Columbia Council ponders needs of senior citizens
The Columbia Council has examined ways to better serve the community's aging population and come up with ideas ranging from expanded transportation opportunities to home maintenance services.
At a session May 23, the council considered how to address older people's needs within 10 years from a financial standpoint and in terms of commitment to the community.
Members agreed that transportation would be a key issue. They talked about the possibility of bringing association programs to senior-living facilities, providing transportation through the association or pushing for more services from Howard County.
Cooksville property auctioned for $400,000
Commercially zoned land is rare in western Howard County, which is dominated by farms and houses. Wednesday morning, one of the rare exceptions went on the auction block and sold at a price that turned a lot of heads.
The small parcel sits at Routes 97 and 144 in Cooksville, the site of a sagging, boarded-up tavern. But the 22 people who showed up to bid - and at least as many to gawk - were not there for the building. They were interested in the land, situated at a busy intersection a half-mile from Interstate 70.
The winning bid was $400,000 for a lot that is not quite an acre.
Complaints mount against Spherix Inc.
Complaints are growing in Howard about a company under state contract that takes calls on child-support issues from people in 11 Maryland counties. Howard officials are so frustrated by what they say is poor service that they are thinking about doing without.
Spherix Inc. of Beltsville, which sells products including a new sugar substitute and a maggot pesticide, operates the call center, where inquiries are fielded.
To handle child-support inquiries, 30 operators handle about 30,000 calls a month, said Louis Curry III, deputy director of the state's Child Support Enforcement Administration. The state paid $2.74 million for 14 months of service. The contract runs out in October 2003, but a county can pull out whenever it wants.
Council delays decision on closing Hanover Road
A decision on permanently closing Hanover Road, which connects Elkridge to Anne Arundel County across what Howard County officials call a dangerous railroad crossing, was delayed Tuesday after a Howard County Council discussion, but the road might be closed in the fall as a test.
The issue has split the community after what earlier seemed to be a consensus decision. It pits those worried about potential traffic from expanding Baltimore-Washington International Airport and an industrial park being built just east of the railroad tracks against those who want the link kept intact. Opponents of the road closing, led by resident Gail Sigel, say that closing the road would worsen traffic by forcing vehicles back through the community to U.S. 1.
The idea of a temporary closing came from council Chairman C. Vernon Gray, an east Columbia Democrat who agreed with Councilman Christopher J. Merdon's concerns about what would happen to traffic in the community if Hanover Road was closed.
Police officers who died on duty memorialized
When the Howard County Police Department's memorial to five peace officers who died while on duty in Howard was unveiled Wednesday, the officers' family members felt relief - not because the memorial would ease their pain or brighten their memories, but because it will ensure their loved ones' place in history.
The memorial is next to police headquarters on Court House Drive in Ellicott City. It features a statue of a police officer holding the hands of two children, flagpoles and five marble slabs with the names of the peace officers who died while serving in Howard County. It took nearly two years to plan and cost $80,000.
Man given 10 years for assaulting woman
A 41-year-old man who brutalized a woman with whom he had been living was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday.
Noting that Adolph Phillip Pfefferle III told the woman, "You ought to be treated like a slut" during the assault, Howard Circuit Judge James B. Dudley rejected a request by Pfefferle's attorney for a more lenient sentence and imposed the term recommended by prosecutors.
Pfefferle, who admitted that the encounter "wasn't consensual," pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree sexual offense in March in a case prosecutor Jim Dietrich called "unusual" for the level of trauma inflicted.
Ehrlich counting on Democrats' money
Boasting of favorable numbers in a recent poll and declaring that key Democratic contributors are waiting with cash, Republican congressman and Maryland gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. told a lunchtime business group Thursday in Columbia that "this race is the shot to win."
A number of active Democratic contributors are waiting before giving big money to candidates, he said, and have not committed themselves to the Democratic front-runner, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
"If I had seen Maryland Democrats' names going to her, I probably would not have gotten into this race. I could not have raised enough money," he said.