Strange Bedfellows

County and city officials will discuss plans for a controlled deer hunt inside the Loch Raven Reservoir property tonight at 7 p.m. Loch Raven High School.

But for some who attend, the meeting will be a repeat of a briefing given to them by the same officials last week.

About a dozen leaders of communities neighboring Loch Raven Reservoir attended a Aug. 21 briefing on an arrangement between the county and city to allow deer hunting in Loch Raven Reservoir.

The meeting, which was described as “public” by Don Mohler, a county spokesman, was not advertised and the media was not invited even though Patuxent Publishing Co., the publisher of this Web site, specifically requested to attend the meeting once it was scheduled.

“It wasn’t a problem for the press to come, but we didn’t want to advertise it to the public because we thought the leaders of those communities deserved their own briefing,” Mohler said.

“We don’t feel bad about it because we don’t care if a thousand people come on Thursday night,” he added.

All of the attendees of the meeting last week held in the Planning Board meeting room in Towson were invited because their neighborhoods border or are in close proximity to the reservoir and are directly affected by the deer population, Mohler said.

Enid Feinberg, one opponent of the deer hunt that is proposed for the reservoir area this fall, also attended the private briefing according to sign-in sheets provided by the county.

Mohler said the meeting was considered by officials to be a public meeting in the sense that attendees could have brought a limited number of guests and there was an expectation that the media would attend and report on the briefing.

Last month, David Carroll told me the county would hold two meetings. One was expected to be for a select group of community leaders.

“We want to have a nonyelling and nonscreaming meeting to get some facts out there,” Carroll said at the time.

At that time, I inquired about whether or not press would be allowed to attend and made it known that I would want to attend.

Carroll said he wasn’t sure if the meeting was considered open but said he would check and get back to me. That was the last that was said of the meeting.

Carroll, through Mohler, apologized for the oversight.

“Clearly we didn’t care if you or other members of the press attended,” Mohler said.

To be clear, the county did not violate the state’s Open Meetings Act, which requires notification of public meetings. The law requires that meetings of agencies and boards created and appointed by government be open to the public except under specific circumstances.

Since there was no formal board created to handle this issue, the law technically does not apply, according to Mohler, who quoted county attorneys.

Mike Davis is back in the hospital after having to undergo additional surgery to correct a leak in a duct in his new liver.

Davis, a county land-use attorney and former top aide to then County Executive Dutch Ruppersberger, underwent an emergency liver transplant on July 5. He came home later that month.

Ann Davis, Mike’s wife, tells me in an e-mail that her husband was home for about a week before having to go back to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

“There was a leak in one of the connections from old to new duct,” Davis wrote me. “He had to undergo another operation where the doctors basically created a bypass so the liver can drain directly into the intestine. Because of the leak, bile went into Michael’s chest causing not only a lung to collapse and pressure on his heart, but an infection.”

Doctors are continuing to watch the fluid in his chest and monitor for residual infection.

Ann said her husband watched the entire Olympics from his hospital bed.

“Needless to say, Michael is going stir crazy now,” she wrote. “Michael loves the care that he is receiving, but he can’t wait to really get started on recovery at home.”

“He has hit some bumps in the road, but he is improving.”

For weeks county officials have claimed “concrete proof” that employees of a firm collecting signatures for a union seeking binding arbitration with the county weren’t being up front with voters.

Now we know what the proof is — video of two signature collectors explaining the purpose of the petition on a video shot by a county employee.

The Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees hired Democracy Resources, an Oregon-based company, to collect enough signatures of registered county voters in an attempt to get binding arbitration for its members on the November ballot. It was a story first reported in newspapers published by Patuxent Publishing Co., which also operates this Web site. (You can read the two stories here and here.)

A woman who answered the phone at the union’s Towson office this morning said Jim Miller, president of the union local, was in a meeting and unavailable.

Don Mohler, a county spokesman, has repeatedly claimed that collectors were misleading voters by stating the petition would help county teachers even though the union does not represent those employees.

The 2-minute-10-second video was shot by a county employee who accompanied Mohler on a trip to the Towson farmers’ market July 31. The video was released today in response to a request filed under the state Public Information Act.

Mohler, whose county employee badge is clearly visible in the video, is seen talking to two men who identify themselves as collecting signatures for the Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees, a union that represents many county employees, including 911 employees and sheriff’s deputies.

The two signature collectors tell Mohler nearly a half-dozen times that signing will help teachers. When Mohler questions the language of the petition and asks how it will help teachers he is told that it’s “all lawyer jargon.”

The collectors also say binding arbitration would help garbage collectors and “people who drive buses.” In truth, all of the county’s trash and recyclables are collected by nearly 50 private haulers whose employees are not county employees. The county has no municipal bus system. School bus drivers are hired employees of the Baltimore County Public Schools System.

Everyone loves a good conspiracy and apparently there are no shortage of them when it comes to exactly how coyotes have established themselves in Baltimore County and other places in the state.

Stephanie Koenig, a Timonium resident, said she was told one such rumor after a deer fawn was reportedly killed by a coyote in her front yard. (You can read that story here.)

She said a neighbor “mentioned that coyotes are released far off in the county to control the deer population, but they can travel many miles very easily.”

The story struck Koenig as odd, and her instincts are right, says Paul Peditto, director of the state’s Wildlife and Heritage Service.

“Absolutely no truth to the rumor that anyone has relocated coyotes to the region,” Peditto wrote in a e-mail response to my questions. “I’ve heard that we did it in the dark of night; we used unmarked Ryder trucks; we pitched them out of low-altitude aircraft, etc. While it all sounds like a fun project for a wildlife manager, it’s all just bad rumor.”

Peditto wrote that the coyote is both highly adaptive and efficient and “their search for new territory brought them here through time (decades)” from their traditional ranges in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia.

J.B. Jennings is headed to boot camp.

The second-term Republican delegate said he is fulfilling a life-long dream to serve in the military by joining the Maryland Air National Guard. Jennings represents the 7th District, including Cockeysville, part of Perry Hall and Middle River.

“I’ve always wanted to serve my country,” Jennings said. “This was not a spontaneous decision.”

But with Jennings turning 35 next spring, the cutoff age to join, the window of opportunity was closing fast.

Jennings enlisted and then dropped 51 pounds to meet the weight qualifications.

When not serving in the state legislature, Jennings is a cattle farmer. He said he will likely have to give up all but about 10 of his 41 head of cattle, leaving a more manageable herd for his wife, an equine nutritionist, to care for.

He is also a volunteer firefighter at the Jacksonville Volunteer Fire Company and a licensed pilot.

Jennings will begin training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio on Sept. 9. He expects to return in late October.

“I’m not excited about that,” Jennings said, feeling his age. “Most of the kids I’ll be there with are very fast and very in shape and I’m going to be trying to compete with them.”

After training, Jennings said he expects he will serve as a loadmaster on C-130 cargo planes similar to those stationed at the Warfield Air National Guard base in Middle River.

Former-Del. Al Redmer is expected to formally announce his interest in replacing Republican state Sen. Andy Harris should Harris be elected to Congress this November. Redmer confirmed that he plans on making the announcement tonight at a meeting of the Baltimore County Republican Central Committee.

Redmer joins three other Republicans who are also interested in the seat - Dels. J.B. Jennings and Pat McDonough and restauranteur Sergio Vitale.

Harris, who is in his third term the 7th District, is the Republican nominee in Maryland’s District 1 congressional race against Democrat Frank Kratovil.

Two-thirds of the 7th District is in eastern Baltimore County stretching from Cockeysville to parts of Perry Hall and Middle River. The remaining third of the district is contained in an adjoining portion of western Harford County.

Should Harris win, GOP Central Committee members from Baltimore and Harford Counties will be called upon to submit the name of a replacement to Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Redmer previously served from 1991 to 2003 in the House of Delegates, including three years as House minority leader, representing the 8th District which includes Perry Hall, Parkville and Overlea. In 2003 he was appointed state insurance commissioner.

He and his wife now live in a home in Middle River.

Redmer has been informally meeting with Republican Central Committee members in small informal gatherings for some time.

“The reason I’ve been doing it quietly is that I did not want a lot of focus to be on who’s going to replace Andy Harris,” Redmer said in a phone interview. “Quite frankly, I think the focus and attention and work should be on getting Andy Harris elected to Congress.”

But Redmer said he was encouraged to make an appearance at a meeting of the county central committee and make some sort of an official announcement. Such an announcement also allows Redmer to begin to hold fund raising events for a senate campaign.

The ability to raise money now could be key since a replacement senator would likely be named just weeks before the opening of the 2009 General Assembly session and 18-months before the 2010 election. Legislators are legally prohibited from raising money during the session.

It is likely that Harris’ replacement will face a strong challenge from Democrats. Councilman Vince Gardina has nearly $150,000 cash in his campaign account, according to the most recent report filed with the State Board of Elections, and is considered to be a likely Democratic candidate for the seat.

Redmer said he believes he is best suited to keep the seat in Republican hands no matter who the Democratic candidate is “based on my experience, name recognition and ability to raise a competitive amount of money.”

Fronda Cohen and her husband, Richard, will be watching the televised opening of the Olympics in Beijing and reliving a recent trip China.

Cohen, a spokeswoman for the county Office of Economic Development, visited China in May. The trip included a few days in Beijing, where the couple watched workers putting the finishing touches on buildings and other preparations.

Now that she’s home, she keeps in touch with people she met in China via e-mail. Lately, those e-mails have taken on a lobbying bent as she encouraged her new friends to cheer just a little for Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff.

“I made sure they knew the world’s best swimmers are both from my city,” Cohen said.

Cohen, a self-acknowledged “Olympics junkie,” said she’ll be parked on her couch with some friends enjoying Chinese food The Orient, a Towson restaurant, and looking for all of the places she visited.

“I think it’s really going to be like a, ‘Oh, look, we were there’ kind of a thing,” Cohen said. “Kind of like seeing yourself or a friend on TV, seeing it in a way that says I walked on that piece of ground. It’s that familiarity that will be most fun.”

Baltimore County Sheriff R. Jay Fisher wants you to know that August is “knucklehead” month also known as child support enforcement month.

The sheriff and some deputies, along with employees of the county Office of Child Support Enforcement, were manning a booth today at the farmers’ market in Towson armed with photos of the county’s 35 most deadbeat parents. There was also information in the handouts on how to rat the deadbeats out if you know where they are.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Fisher said.

“We’re hoping someone will see these pictures and know where we can find some of these knuckleheads,” Fisher said.

Fisher and his crew will be staffing the booth at the farmers’ market every Thursday for the rest August.

The list, including the photos and directions on contacting Fisher’s office, is available online here.

James O’Neill isn’t hung up on titles, but you might want to watch what you say around the mother of the man who runs the county’s detention center.

“Why can’t we call you warden?” asked Council Chairman Kevin Kamenetz, as O’Neill came up to testify on a bill at the Aug. 4 meeting.

“You can, but my mom doesn’t like it,” O’Neill replied. “As long as you do it without my mom around, you’re OK.”

“So what do they call you in the ‘big house’?” Kamenetz asked.

“Mr. O’Neill,” deadpanned the detention center director (hey, his mom might be reading this).

This is too good not to mention.

Our friends at The Gazette of Politics and Business down in Montgomery County have a fun story about the 10 most politically powerful people (as well as 10 also-rans) in the state.

Sure enough, one County Executive Jim Smith is on that list. And the defining quote is well worth the read:

‘‘He has God-like popularity,” Potomac Inc. pollster G. Keith Haller said.  ‘‘He probably has the best relationship with the existing governor and tends to be more of a moderate conservative.”

We must have missed that presser where Smith fed the masses with a fish and a loaf of bread.

So, is Jim Smith (like John Lennon’s Beatles) more popular that Jesus Christ?

Don Mohler, a spokesman for Smith, laughed and gently deflected the question.

“As the product of a Jesuit education, the county executive is very uncomfortable with being compared to the deity,” Mohler said.