Baltimore Sun
The faculty senate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County voted this week in favor of establishing a permanent ROTC site on the Catonsville campus, but dozens of members of the campus community protested the proposal yesterday, objecting to the “militarization” of the campus and the Army’s treatment of openly homosexual soldiers.

At a spirited “town hall” meeting at UMBC, President Freeman A. Hrabowski III said he was still deliberating about whether to apply for the new program and the attendant scholarship benefits to students.

In recent days, the UMBC administration has indicated that it is in favor of the idea, despite emotional objections from some students, faculty and staff about the last-minute timing of the proposal.

“This is a very difficult decision,” said Provost Art Johnson, who said the Army’s invitation for the school to apply required a decision within several weeks. “There are legitimate points on both sides.”

If the campus is accepted as a host site, a Department of Military Science would be established, and officer training in Catonsville could start as soon as this fall.

About 20 current UMBC undergraduate cadets receive their training at the Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus.

[…]

UMBC was not on the initial list of candidates for new ROTC sites, Romaine said, but he proposed the campus after other area schools declined invitations to apply. Lt. Col. James E. Garrison, who runs the ROTC program at Loyola College, said nearby Towson University decided in February that it couldn’t meet the facilities requirements to host a permanent ROTC unit on campus.

About 30 Towson undergraduates in the ROTC program receive their training at Loyola, Garrison said. But the weekly commute for cadets from Catonsville to Charles Village is far longer, and UMBC officials said they believe they could attract more students interested in a military career if they had an on-campus unit.

“We are losing students to Hopkins because of a lack of an ROTC host program being here,” said Yvette Mozie-Ross, head of enrollment management. She said ROTC actively recruits prospective UMBC students and that there has been “very strong interest” from students and their families.

UMBC officials also said the school stands to benefit from increased college scholarships if it becomes an ROTC host. Although UMBC students constitute nearly half of the participants in the Hopkins unit, they receive fewer scholarships because the Army gives priority to Hopkins, college officials said.

[…]

Yesterday, a parade of UMBC community members - including self-described “draft dodgers” of the Vietnam era, gay rights activists, and current and former ROTC cadets - took their turn at the microphone to try to persuade Hrabowski to see their side of the debate.

Opponents of the proposed ROTC unit argued that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy conflicts with UMBC’s nondiscrimination policy. Michelle Danaher, a junior from St. Mary’s County and a member of the campus gay rights Freedom Alliance, said an Army outpost on campus would represent “a place on my campus where I’m not welcome.” She said her girlfriend would have liked an ROTC scholarship …

WBAL.com
Howard County Police have found the missing 51-year-old Elkridge woman who they say suffers from diabetes and mental health issues and is in need of medication.

Officers say Princella Pryor was last seen at her home in the 7100-block of Ducketts Lane, on Tuesday afternoon.

Police say she was located along Contee Road in Laurel this afternoon around 4:30.

Police say Pryor is in good condition.

The son of Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell, a Baltimore County employee, has been charged with murdering his mother and attempting to murder his father when the father returned home.

WBAL.com
Baltimore County Police are charging a 16-year-old Ruxton area boy with the beating death of his mother, and the beating of his father.

Police spokesman Bill Toohey says Lewin Carlton Powell, III, was charged tonight as an adult with fuirst degree murder and attempted first degree murder.

Toohey says the teen allegedly beat his mother to death with a baseball bat late Tuesday, after the two argued about the teen’s grades.

Police have identified the victim as 39-year-old Rosemarie Campbell-Powell.

The boy’s father, Lewin Powell, Jr., came home around midnight last night from his night shift job at Sweetheart Cup, and went to sleep on a couch.

This morning, Toohey says the teen tried to beat his father with the same baseball bat.

The teen also admitted he killed his mother.

Police received a call just after 10 this morning.

They say co-workers were worried about Campbell-Powell, when she did not arrive at work.

Toohey said when police arrived, the father and son went out the back door, and the father told police, “thank God you’re here, my son just killed my wife.”

The father was taken to Sinai Hospital where he is being treated for non-life threatening injuries.

WBAL.com
Some residents of Columbia are objecting to plans by one of the town’s six interfaith centers to place a 16-foot cross on the exterior of a new building.

The cross would be visible at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, but some longtime residents say the cross wouldn’t fit with Columbia’s harmonious and inclusive character.

The interfaith center is home to both St. John United Church and St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church. The new building will give the St. John United congregation more room. The Rev. R. Whitfield Bass says no one should be offended by the cross, which he calls a “symbol of freedom.”

The congregation originally planned to erect a 27-foot cross with backlighting. The lighting plan was dropped and the size was reduced after some residents objected.

DCRTV:
A source tells DCRTV: “Major, major layoffs sweeping through Columbia-based Retirement Living TV. Production department completely gutted, ad sales gutted, marketing gutted. Skeleton crews left within 60 days. Hearing that they’re going to suspend their pay-for-carriage deals with DirecTV and Comcast’s CN8. That doesn’t leave them in many households, and that they may go off the air for ‘up to 12 months.’ For those who’ve worked through such situations, that’s a nice way of saying the whole thing is probably about to go belly up.” RLTV uses a batch of media folks to host its shows, including WMAL morning man Fred Grandy.

RLTV has been using studio space on the main campus of UMBC as well as other locations around the country. They are also building a new office building in the BWTech@UMBC Research Park on the fringes of campus. That building is at 5525 Research Park Drive and the latest construction update indicates that it will be complete in December. I’m presuming some other divisions of Erickson might be using that building as well as RLTV but there’s no indication of how this rumor, if proven true, would affect that construction (the picture above is one I took of that job site last week.)

Related:
RLTV wikipedia entry
RLTV website
Erickson website
Erickson School
BWTECH@UMBC

Some closings and delays because of the weather.

Charles County schools are closed.

Anne Arundel, Calvert, and St. Mary’s Counties are on a two-hour delay.

The following letter was sent to members of the UMBC community via e-mail:
TO: The UMBC Community
FROM: Freeman Hrabowski & Art Johnson
RE: Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) Town Hall Meetings
DATE: May 8, 2008

As you may know, ROTC is a training and leadership-development program
for university students who are considering military careers and wish to
become commissioned officers. Currently, UMBC is a satellite site of
the Johns Hopkins University Army ROTC program, which serves as the host
site. This arrangement makes it necessary for UMBC ROTC cadets to
travel to the Hopkins campus for training and coursework.

Two weeks ago, the United States Army informed us that UMBC has an
opportunity to be considered to become a host site for Army ROTC. This
coming week, we will convene two community meetings to discuss this
opportunity.

If we become an independent ROTC site, our students could complete the
program’s requirements on the UMBC campus. Moreover, gaining host
status would increase the number of scholarships available to our
students. Under our current arrangement with the Hopkins ROTC program,
UMBC students have very limited opportunities for financial support.

We have scheduled two meetings next week for the campus community to
discuss this opportunity. Please join us either next Tuesday, May 13,
at 1:00 p.m. in the University Center, Room 312, or Wednesday, May 14,
at 12:00 noon in The Commons, Room 331.

We look forward to seeing you.

Today’s Baltimore Sun had more:
Faculty and other members of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County community have started circulating an online petition to protest a proposed ROTC unit at the Catonsville campus, which could open this fall.

According to faculty senate President Terrance L. Worchesky, the U.S. Army proposed establishing the ROTC unit during an April 25 meeting of campus leaders. The unit, which would be housed in an unused campus building, would function as a Department of Military Science, said Worchesky, who was present at the meeting.

Campus officials last night confirmed the Army’s proposal and said that responses from student government leaders have been positive, but that campuswide meetings will be held next week to give the entire UMBC community an opportunity to weigh in.

“There has been a desire on the part of students and prospective students, and also the Army, to establish an ROTC program here at UMBC,” said spokeswoman Lisa Akchin.

[…]

About 21 UMBC students participated in the ROTC program this academic year, Akchin said, but did their training at the Johns Hopkins University, which has a permanent unit on the Homewood campus in Charles Village.

“Having a program on this campus would open up a higher …

Baltimore Sun
Anne Pearson gives her collie, Siri, the run of the fenced-in yard. She says she always keeps watch from the window. At night, the dog sleeps in her bedroom.

But in the eyes of Anne Arundel County’s Animal Control, Pearson was a menace to her pet. And they threatened to take the dog away - unless she agreed to buy Siri a doghouse.

[…]

County animal control officials say the law allows them to target animal abusers. Although they went to Pearson’s house three times, they eventually dropped the charges, and now say that her case is a rare example of the law being misapplied.

At the council meeting, they testified against Middlebrooks’ proposed change, which would require a shelter only if the dog is left outside when the owner is not home. The animal control officers said that changing the law will make it harder to determine which dogs are habitually left outside.

[…]

Under state law, an owner has to provide shelter for a dog only if it is necessary, according to Deputy County Attorney David A. Plymyer, who said if a dog were outside on a nice day, it would not be a violation of that law. Anne Arundel, he added, takes the matter a step further, and requires that if a dog is confined outdoors, it must have a shelter.

Anne Arundel officials said that since 2005 they have issued 70 citations, which carry a $50 penalty for a first offense and up to $500 for three violations or more. They added that citations are only issued after several warnings and that officers determine appropriate penalties on a case-by-case basis.

WJZ
There were some scary moments Tuesday morning as an out-of-control car careened past a group of people gathered for a governor’s news conference in Northwest Baltimore.

Suzanne Collins reports the car then sailed across a busy road and crashed into subway tracks.

A crowd gathered on the Northwest Plaza parking lot panicked as a car came racing toward them. The car tore up a bank and flew over Wabash Avenue, ending on the subway tracks. Amazingly, the driver seemed uninjured.

[…]

Hall, 79, will not be charged in the crash. No was hurt in the crash. Officials say a parked car and some fences did receive some damage.

The governor’s news conference did take place on that parking lot, a half hour later than it was scheduled.

WBAL.com
A Baltimore County circuit court judge handed a convicted sex offender what’s believed to be the longest sentence of its kind in the state…ever.

Carlos Cortez of Essex will have to serve consecutive 25 year prison terms on each of 4 counts of sexual abuse the Examiner reports.

Cortez was accused of abusing a girl over several years starting when she was 5.

Judge Patrick Cavanaugh has a reputation for long sentences…having given a former Randallstown High student a 100 year sentence in a school shooting case.