20070911 News Clips

News Clips

Sept. 11, 2007

STATE NEWS

Region waits for city race results and area impact

http://www.examiner.com/a-927933~Region_waits_for_city_race_results_and_area_impact.html

Baltimore City residents aren't the only ones with interests in today's mayoral primary.

Officials in the five counties surrounding the city are eyeing the elections to see if they bring change to crime, education and transportation problems in Baltimore City that are affecting the entire region.

Anne Arundel County Council Chairman Ronald Dillon Jr. said Baltimore City's crime directly affects his county and district, which borders the city.

"I doesn't appear to be getting better," he said. "The city and the county deal with each, and at least we have a pr etty good relationship on that end."

City gains few new voters

http://www.examiner.com/Baltimore-Local_Politics.html

On the eve of Baltimore's mayoral primary, election officials said new voter registrations have been historically low this year, indicating possible tepid voter interest for today's election. Jones, who took his job after the city's troubled 2006 primary was plagued by a shortage of Republican election judges as well as polls opening late, said he was confident today's election would run smoothly.

"This has been one of the slowest years for new voter registrations I've seen," said Election Director Armstead B. Crawley Jones Sr., a 16-year veteran of the city's Board of Elections. "Our voting population has dropped. But I don't know if that accounts for all of it."

Should county execs be able to appoint superintendents? Depends on whom you ask

http://www.capitalonline.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/09_10-25/TOP

Gov. Martin O'Malley's suggestion that he and county executives be allowed to appoint their school superintendents has drawn a mixed reaction, including this from Sen. Paul Pinsky: Be careful what you wish for.

But Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold agreed with the governor. If school superintendents answered to executives, school board budget requests might be more manageable, he said.

"Right now, they present wish-list budgets which are not reflective of the real-world fiscal realities," he said. "The county does not print money. We cannot come up with additional money."

If elected officials chose the superintendent, he said, "Voters can pin accountability directly on the shoulders of the county executive and council members, who have the responsibility for funding these programs. . . . they know where to pinpoint responsibility in the system."

Proposed Tax Increases Anger Conservatives

http://bizmonthly.com/9_2007/7.shtml

Conservatives are calling proposed tax increases and the state's $1.5 billion structural budget shortfall a lesson in asinine economics. Anne Arundel County Delegate Don Dwyer (R-District 31) said he does not support any tax increases. Period.

"There's no doubt in my mind," he said. "We do not have a revenue problem in this state. We clearly have a spending problem. Any common-sense, logical-thinking individual knows you can't spend money you don't have and stay afloat. Not only do business leaders know this, but so does the average citizen."

Delegate Steve Schuh, a freshman Republican from Anne Arundel County who has emerged as one of his party's authorities on budget matters, has two words for tax increases: undesirable and unnecessary.

"We're already an overtaxed state," he said, noting that he and others are proposing slower rates of growth in spending, along with legalizing slot machines.

Warren Miller, a Republican delegate from Howard County, said the state needs to stop spending money like it has a credit card. We passed the budget without the money to pay for the spending. I voted against the budget in protest," he said.

"We, as elected officials, could have done a better job of finding ways to save money. I am under the school of thought that I know a budget increases annually, but we had an extreme increase of spending this year."

Army urged to share cost of local BRAC upgrades

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.brac11sep11,0,4313882.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout

State and local officials are pressing the Army to do more to help with road and transit upgrades around Maryland's expanding bases because millions of dollars in tax revenues could be lost from huge private office developments being built on the military installations.

"It's problematic for us, quite frankly," state Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari said yesterday, when asked about the impact of a 15-building, $700 million office complex the Army is negotiating to build at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County.

Harford County also stands to miss out on millions of dollars in revenue from that project because federal lands are exempt from property taxes, acknowledged James C. Richardson, the county's economic development director.

But while Harford officials have raised the issue with the Army, Richardson said they aren't pressing the case openly now, but rather waiting to see how the project proceeds. He pointed out that the proving ground is in need of a great deal of infrastructure, "and we're hoping the [deal] helps provide that."

Ulman a hit on foray into GOP's western county turf

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-ho.politics09sep09,0,5904375.story

Glenwood in western Howard County is generally seen as a Republican stronghold, where voters elected last year the county's only GOP state senator, two Republican delegates and the party's only County Council member.

But County Executive Ken Ulman, a liberal Democrat from Columbia, got a friendly reception from the nonpartisan Glenwood Lions Club on Thursday night.

Candidate's website pokes fun at Bartlett

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=64897

A Middletown resident hopes he can use creativity and the Internet to oust Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett from his seat next year. Tom Croft, a web design teacher at the Frederick County Public Schools Career and Technology Center, is challenging Bartlett in the 2008 primary.

Croft, 56, believes Bartlett is too old to remain the district's representative. Bartlett had no comment on the website or his age.

Security funds go to a variety of items

http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2007/09 /11/news/local_news/newsstory3.txt

In the six years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Carroll County has received nearly $2.6 million for emergency responders - money that's gone toward everything from meters that can detect the presence and amounts of dangerous gases, to laptop computers that allow sheriff's deputies to tell if a motorist they've pulled over is wanted by police.

After the attacks, much attention was given to make sure local emergency personnel were prepared to respond to a variety of scenarios. As emergency preparedness became a central concern, money began filtering down from the federal government to state and local governments.

Baltimore County gains clout on state budget board

http://www.examiner.com/a-927932~Baltimore_County_gains_clout_on_state_budget_board.html

Balti more County is picking up new clout at the State House on an expanded Senate Budget and Taxation Committee as Sen. Ed Kasemeyer becomes the vice chairman and Sen. Bobby Zirkin gets one of two new seats on the committee. The appointments by Senate President Thomas Mike Miller help resolve long-standing complaints from Sen. Delores Kelley and other Baltimore County officials that the county didn't have sufficient representation on the committee.

O'Malley moves called 'vendetta'
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/METRO/109110065/1004

Gov. Martin O'Malley is continuing his public attempts to fire high-ranking Maryland officials, including those he has deemed disloyal to the administration. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, now has enough votes on the Maryland Stadium Authority board to oust longtime Executive Director Alison L. Asti, former board Chairman Robert L. McKinney said yesterday.

Board members are appointed to staggered terms to insulate the authority from direct control by the governor, in the same way that members are appointed to the state school board.

Meanwhile, Mr. O'Malley has feuded with Mrs. Grasmick since she tried to take over 11 failing Baltimore schools when he was the mayor there."He certainly has picked two of the higher-profile women in state government," Mr. McKinney said. "And he's going after them in a not-too-subtle way."

EDITORIALS/OP-EDS

Today, take time to reflect
Remember unity of 9/11, not discontent about war
http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/OPINION01/709110344

Today is the annual occasion on which most of us will pause to recall the events of Sept. 11, 2001, a horrible day that seems both like last week and an eternity ago. Sept. 11, 2001, is our modern Day of Infamy. To try and block its pain from our collective thoughts does a dishonor to those who showed such heroism.

While the sacrifice of that day can be equated with the sacrifice of those fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, an event that stands as an attack on civilians has a significance all its own. Such a significance warrants recognition. Today it would be best to sincerely reflect on those few hours in which the world changed forever. For that day, at least, we were united as a nation in grief, anger and shock. Those emotions need not be supplanted by cynicism and arrogance.

Remember Sept. 11 as it should be.

Making the case against voting

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-md.marbella11sep11,0,534599.column?coll=bal_tab01_layout

The mayor's race, you think, is no contest. They're predicting rain after all; you don't want to get wet. Maybe you have to work, get your haircut or, I don't know, watch your new DVD, Grey's Anatomy, The Third Season. So don't vote.
Your vote doesn't matter anyway, says Mark J. Perry, an economist, blogger and every civics teacher's worst nightmare.

Perry is among a group of academics who delight in turning one of America's most sacred beliefs - that every vote counts - on its head. They say that studies show that higher turnout tends not to change the outcome except in the tightest of races.

Perry comes by this way of thinking from the time he spent at George Mason University, where he received his doctorate in economics and which turns out to be a hotbed for the theory of rational ignorance.

Do we need another federal election overhaul?

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/09_10-03/OPN

Take heart, America. Congress is going to fix the way states conduct elections - again. To make up for the way it fixed the problem last time. In 2002, appalled by the way the 2000 presidential election turned into the night of the hanging chads, Congress passed a nearly $4 billion reform package to get states to modernize voting technology. So state after state - Maryland included - went to electronic or computerized systems that lack any paper trail for recounts.
But judging by turnout, a far bigger problem is the number of citizens who just don't care who gets elected, let alone how.

D.C. vote threshold

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/COMMENTARY/109110022

More than a century ago, the Party of Abraham Lincoln stood with those whose hands and feet were shackled by the injustice of slavery and denied the rights to be a full citizen of this great nation. Today, we have the opportunity to stand, once again, with those who seek to be freed of the shackles that denied them a basic right of citizenship - the right to full representation in our government. Washingtonians deserve voting representation in the United States Congress.Now we need leaders in Congress to stand with the citizens of the District of Columbia and to no longer put political expediency or legislative neglect ahead of doing what is right.

The Framers didn't intend to create a city where American citizens were completely unrepresented. But this is the situation we have. As Republicans, we are proud that Virginia Rep. Tom Davis conceptualized a bipartisan approach and that so many of our colleagues, like Mr. Hatch and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and onetime New York Rep. Jack Kemp have joined Mr. Davis as supporters.

Right now, the Senate has within its power a chance to end taxation without representation in our nation's capital.

Michael Steele is the former Republican lieutenant governor of Maryland and J.C. Watts is a former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma.

NATIONAL NEWS

Cardin: Correct colorectal screening information

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/was hington/medicare_monitor/entries/2007/09/10/cardin_correct_colorectal_scre.html

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., says Medicare's Web site has incorrect information related to colorectal screening, and he wants it corrected. "We know that early detection of colorectal cancer saves lives," Cardin said in a statement. "Our seniors need to know that this financial barrier has been erased.

Dental reform pushing on Bill would improve care for children of working poor

http://www.montereyherald.com/lifeandtimes/ci_6859612

Six months ago, the death of a local boy from untreated dental decay shed a grim spotlight on gaps in federal and state medical assistance programs charged with providing care to 30 million poor children.

"In letters and speeches, we all mention Deamonte Driver," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. "We want to ke ep the memory of this boy alive. We want to make sure that life comes out of his death."

Maryland's eight-member Democratic congressional delegation says it plans to fight to get a guaranteed dental benefit included in the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, a decade-old federal-state program set to expire Sept. 30.

Another bill awaiting approval, sponsored by Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., would provide tax credits for dentists serving the poor and $3 million annually for four years for outreach projects in areas with few dentists. The committee also recommends spending $40 million - about half state and half federal funds - annually to significantly raise reimbursement rates paid to dentists participating in Medicaid as a way of encouraging more dentists to treat poor children.

Maryland's Medicaid reimbursement rate for such restorative procedures as fillings for cavities ranked lowest in t he nation in 2004, a deterrent to many dentists to participate in the program. Fewer than 16 percent of Maryland's Medicaid children received such services in 2005, the most recent year for which figures were available.

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