20070815 News Clips

News Clips

August 15, 2007

STATE NEWS

Running on empty, Maryland Republican chairman stays upbeat
http://www.examiner.com/a-880562~Running_on_empty__Maryland_Republican_chairman_stays_upbeat.html
Times are tough at Maryland Republican Party headquarters. Weak finances have withered the staff to a skeleton crew of two: an executive director and a business manager who are splitting duties. But James Pelura, an early rising veterinarian from Davidsonville who became party chairman in December, is upbeat.His reason: Gov. Martin O'Malley and other leading Democrats, he believes, are fast becoming Republicans' biggest allies by discussing a litany of tax increases to address that state's $1.5 billion budget deficit. That, he predicts, will cause a backla sh to bring voters back to Republicans. House Minority Leader Anthony O'Donnell said it's important to take a broad view. He said the Democratic Party was facing a similarly bleak scenario when Ehrlich won election in 2002. "They were reducing staff," O'Donnell said. "They were having a hard time raising money. It's a very similar situation, and it took them a while to get their house back in order and it's a transition period."

Report makes case for Md. slots
O'Malley official says state is losing millions, horse racing needs aid
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-te.md.slots15aug15,0,2392971.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout
The O'Malley administration released a report yesterday that concludes slot machines are n ecessary to protect Maryland's racing industry, giving the strongest indication yet that the governor intends to make expanded gambling part of his plan to close a projected $1.5 billion budget gap.Labor, Licensing and Regulation Secretary Thomas E. Perez made the finding after visiting racetracks in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware, examining revenue statistics, and counting Maryland license plates in their parking lots. "Tens of thousands of Marylanders are voting with their feet and traveling to West Virginia and Delaware to play slots," Perez wrote in his report to Gov. Martin O'Malley. "By not having slots, Maryland has already left hundreds of millions of dollars in potential general fund revenue on the table. "Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell, the minority leader from Southern Maryland who was briefed by O'Malley on the report last night, said there is potentia l for common ground between Republicans and the governor on slots. "I think there is a growing recognition that raising $1.5 billion in new taxes or cutting $1.5 billion of the state budget cannot be the solution by itself," O'Donnell said. "The only other proposal on the table is slots. In very real terms, I think there is growing recognition that it has to happen."

City loan to Baer school raises concern
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.ci.loan15aug15,0,3088533.story
It seemed like a simple, good-news announcement: The city gives a loan so that a public school serving severely disabled children can renovate its kitchen and cafeteria. But the effort by Mayor Sheila Dixon to assist the William S. Baer School - and a similar loan by the city to help with renovations at the Baltimore School for the Arts - is raising questions about whether it's fair for public schools with wealthy or influential backers to jump ahead of others more in need of repairs just because they can raise the money themselves.

O'Malley grants union rights to child care, home aides
Governor's executive orders contradict General Assembly
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.orders15aug15,0,186570.story
Without fanfare, Gov. Martin O'Malley signed executive orders this month giving collective bargaining rights to home health aides and child care workers whose pay is subsidized by the state, despite the General Assembly's rejection of those proposals. "The long and the short of it is, he's do ing something by executive order that the legislature did not agree with, and he's done it at a quiet time when he was on vacation so nobody would even know about it," said Sen. Allan H. Kittleman, the minority whip from Howard County. "Why wouldn't he do a press release? I can only imagine it was because it would be seen as what it was: paying back the unions that supported him at the expense of low-income families," Kittleman said.

Cassilly elected head of national group
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/harford/bal-ha.cassilly12aug12,0,7187433.story
Harford County State's Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association last month in Portland, Ore. He will be president-elect until July, when he will become president of the 7,00 0-member organization. He also has held several offices with the Maryland State's Attorneys' Association and has served two terms as its president. "He is a true American hero and highly respected by his peers," said Tom Charron, the national group's executive director. Cassilly said that in his new post he will work to educate citizens and government officials on the problems of victims of and witnesses to violent crimes.

Additional facilities at Fort Meade could bring more families and jobs to Carroll County.
http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2007/08/15/news/local_news/newsstory3.txt
The Anne Arundel County military base's growth is likely to have a positive effect on Carroll County, Carroll's economic development chief told the county commissioners in a presentation Tuesday. Fort Meade's gro wth under the military's Base Realignment and Closure program could bring more than 400 new households into Carroll by 2015, Director of Economic Development Larry Twele said.
BRAC is a military program designed to periodically analyze where the military's assets are distributed and see if they can be redistributed more efficiently.

Officials Support 3rd Nuclear Reactor
Agency Describes Process to License Calvert Cliffs Plant
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081401671.html
More than 300 people filed into a hotel conference room in southern Calvert County last night for a meeting on the licensing process of a proposed nuclear power reactor in nearby Lusby, a project that could become the first of its kind in the United States in about 30 years. Based on aud ience reaction, which included vigorous applause for statements made by nuclear supporters, Calvert appeared to remain hospitable to nuclear-generated electricity.

King picked for vacant state Senate seat
http://www.gazette.net/stories/081507/montnew83958_32369.shtml
Del. Nancy J. King of Montgomery Village was nominated Tuesday night by the county's Democratic Central Committee to the District 39 Senate seat. King's name will be forwarded to the governor, who has 15 days to appoint her to the seat vacated by Patrick J. Hogan (D) of Montgomery, who resigned Aug. 10 to work as the University System of Maryland's top lobbyist.

EDITORIALS/OP-EDS

Death 178 seems to bring out outrage
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.kane15aug15,0,456734.column
At exactly what point should the number of homicides in a city make your jaw drop?
In Baltimore, we didn't get outraged until the number of homicides hit 178, and only then because we feared that, at 178, we were drifting back toward the dreaded three-oh-oh in the number of killings for one year. No one has demanded that Mayor Sheila Dixon resign because of the soaring number of homicides, although former Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm did get the ax. Here's a more sobering thought, one that many of us may be thinking, but few of us would dare say out loud: Is it who is being killed on Baltimore's streets that makes us so accepting of homicide numbers that people in other cities find appalling? Street justice Baltimore-style is brutal, cold, remorseless, relentless and oh-so-final. Those choosing to engage in the chess match of Baltimore street crime pretty much know how that end game is going to be played.
So our jaws don't drop when the number hits 60. They don't drop when the number reaches 80 or 90. But let the number drift toward the dreaded three-oh-oh too quickly, and we're sure to get concerned.
How many killings would there be in Baltimore if our jaws did drop when the number hit 60?

Taxpayers deserve a break
http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2007/08/15/news/opinion/editorial/editorial924.txt
Students are getting ready to go back to school, but their families are already losing out.
While other places are giving families a break on sales tax for back to school shopping, Maryland again is not.
And there's precedent for such a move in Maryland, too. Legislators have provided for tax-free weeks in the past, the most recent being last August, when clothes and shoes worth less than $100 were tax free for four days. But the legislation wasn't renewed, and this year there's no relief for families.
Perhaps it's because of the looming budget deficit. State officials are already warning of drastic cuts to come next year. But this year's budget was as robust as ever, and lawmakers easily could have found a way to give working families a break. And that would be the right thing to do. But instead, they were more concerned with lining the state coffers. That speaks volumes about who government is really working for in Maryland.

Budget Busters
http://wbal.com/commentary/defilippo/story.asp?articleid=61846
So here's the dilemma: Nobody wants to pay higher taxes. But everyone wants the benefits from the programs tha t taxes provide. It's okay, downright fair game, to cut another group's spending. But keep your grubby little paws off my money. So goes the thinking in the government budget-making roundelay. Thank the gods, and whoever designed the executive budget system (Robert Moses, 1917), that legislators can't shift money within Maryland's budget. So comes now Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), floating all manner of taxes and combinations to pay down the projected $1.5 billion structural deficit, and then some - greater progressivity in the income tax, an increase of a penny (2o percent) and a broadening of the application of the sales tax, an increase in the corporate tax, a limited number of slot machines and an increase (with indexing) in the gasoline tax.
Safe bet when the governor and legislative leaders eventually get their stuff together: A combination of all of the above.
Yet O'Malley, on the matter of taxes, is behaving like a reluctant debutante a t a Junior League tea. He has yet to present a comprehensive tax plan, apparently preferring instead, a death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach - first the $300 million in budget cuts, then announcing his support for increasing taxes on corporations and wealthy taxpayers, which may or may not be redundant, and, finally, saving the most punishing burden piecemeal for last.


NATIONAL NEWS

Bartlett to hold open-door meeting in Hagerstown
http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=172465&format=html
U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett will hold an open door meeting with constituents Wednesday, Aug. 22, from 10 a.m. to noon at his Hagerstown district office at 11377 Robinwood Drive, according to a press release from Bartlett's office in Washington, D.C.
It is one of a series of meetings that Bartlett, R-Md., will hold with constituents through the 6th District, according to the release.

Duck will try again to challenge Bartlett
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.sbriefs15aug15,0,2971031.story
Democrat Andrew J. Duck filed yesterday as a candidate for the 6th Congressional District seat held by eight-term incumbent Republican Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett. The race will be Duck's second consecutive attempt to unseat Bartlett in the Western Maryland district. He lost a three-way race last November in which Bartlett received 59 percent of the vote, Duck got 38 percent, and Green Party candidate Robert Kozak received 3 percent.