wall, exposing the skeletal structure of the home. Cronin and a team of 30 fellow volunteers spent yesterday ripping out fixtures, removing ceilings, exposing walls and sweeping out debris from an old three-story Waverly house they hope to transform into a youth center.

Town Manager James Schumacher accepted a plaque Friday from the Thomas O'Farrell Youth Center. The award honors Sykesville's "continuing support of the off-campus youth employment program."The awards ceremony culminated the center's second annual Career Awareness Day Friday and included notes of appreciation to Sykesville and several other employers who have hired youth in its program.O'Farrell houses 40 teen-aged boys committed to its program by lTC the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.

The Thomas O'Farrell Youth Center is celebrating its fourth anniversary today in an award-winning way.Barry A. Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, will present the council's first Excellence in Adolescent Care award to the Marriottsville center, which serves youths committed to the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services."

The city is looking for someone to operate the Hollywood Diner. The comptroller's office has issued a formal request for a new operator of the property, made famous as a filming location for the Barry Levinson film "Diner. " Late last year, the city terminated its lease with the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development, the nonprofit organization that ran the diner since 1991. The youth center vacated the diner last December but an operating partner was allowed to remain open until March 31. Funded entirely by private donations and opened to great fanfare in 1984 as the Kids' Diner, the restaurant was originally run by the city schools and the mayor's office as a job-training program for youths.

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young is urging Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to abandon the troubled Baltimore Grand Prix and focus on "core issues that impact the quality of life for all Baltimoreans. " In an op-ed article submitted to The Baltimore Sun, Young said the city should direct its limited resources to programs that benefit young people and senior citizens, such as public recreation centers and pools, both of which were cut under Rawlings-Blake's budget for the current fiscal year.

It's after 1:30 a.m. on a recent Friday night, and Baltimore's juvenile curfew center is buzzing. One by one or together in groups, children who are out beyond the midnight weekend curfew are being brought in by police. In a side room where records are checked, the youngest strike up a conversation. "How you get caught?" the 10-year-old boy asks. "I walked to the store," the shy 8-year-old seated to his left says. "As soon as I got out, police said 'Come here.' " Asked by a reporter if he is scared to be walking around his East Baltimore neighborhood so late at night, the 8-year-old, who says his name is Khalil, shakes his head no. "There's a lot of kids out," he replies.

I believe that juvenile crime in Baltimore is less the failing of individuals and more the fault of flawed public policy. Children succeed when given opportunities for healthy development and avoid serious delinquent behaviors when services are available at the first sign of trouble. When opportunity and services are absent, as they are for many Baltimore city youth, growing up can be hard. Faced with barren environments — with few places to play, living in households on the verge of crisis, too many young people adopt dysfunctional behaviors for mere survival.

It's certainly welcome news that conditions in the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center have improved enough to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to lift federal oversight of the youth lockup it has held under scrutiny since 2007. But just because the facility has been found to be "in substantial compliance" with minimum federal standards doesn't mean officials there won't continue to face huge challenges dealing with the city's most troubled youths. The center, which opened in 2003, was originally intended to house up to 144 youths, most of whom were either awaiting trial in the juvenile court system or long-term placement in a rehabilitation program.

The 16-year-old had been living for days on the streets of Baltimore after his parents kicked him out because he is gay. He came to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore looking for assistance. A week later, a 12-year-old lesbian who had the support of her parents called the center to find other kids "just like her." These anecdotes from the past month underscore the need for a drop-in center solely for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths in Baltimore, according to Andrew Ansel, programs manager for the community center.

A recent report found residents of the Chesapeake Youth Center, a psychiatric facility on the Eastern Shore, were still being mistreated even after the state Office of Health Care Quality had warned the center's owner in November that he would lose his license unless he made sweeping changes. Although some improvements have been made, state inspectors who visited the center in December for the third time in six months noted troubling deficiencies, said Wendy Kronmiller, acting director of the health care quality office.

Responding to a sharp increase in juvenile crime, the Howard County Police Department is planning a youth center in Columbia's Village of Harper's Choice that would offer academic, athletic and arts activities for youths ages 14 to 19.The center, to be situated in a vacant county building at Cedar Lane Park, would be an alternative to typical anti-gang and anti-drug initiatives, drawing on police, parks and recreation officials and volunteers from Columbia's...

On a back wall of the brightest house on Carswell Street hangs a piece of paper, protected in plastic to keep it from crumbling. It's a promise, impetuously made nearly a decade ago by sixth graders who lived nearby. They were going to open an after-school center. They each scribbled their name in marker, to seal the deal. No one thought they'd ever really do it. Not even their teacher, who helped them draft the pledge. Yet the kids and their teacher from a rough part of town incorporated, raised more than a half-million dollars, fought government bureaucracy, changed a neighborhood's mind about inner city kids and turned a derelict eyesore into something beautiful.

A top issue for the folks living in Northeast Baltimore's Belair-Edison neighborhood: Build a place for the kids to hang out. There is no youth center in the sprawling community, and getting one was foremost on the mind of Tony Dawson, the blunt-talking association president, when asked Wednesday night to recite his wish list to the incoming mayor, City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake. The two were on a Citizens on Patrol walk - which Dawson has renamed Good Neighbor Walks - one of more than two dozen held throughout Baltimore as part of a community outreach initiative.