Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2008-01-25 08:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Harford County leaders expressed disappointment that Gov. Martin O’Malley’s legislative agenda did not include more initiatives for dealing with military base realignment expected to bring tens of thousands of new residents to the region.

Although O’Malley touted proposals to fight violent crime, freeze college tuition and improve transit in the Baltimore and Washington suburbs, he limited mention of Base Realignment and Closure to highlighting the work of the BRAC sub-Cabinet led by Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

“I want to see more focus on ground zero for BRAC, and that’s us,” said County Council President Billy Boniface. “The governor’s been very supportive as far as coming to Harford County and helping out with the planning. But when it comes down to it, just show us the money. We know what we have to do, but we need the state to help us with the money.”

O’Malley’s transit initiatives focused mainly on moving forward with the Purple Line expansion of mass transit through the D.C. suburbs and the creation of a new Red Line metro route through Baltimore.

“I didn’t hear anything about expanding MARC rail service to Elkton before 2011,” said Delegate H. Wayne Norman, the newly appointed Republican from District 35A. “These are all white-collar jobs that are coming, and to say they’re all going to live in Harford County is ridiculous. We need to have MARC access to Cecil County and Delaware, and we need to have it before the jobs get here in 2011.

“We don’t want to catch up once the need is here. We want to be ready.”

Delegate B. Dan Riley, a Democrat from District 34A, said he was pleased that the governor wanted to focus on fighting crime and combating gangs, especially when O’Malley said the crime in one neighborhood is the concern of the entire community.

“I like that attitude, especially with having Edgewood in my district,” Riley said. “Now all we have to do is keep his feet to the fire and make sure he follows through,” Riley said.

Edgewood has endured a large share of Harford’s violent crime, including five of the past seven homicides.

Sheriff Jesse Bane said he favored O’Malley’s request to build more facilities for holding juveniles and expanded tracking of young offenders. Harford, Bane said, is running out of options other than releasing juveniles arrested for all but the most serious crimes.

“Unless a kid kills somebody or uses a handgun, we don’t have places we could put them,” Bane said. “It becomes very difficult for us to keep picking up the same kids over and over and over when they’re committing crimes they should be incarcerated for.”

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com