My Contribution to the City

Back in May I got nailed by a speed camera on Caton Avenue in the city. I was cited for doing 43 mph in a 30 mph zone. This particular location defines the classic speed trap. I was nabbed as I came off the ramp from I-95, headed downhill.

I seriously considered going to court to fight this. At the very least I figured I could get a good story out of the experience.

Then again, it was only forty bucks. For forty bucks I really couldn’t justify spending the time fighting city hall.

I suspect that is figured into the equation when the city sets the amount of the fine. It seems to be working out quite well for them too. According to this story by Luke Broadwater in The Sun, Baltimore raked in “$20 million in revenue from speed cameras over the past year — a higher-than-expected figure that is sparking debate over the accuracy of the city's budget projections and whether the camera program is more a cash cow than a safety measure.”

Ya think!

Tell me again that this isn’t about the money…

HoCo Open Mike Night

I attended the county execs Public Forum at the Robinson Nature Center last night. I figured it would be a good opportunity to find out what was on the minds of the HoCo locos. Ken had key department heads, including the police and fire chiefs, on hand to address specific areas of residents concern.

So what are those areas of concerns?

I arrived a little late but from what I heard they included a wide range of issues including speed cams, growth in North Laurel, a high school for Elkridge, the shooting in Aurora, Colorado and defense spending.

It seems that no topic was considered too big for our exec.

Ken let Bill McMahon speak about the shooting. Bill lauded the response of the Aurora police and rescue units, pointing out that the police were on the scene within ninety seconds. Granted that was fast but for the people in that theatre, those ninety seconds probably seemed like an eternity.

Folks from the High Ridge community in Scaggsville turned out in force to implore the exec to slow down the development occurring in their community. They pointed out that new home developments are twice as dense as the developments built in the nineties. One resident even suggested that the addition of townhome projects has led to increased crime. All I could think of was “Welcome to Smart Growth.”

 Ken expressed concern and said that “he wants to look at this more.”

Marc Norman got a turn with the mike. After complementing the exec on his stewardship of the county and the broadband initiative, he proceeded to complain about how a certain unnamed county employee seemed to take pleasure in stymieing his attempts to get information, specifically about the activities of his nemesis, the Mangione family. I got the sense that Ken found Marc’s diatribe rather tiresome. I snapped the following pictures as Marc unwound his dark conspiracy theories for the exec.

Howard Johnson, representing the Greater Elkridge Community Association, followed Marc. He thanked the exec for his help in keeping the intermodal terminal out of Hanover and then proceeded to make the case for more county projects, including a high school and a traffic light at US Route 1 and Ducketts Lane. Ken reminded everyone that the county recently purchased Belmont in Elkridge and that construction of the first phase of Troy Hill Park in Elkridge is slated to begin this September.

The last speaker of the evening was Ken Schafer, a resident of Turf Valley Overlook in Ellicott City. Mr. Schafer wants the county to place speed bumps in his community but was told that a neighbor “who is well connected in the county” would block any attempts to get them.

Ken told Ken that “nobody is well connected” in HoCo.

That got a laugh.

Local Angle

This morning, as I was driving through Ellicott City, I stopped to take a picture of the church where yesterdays shooting occurred. I wasn't the only one either. There were camera vans and reporters from WJLA and WUSA on the scene as well.

John Gonzalez, the Channel 7 reporter, approached me and asked if I was affiliated with the church. At that point I became acutely aware of the fact that I was wearing black jeans and a black polo shirt. I must have looked like a preacher. I quickly dispelled that notion. “I’m just a local blogger,” I told him.

 At this point John mentioned to me that he actually lives in Columbia. He commented that it was nice to able to pull an assignment this close to home. I suspect that it a relatively rare occurrence for a DC reporter.

Speed Cam Scofflaws

Somebody torched a speed cam in Catonsville this week. I’ll get back to that in a moment. First there’s the other speed cam news this week about how police cars, including HoCo police cars, have been cited 23 times by their own speed cameras. According to this story by Brandie Jefferson in Ellicott City Patch, “ they pay the $40 fine, just like civilians.”

“Citations have also been issued to school and MTA buses, Speed Camera Program Administrator Fred Von Briesen said at Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Howard County Police Citizens Advisory Council (CAC).”

That’s just beautiful.

We also learned that the top speed violation was 82 in a 40 mph zone, that there have been 455 repeat offenders in the first six months, and that only 12 tickets have been contested of which only two were dismissed.

Some rebels are taking matters into their own hands. In a bold demonstration of worthy of a sixties protest, someone lit fire to a speed cam box in Catonsville early Friday morning. According to this story by Brian Conlin in Explore Baltimore County, police are calling it a “first-degree malicious burning…”

You think?

“Police have no suspects and the fire remains under investigation, the release stated.”

I’ll bet it happens again.

In the meantime Washington Post columnist Gene Wiengarten also shares a story this week about how he beat the odds in speed cam court without having to lie. He wrestles with the moral dilemma of the admitting his guilt versus the “inherent unfairness of a system that places the word of a soulless machine over that of a human.”

Then an attorney told him it wasn’t about admitting guilt. The law is about “whether there is ample evidence to convict you.”

He was advised to at least appear to have built a case that would take hours for a hearing examiner to endure.

 “So there I was, at Traffic Adjudication Court with a stack of 8-by-10 glossies and a file as thick as my thigh filled with old newspapers. The hearing examiner looked at it, and me, and my photo, which he said was too blurry, dismissing the case before I had issued even a syllable of fictoid.”

NOTE: Although I linked to the Explore Baltimore County story about the speed cam vandalism, the story in Columbia Patch had the better picture of the damaged box.

Snatching Smartphones

Smartphone theft has risen dramatically over the past few years. Last year, in DC alone, thefts of smartphones, iPods and tablets accounted for forty percent of the 500 reported robberies. According to this story by Clarence Williams and Cecilia Kang in The Washington Post, “police in the Washington area and elsewhere are expressing their frustration in plain terms, publicly asking regulators and wireless-network operators to allow stolen devices to be shut down remotely through unique identification numbers within them.”

Some products already have this feature but the wireless carriers industry group questions its effectiveness.

“This isn’t the solution, because when you look at other countries that have tried this, it doesn’t work,” said Amy Storey, spokeswoman for CTIA, the national wireless trade group.”

It appears that the best way to hold on to these devices is to be vigilant. In other words, it’s probably not a good idea to pass out in a Metro station with an iPhone in your hand.

Cool Feature

One of the first things I noticed about the iPad is that it doesn't come with an instruction book. Not that any self respecting guy ever actually reads an instruction book but the presence of one is always a bit reassuring, you know, just in case.

To be fair, Apple does allow me to visit their website and download instructions but the underlying message is pretty clear, you don’t need it. The little card that comes with the tablet tells you how to turn it on. After that you’re on your own.

Consequently, this weekend I’ve spent some quality time getting to know my new iPad and I’ve discovered things about it that I didn’t know before.

Like the “Find My iPad” feature for instance that allows me to locate the device on a map, lock it, display a message, play a sound, or remotely wipe out the data.

The new iPhones have this too and it really works. According to this story by C. J. Hughes in The New York Times, this feature proved to be “quite useful in helping police officers track down a robber on Thursday in Manhattan.”

The robber had stolen an iPhone.

“Punching in the victim’s Apple ID, which is the log-on people use to buy, say, songs from iTunes, he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.”

The thief was apprehended and the phone returned to its owner in less than an hour.

Pretty cool.

I Spy

Going through Costco earlier this week I stopped at this display for a home security camera system. It wasn’t the first time I have seen one of these systems but it was the first time I actually could imagine buying one. Up until this point I pretty much thought of these things as overkill for the seriously paranoid.

My perception of this technology began to change when I read the story about the “preppy burglar” in September of 2010. A home security camera system caught the preppy perp on tape and he was arrested and charged within weeks along with some of the stolen loot.

Earlier this year, a late night mailbox mauler was wreaking havoc on curbside mailboxes in our community. People were waking in the morning finding their mailboxes trashed and tire marks on the lawn. This continued unchecked and unsolved until he hit a home rigged with cameras. In short order the mailbox mauler was nabbed and charged.

Last month, certain neighborhoods throughout HoCo were plagued by daylight thieves stealing UPS boxes off of front porches. Eventually, the thieves hit a home with the cameras and now the police have a better idea of who they are looking for.

Last year, my neighbor was broken into. Though it appears his home was targeted, it was still a little too close for comfort. I don’t think they’ve caught his crooks yet.  In October there was even an armed robbery just down the street. And this is supposedly a nice neighborhood!

What intrigues me is the very proliferation of these relatively low cost systems may in and of itself, deter more property crimes like these.

Put another way, if someone ever breaks into my home, a five hundred buck camera system would seem a very small price to pay to get a good look at the jerk who did it.

Who’s Watching You

During our podcast with the HoCo Chief of Police last Friday we talked a bit about the increasing role of cameras and license plate readers in law enforcement. Paul asked Bill about how the department balances privacy concerns with public safety since these cameras actually store the images they capture for a period of time.

That period of time varies by jurisdiction too. According to this story by Allison Klein and Josh White in The Washington Post the collected data is kept for “three years in the District, two years in Alexandria, a year in Prince George’s County and a Maryland state database, and about a month in many other suburban areas.”

As I wrote in this post back in September, the HoCo police have had cruisers equipped with license plate readers for awhile now but they also have cameras mounted at key intersections as well, watching us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Law enforcement sees these cameras and readers as a valuable tool.

“Having the technology during the Washington area sniper shootings in 2002 might have stopped the attacks sooner, detectives said, because police could have checked whether any particular car was showing up at each of the shooting sites.”

Civil libertariansof course, are concerned.

“That’s quite a large database of innocent people’s comings and goings,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program. “The government has no business collecting that kind of information on people without a warrant.”

Then again, maybe not.

“Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who has been closely watching the Supreme Court case, said the license plate technology probably would pass constitutional muster because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on public streets.”

There is some good news for HoCo locos though. In September I ended the post by saying that I’d be sure to pay all my parking tickets on time from now on. It turns out that, as far as the HoCo loco police, I needn’t worry about that. Bill told us that they are not using the license plate readers for that…yet.

On the other hand, an unpaid parking ticket in HoCo could soon bring you another kind of grief.

Top Cop

When the Chief of Police agreed to come on our show I was prepared for a rather dull interchange with a lot of “Yes sirs” and “No sirs.” Obviously, I didn’t know Bill McMahon. Our HoCo top cop is a very engaging guy who gives as good as he gets in an interview. It was an unexpectedly fun show.

His appearance was pretty timely too given the police shooting last week of Jeffrey Nichols in Elkridge, the school bus incident in North Laurel and the expiration of the new speed camera warning period this week. We also got a chance to hear Bills thoughts on police technology, local police priorities and what is like to come to come up through the ranks to the top job in HoCo.

It was also a loaded news week. We talked about the controversy over the pilot program for women only swim times at the Columbia Swim Center, the MDOT / CSX public workshop for the proposed intermodal terminal, school redistricting and the charter review commission. Paul also talked about an article in the Baltimore Business Journal that found Ellicott City and Columbia to be among the top 25 of smartest communities in the U.S.

We also debuted a new feature we call our “Rants.” This is a short segment at the end of the show where each us shares something that we want to rant about. Paul focused on a new requirement for Small Business Administration loans for borrowers to certify that they have never been convicted of or pleaded no contest to sexual molestation of a minor while I ranted about the desecration of the Thanksgiving holiday by some major retailers.

You can listen to the latest episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Goosebumps for Math

Thirty some years ago, UMBC was often derided as a second rate college. Some wags said the initials stood for U Must Be Crazy and that the Catonsville campus was the school you ended up going to if you couldn't get into anywhere else.

That all started to change in 1992 when Freeman Hrabowski became president. Today, UMBC is a honors university that ranks right up there with Loyola University in terms of admission requirements. The academic elevation of UMBC is largely credited to President Hrabowski, a guy who says he gets “goosebumps from math.”

Last night he was featured on 60 Minutes.

It was big night on 60 minutes for the Baltimore area. Frederick Bealefeld, the Baltimore City Police Commissioner, was prominently featured in this report about the use of tasers.

Talk about goosebumps!

HoCo Schools Duped in Ravens Scam

A firm headed by an ex con duped at least three HoCo schools into paying for an appearance by a Ravens players at school assemblies. The problem was the players knew nothing about it. According to this story by Joe Burris in The Sun, while the HoCo schools and several other schools in the metro area paid the Odyssey Group, headed by Joseph Gill “thousands of dollars, it did not provide the players as promised and hasn't refunded the money.”

“In 2006, Gill was charged in Maryland with violating the terms of his release from federal prison in Cumberland. He had been convicted of bank and wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Vermont in 1998.”

Not surprisingly, the Ravens aren't too happy about this either.

“Patrick Gleason, Ravens media relations manager, said, "The Ravens do not have any affiliation with this company whatsoever," and added that any type of community appearance that involves players goes through the team's community relations department.”

This isn’t the first time Mr. Gill has been involved in this type of scam either. According to this story by Mary McGuirt in Severna Park Patch, in 2007 he ran a similar scam with Steelers players where “he booked athlete appearances at schools, didn't deliver, and made off with the money.”

“In 2007, a reporter from WPXI—a Pittsburgh-based news station—spoke with the PTA president of a school in the Bethlehem Center School District in Pennsylvania who said she couldn’t reach Gill after he booked former Pittsburgh Steeler John Banaszak to appear at the school and the player never showed up.”

As far as I’m concerned there is a special place in hell for people who scam kids. Mr. Gill has obviously not rehabilitated himself.

Calculating While Driving

Last night, as I was driving home, I was thinking about the economics of a particular deal that I’ve been working on. When I pulled up to a traffic light I pulled out my phone and launched the calculator app to run a couple numbers.

As I sat there at the light it suddenly occurred to me that what I was doing could just as easily be construed by an observer as texting. That of course would be illegal but I wasn’t so sure if calculating while driving was covered under this law.

Years ago, when I was living in New Jersey, my ex-wife worked for a check authorization company. Every day she drove all over northern New Jersey and into New York City visiting her retail clients. She was a pretty scary person behind the wheel. It was not uncommon for her to be drinking her coffee, doing her nails and writing letters as she navigated some of the most congested highways in the country.

The thing is, under Maryland law, what she was doing wasn’t necessarily illegal either. Sure, if she had crashed into someone it's likely she’d have been found violating some statute or other but I used to joke that the accidents were always behind her. Her actions may have caused an accident or two but she would have been blissfully unaware of it as she rolled down the road multitasking.

Armed Robbery in the Hood

Much of what I know is anecdotal, second party information. The morning after an armed robbery five doors away, the neighborhood was buzzing. I haven't been able to get the official report because apparently the HoCo police don't publish "daily" crime bulletins on weekends.

The incident in question occurred around midnight Friday. According to Peter, my neighborhood watch captain, a couple was accosted by armed men in their driveway as they arrived home. They had allegedly come directly from their store somewhere in Prince Georges county and had the days cash receipts with them. This was information the gunmen likely knew.

It would be hard to characterize my neighborhood as a high crime area. There are occasional reports of break-ins but in the six years or so of the neighborhoods existence, this is the first time I’ve heard of a weapon being leveled at a neighbor in the commission of a crime.

Even more unsettling is that the perpetrators reportedly fled on foot to a getaway car parked two blocks away. That means they likely ran past my house as they fled. Mama Wordbones and I gone to dinner in Catonsville on Friday night and arrived back got home around ten thirty. I don’t recall seeing anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it was sometime after midnight that I even bothered to close the garage door.

That’s what really strikes me about this incident. Our neighborhood of single family homes is the very picture of suburban tranquility. The street where the victims live is a cul-de-sac.  There are street lights at regular intervals. The closest thru road is two blocks away where the reported getaway car sat. Even on a weekend night, the streets are fairly quiet. Up until Friday I thought nothing of my daughter walking alone from my house to her friends house on the street where the armed attack occurred.

Money wasn't the only thing stolen Friday night.

Texting While Driving Fix

When Jim Robey’s bill banning texting while driving became law three years ago it had one major flaw. A driver could only be cited as a secondary offense meaning that the police had to have another primary reason for puling over a texting offender.

That has now been fixed.  As of tomorrow, texting while driving will become a primary offense in Maryland. According to this story by Ashley Halsey III in The Washington Post, “those caught texting can be fined $70 and receive one point toward suspension of a driver’s license. But if the action is judged to have caused an accident, the fine increases to $110 and the number of points to three.”

There is still a loophole however.

“Drivers who are using the Global Positioning System function in their mobile devices or who are sending a text message to the emergency 911 system are exempted from prosecution.”

I understand the 911 exemption but I’m not so sure I get the GPS exemption. 

How to Beat a Speed Cam Ticket

With the impending arrival of speed cameras in HoCo, I found Gene Weingartens column in The Washington Post Magazine this week to be especially poignant. Gene is no fan of speed cameras.

“I dislike speed cameras to the extent that, were it not for the likelihood of incarceration, I would hunt them all down like snakes and behead them with shovels.”

After accompanying a reader to hearing to protest a speed camera ticket, Gene discovered a way  how to beat the supposedly infallible system. The accused did not deny that he was driving the car nor the fact that he may have been speeding. His defense instead rested on the fallibility of bureaucracy.

“… unlike the other defendants in the room, John has a thick dossier in front of him. It contains records of his attempts, online, to subpoena from the D.C. police arcane documents tangentially related to his case — including a year’s worth of maintenance records on the radar machine that nailed him, a copy of the contract between the city and the company that services the radar, including “all attachments and exhibits thereto,” etc. It’s all nuts, but it’s also his legal right to see this stuff. And the city never responded to his requests.”

Case dismissed.

Technology Redlining in Retail

When Giant introduced the self service “Scan It” program a little over two years ago I took to it like a duck to water. Prior to this technological advancement in grocery shopping Giant was not one of my preferred grocery stores.

Now I seek them out. 

This past weekend, when I happened to drop by one their other HoCo stores instead of my regular store, I learned that not all Giants are techno friendly . I immediately looked around for the Scan It terminal after walking in the door.

“We don’t have them here,” a manager informed me after asking what I was looking for. He went on to explain that because of the high incidence of theft in that particular store, they were unlikely to get them anytime in the future either.

Though the Scan It system does include random audits, it is largely dependent on shoppers being honest about what they put in their bags. Apparently that doesn't work well across the board.

It appears we now have technology redlining in retail. 

Every Day is Earth Day

When your job is Director of the Office Environmental Sustainability, every day is Earth Day. For the rest of us on the other hand, April is generally the month we celebrate Earth Day. In recognition of this, we invited Josh Feldmark to come on the podcast and to tell us what his office is all about besides giving away free trees.

He really wanted to talk about wine though. Unfortunately for him, Paul and decided to hold off on a discussion about HoCo wineries, for now at least. That may be a better topic for May.

Anyway, the very nature of his job means that Josh has his hands in many pots in HoCo government. Even the problem of deer overpopulation falls somewhat within his purview. I told him that the deer in my neighborhood had taken a liking to the dogwood tree we got from the county last year.

Paul even asked his opinion on the proposed CSX Intermodal terminal in HoCo. Alas, that is not within his area of influence.

In addition to the intermodal controversy, the news stories we recapped were the recent HoCo loco politico fundraisers for Ken, Courtney and Calvin, the recent jewelry heist at The Mall, and Belmont.

Paul also pointed out that HoCo may be the worst place to attempt suicide by self immolation.

You can listen to the latest podcast of “and then there’s that…” here.

Mall Bandits Nabbed

Three men have been arrested in connection with the armed robbery of Edward Arthur Jewelers in The Mall last week. According to this story by Peter Hermann in The Sun, HoCo police “have charged three men for an armed robbery at a jewelry store last week, thanks to a tip from a citizen.”

The tipster has a reward coming too. For that person at least, crime does pay.

Hot Mail in Hanover

Watching the CBS Evening News tonight I was surprised to see Hanover, Maryland in the middle of national story. It seems that some wacko mailed letters to the Maryland Department of Transportation in Hanover and to the Governor in Annapolis that contained a small explosive device…a very small explosive device.

Hanover is just across the HoCo line near Elkridge.

According to this story by Nicole Fuller, Annie Linskey and Nick Madigan in The Sun, “One package was addressed to O'Malley and the other to MDOT Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley.”

“The note that accompanied the Annapolis package read: "Report suspicious activity. Total [expletive]. You have created your own self-fulfilling prophecy," according to source familiar with the investigation.


The source said the wording on the note, along with the fact that a package also was sent to transportation, leads investigators to question whether the suspect is talking about the overhead highway signs urging motorists to report terrorism tips.”

Of course wackos little stunt resulted in the deployment of every piece of available emergency equipment in Anne Arundel County as well as Homeland Security for what turned out to be nothing more than some sort of  flash powder.

“Certified explosive specialists from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded to both locations and "are assisting right now," said ATF Special Agent Clare Webber.


Officials did not offer a motive but the state police Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership with the FBI, has joined the state police and the state fire marshal in the investigation.”

I won't be surprised if the next thing we hear about is the need to spend millions to fortify the mailrooms in every state building.

Officials would be wise to consider that it is impossible to make anything fool-proof because fools are so ingenious.

Most Read Stories

I don’t think anyone would argue that Explore Howard is the most widely read HoCo loco news media. That’s what makes their list of the top ten stories of 2010 all the more interesting. In this story by Charles Schelle in the Columbia Flier we get a glimpse of what HoCo locos have really been paying attention to.

Is it Columbia Town Center redevelopment?

Not in the top ten.

Is it anything about Liz Bobo?

Not in the top ten.

Okay then, how about the HoCo elections in general; surely this was big news in 2010?

Nope, not in the top ten either.

It turns out that true crime stories is what HoCo locos really like. Number one is the story of a mother-son murder suicide in Hickory Ridge. Number two was the story of the assault of a female jogger in Jessup.

At least seven out eight of the top time were related to crime in HoCo. A notable exception was number eight, the story of the passing of Ken Hovet, longtime HoCo teacher and coach. 

The open question is whether the tenth most popular story actually qualifies as a crime story...yet