One recent evening at Ed's Canal Pub in downtown Cumberland, Md., Bud Decker plunked down $1 each for five wallet-size cards emblazoned with the logo "Crazy 13." In the dim light from behind the bar, he opened the colorful perforated flaps, peering at the numbers beneath. Then, jackpot: He won $100.
 
 "Not bad, but that's it for me," said Decker, 41, of Martinsburg, W.Va., who buys, repairs and resells foreclosed houses in Western Maryland. "If you think of it as more than entertainment, you're going to lose."
 
 Allegany County officials would disagree. In October, the financially strapped county approved a plan to legalize paper, or "tip jar," gambling in taverns and liquor stores. The licensing fees and proceeds, under the plan, would help pay for firefighting equipment and school buildings and supplies.
 
 But as with the prison jobs, the half-realized tourism hopes and the bid for racetrack slot machines, some viewed Allegany's paper gaming gambit as another desperate bid for cash. Then, jackpot: In the two weeks after the games went legit in Allegany, the county raked in about $50,000. County officials project $500,000 in total revenue for this fiscal year.
 
 That kind of money makes the games tougher to oppose, especially in a county where grade schools hold bake sales to buy copier toner. "I hope paper gaming is successful here," said Ed's Canal Pub owner Edward C. Hedrick Jr., who is also a Cumberland City Council member. "It's an added benefit for the bar, and the money stays in this county."
 
 Last spring, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation authorizing the Allegany County Board of License Commissioners to establish procedures allowing liquor retailers to sell paper gaming cards. The law, which took effect in mid-November, requires such for-profit retail establishments as bars, restaurants and liquor stores to pay 40 percent of their income from the games, minus the cost of the materials, into a special gaming fund.
 
 Qualified charitable, fraternal, civic, religious and veterans groups, as well as fire and rescue companies -- all of which were allowed to sell paper gaming products before the new law -- are now required to pay 10 percent of their gross profits into the fund.
 
 Each year, the fund must contribute at least 25 percent of what it collects, after expenses, to Allegany County fire and rescue companies and the balance to county schools for new buildings and supplies. The money is not designated for operating costs, which are covered by the county budget.
 
 "It's going to be a real plus for us," said Allegany School Superintendent William J. AuMiller. "If we can get some benefit, we're very appreciative."
 
 Tip-jar and punch-card games have been popular -- and profitable -- in Western Maryland for three decades, but for most of that time, legal sales have been confined to charitable and service organizations, a restriction that was widely flouted. The new law allows Allegany's licensed retail liquor vendors to sell the cards for the first time. In liquor stores, the cards are often dispensed from vending machines. In bars and restaurants, they are sold from small boxes or gallon jars.
 
 To play the games, which go by such names as King Crab, Sweetie Pies, and Cops and Robbers, players scratch or pull off tabs on the cards to reveal numbers or slot-machine-style displays. The right combination of numbers or pictures yields a payoff, usually $5 to $100.
 
 In neighboring Washington County, where the games are legal for both charitable groups and retail liquor vendors, they contribute millions of dollars to county coffers each year. Washington County moved to regulate and tax the games in the mid-1990s, after documentation requirements showed that charitable organizations -- the only legal paper gambling operators at the time -- were logging wagering profits of about $12 million a year.
 
 Allegany's new rules aim to put paper gaming profits on its books. Until a crackdown in late 2000, video poker machines and paper gaming were Allegany's chief illegal gambling enterprises. Retail establishments, usually bars, sold the cards on the sly and even when caught red-handed, were seldom prosecuted. In an incident in late 2000, for example, police seized $1,000 and tip-jar supplies from a Cumberland bowling alley and bar, but prosecutors elected not to pursue the case.
 
 Charitable organizations, which prior to the new law were not taxed on their gaming profits, were criticized for donating paltry sums to charitable causes while using the proceeds to lower food prices, finance new facilities or sponsor member events. When county prosecutors followed their campaign against video poker with a crackdown on paper-gaming violators, some bars and restaurants, smarting at the loss of business, began pressing for legally sanctioned paper gaming.
 
 Now, some nonprofit clubs complain that the new law extending paper gaming to retail competitors has reduced their earnings. In the Golden Antler Room at Elks Lodge No. 63 in Cumberland, bartender Ben Rhodes said he sells about two cards a month.
 
  "But maybe that's because we're all old people here," Rhodes said. "When the average age is 68, nobody gambles much."
 
 Hedrick, who has owned his bar for a year, said tip-jar abuses were so widespread among local taverns that some now complain that the new tax makes operating the games not worth it. With the new law, "I think the accountability factor is paramount," said Hedrick, 53. "Now the gaming commission knows exactly what someone makes."
 
 Hedrick said that on a packet of 400 one-dollar cards, he nets a profit of about $46, after the tax, payouts and cost of the cards. He said the gaming commission sends two former police officers to inspect the county's 60-odd new retail license-holders, checking payout records and comparing the number and types of cards sold with records of those purchased.
 
 Hedrick compares the cards to cigarette sales: not exceptionally profitable but an important amenity. He said that while tip-jar gambling got off to a slow start in his bar, he hopes to earn about $1,200 by year's end. He plans to use the money to offer health insurance to his four employees.
 
 That plan pleased Decker, the $100 jackpot winner. "There you go," he said, settling his tab and laying an extra dollar on the bar. "I feel like I contributed to a good cause."
 
 ------------------
 
 © 2003 The Washington Post Company
 

Sunday, November 30, 2003; Page B06 Editorial
  
  
  SURPRISE, SURPRISE: Some members of the Maryland legislative committee studying gambling issues were "visibly startled," The Post's Craig Whitlock reported, when the chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority appointed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) proposed a big, fat horse racing and gambling emporium for Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Did they really believe that Maryland could open the door to slot machines at racetracks and not be pressed to accept full-fledged casinos?
  
  
  At the rate that gambling sites are now being proposed, the racing industry could be left in the dust by a rush to pock the landscape with parlors and palaces offering everything from slots to dice to cards and roulette wheels. The Stadium Authority chairman, Carl A.J. Wright, a close political ally of Mr. Ehrlich, said the new supertrack in the harbor could host the Preakness and house thousands of slot machines and video-lottery terminals.
  
  The Baltimore proposal is not the only one targeting a harbor. U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.) is among the leading supporters of a Las Vegas-style casino resort at the planned National Harbor development in Prince George's County. Developer Milton V. Peterson swore two years ago that he would never promote gambling. But in September, representatives for his project told this same legislative study committee that they had no opinion "one way or another."
  
  The string of lawmakers and others who have said they oppose casinos and then turned the tables includes many longtime GOP members of the legislature who discovered the virtues of expanded gambling only after Mr. Ehrlich made slots his top legislative pursuit. The governor himself said earlier this year that he opposed casinos; now a spokesman says Mr. Ehrlich is willing to consider the Baltimore proposal. Mr. Wright has said he discussed the idea with the governor's advisers and received a go-ahead to float the idea in public.
  
  House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) was the stalwart, successful leader of legislative maneuvers that blocked passage of a slots bill in the last session But now he, too, has changed his tune, saying that publicly owned and operated slots facilities merit study.
  
  Last year Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) told members of the county's legislative delegation to Annapolis to "vote their conscience" on slot machines. But now, as reported by The Post's Ovetta Wiggins, he is saying vote yes if the price is right. In Western Maryland, William Rickman Jr., who earned a fortune from slots at his family's racetrack in Delaware, bought a large tract in Allegany County with his family. At the time, he said "this is not an exercise to bring slot machines to Maryland." Several weeks ago he gave the study committee members a tour of the land and pitched a proposal to put 1,000 slots there, as well as at a racetrack he owns near Ocean City. Some lawmakers said a better spot for gambling in that region would be Rocky Gap, a resort built by the state about 15 miles west of Mr. Rickman's racetrack site. And who was among those saying that Rocky Gap could use the business from slots? Mr. Busch.
  
  Pious protestations by Maryland's politicians are fast giving way to the pitches of the heavy rollers. The gambling industry's grip on the pols is already getting tight -- and if the legislature caves to their demands this year, it will be only the beginning.
  
  
  
  
   
  © 2003 The Washington Post Company

 Originally published November 14, 2003
 
 
 Although slot machines would generate tens of millions of dollars for state government, they carry heavy social costs that far outweigh the benefits, an academic expert who studies gambling told Maryland lawmakers yesterday.
 
 "It's not even a close call," said Earl L. Grinols, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
 
 Grinols and Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., a staunch gambling foe, appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee to offer their views on the impact of legalizing slots.
 
 Grinols told lawmakers that allowing thousands of slot machines at horse racing tracks is no different from creating casinos. And, he said, they create the same kinds of problems and costs to society.
 
 Those problems include an increase in robbery, embezzlement, fraud and other crimes, he said, and social ills such as lost productivity in the workplace, bankruptcy filings and gambling-related suicides.
 
 Grinols, whose research findings have been criticized by the gambling industry, said the state can expect $3 in costs for each $1 in benefits.
 
 He also said slots are the "most addictive and most problematic form of gambling," far more than the lottery or horse racing.
 
 "You can't easily lose $30,000 on the lottery in a night, but you can on a slot machine," Grinols said.
 
 Several Ways and Means Committee members questioned Grinols closely about his research.
 
 Del. David G. Boschert, an Anne Arundel County Republican and a slots supporter, said prohibition doesn't work.
 
 "I just feel people are going to do what they want to do if they want to do it," he said.
 
 He and other committee members said Marylanders who want to gamble can cross the state's borders to gamble where slots are legal.
 
 Grinols said that bringing slots closer to Maryland population centers would create many more pathological gamblers in the state because they would be able to make daily trips to nearby slots parlors instead of occasional trips on weekends.
 
 He said a racetrack casino or slots emporium can be expected to draw the vast majority of its patrons from a 35-mile radius.
 
 Grinols said casinos rely on pathological gamblers for 30 percent to 50 percent of their revenues. The cost that each such gambler imposes on society is conservatively estimated at $10,300 a year, he said.
 
 Del. Jean B. Cryor, a Montgomery County Republican, told Grinols that his research seemed to illustrate basic "human frailty." She said people are just as likely to embezzle money "to buy furs, jewels, whatever" or for some other purposes as they are to steal money to gamble, and that some people also abuse prescription drugs.
 
 "What we're not looking at is what this [slots] revenue will do," Cryor said. "We've come a long way from talking about education funding."
 
 Curran said legislators can't look at revenue from slots without also considering costs.
 
 "Clearly, there are downsides, and to suggest there are not is wrong," he told the legislative panel.
 
 Curran also warned that legalizing slots in whatever limited form inevitably leads to proliferation, much as the lottery grew from a single weekly drawing to daily games, instant tickets and Keno drawings every four minutes.
 
 Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun

Thursday, November 6, 2003
 
 Local News
 
 
 
 CUMBERLAND, Md. -- Legislation authorizing slot machines in Maryland should include slots at all the state's horse-racing tracks and require local government approval, racetrack owner William J. Rickman Jr. told state lawmakers Wednesday.
 
 Rickman also said he would cancel his proposed western Maryland racetrack if slots legislation doesn't give him a monopoly on slots in that area.
 
 Rickman's family owns Ocean Downs in Berlin and is developing a racetrack in Allegany County, near the small rural community of Little Orleans. He spoke to members of the House Ways and Means Committee visiting the Allegany racetrack site Wednesday morning.
 
 On Wed-nesday afternoon, the panel held a public hearing on slots in Cumberland. It was the fifth of six such sessions around the state.
 
 Committee Chairwoman Sheila E. Hixson said the panel hasn't decided whether to propose slots legislation, despite a report in The Sun that the broad outline of a compromise deal is emerging. Hixson said the committee would make its decision in December.
 
 Rickman, of Potomac, Md., said allowing slots at all six Maryland racetracks would ensure competitive purses across the board. "The horsemen can't survive, the tracks can't survive, not being included," he said.
 
 That conflicts with the position of House Speaker Michael E. Busch, who told The Sun he remains firmly opposed giving any track owner more than one slots license. "I don't think you want to give a monopoly for one individual to control the marketplace," Busch said.
 
 The Sun reported that an emerging compromise would allow slots, but no casino-type table games, at a handful of racetracks and other sites.
 
 Rickman said his western Maryland track can't succeed if slots are allowed elsewhere in the area, such as the nearby Rocky Gap golf resort, a possibility Busch has raised.
 
 "If slots come to this area without coming to this track, it cannot be built," Rickman said.
 
 He told reporters that if he gets slots approval for just one track, "you'd have to get rid of one of them. I'd do one and someone else would do the other."
 
 Rickman said slots legislation should include a provision requiring approval by the local government, but not by voters in a referendum. "You end up with neighbor against neighbor," he said.
 
 
 Originally published Thursday, November 6, 2003
 
 
 
 
 Copyright ©2003 DelmarvaNow. All rights reserved.
 
 

Originally published November 5, 2003
 
 
 The Maryland Racing Commission rejected yesterday an effort by an Indiana-based company to draw it into a dispute over Rosecroft Raceway, saying the company's complaint amounted to an attempt to "artificially extend" its deadline to buy the track.
 
 Centaur Inc. had asked the commission to settle a dispute among Maryland track owners related to the distribution of wagering revenue, arguing that the dispute was keeping it from completing its purchase of Rosecroft from Cloverleaf Enterprises Inc. Centaur officials say the dispute was sufficient grounds to automatically extend the Nov. 1 deadline in the deal.
 
 Cloverleaf has said it views the deal as dead, and that it has the right to pursue other suitors for the Prince George's County harness track, which is seen as a prime location for slot machines should they become legal.
 
 David Dawson, a spokesman for Centaur, said the company is disappointed with the ruling but intends to pursue a lawsuit it has filed to compel Cloverleaf to honor the original terms of its deal. He said the commission will have to rule on the revenue-sharing dispute before anyone can buy Rosecroft.
 
 A spokesman for the track was unavailable last night.
 
 Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun

November 5, 2003
 
 As lawmakers head for Western Maryland today on the last leg of a statewide tour to study slot machine gambling, they are finding that crafting details of a plan to legalize slots is far from an easy task.
 
 The refrain from Del. Sheila E. Hixson, chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee that will hold the hearing in Allegany County, hasn't changed from the day the panel began its work: "Everything is on the table."
 
 But while some predict legalization will again elude slot supporters, a broad outline of a compromise deal is beginning to emerge, one that involves the electronic gambling devices - but no casino-style table games - at a handful of racetracks and other sites.
 
 Beyond that, many fundamental questions remain unresolved: where slots emporiums should be built, whether they would be owned and operated by private business or the state, and even who will take the lead in drafting legislation.
 
 Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., whose slots-at-racetracks-only proposal was rejected in the House this year, has said he could support a compromise involving other locations.
 
 That could satisfy some of the objections House Speaker Michael E. Busch raised to Ehrlich's slots plan.
 
 The Anne Arundel County Democrat, who remains a pivotal figure in the slots debate, said he doesn't believe slots are good public policy, but if they do come there is no reason to award lucrative licenses to a small group of racetrack owners.
 
 "I don't understand what the entitlement is that racetracks should own and control these things," Busch said.
 
 He also said he remains firmly opposed to allowing any individual racetrack owner or company to get more than one slots license. "I don't think you want to give a monopoly for one individual to control the marketplace," Busch said.
 
 That could pose problems for the Maryland Jockey Club, which could be forced to chose between the two tracks it owns: Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore and Laurel Park in Anne Arundel County.
 
 Timothy T. Capps, vice president of the Jockey Club, said the impact of allowing slots at other sites, but not at Pimlico, would depend on how close those sites are to the Baltimore track.
 
 He said slots at the state fairgrounds at Timonium or in downtown Baltimore, locations that have been suggested, would present a serious problem for Pimlico.
 
 "If you put something on top of us, it could make it economically impossible for us to function going forward from here," Capps said.
 
 Del. Clarence Davis, a veteran lawmaker and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he can't envision any slots bill being offered that doesn't include Pimlico. "Nothing moves forward without a big-time struggle if Pimlico is not included," said the East Baltimore Democrat.
 
 Regardless of where slots are located, Busch said, the state should build and control slots emporiums if lawmakers decide to legalize the devices.
 
 "You could have these facilities at tracks, or away from the tracks, depending on what you believe are the best market conditions," he said.
 
 The issues of subsidizing racing by supplementing purses with revenue from slots, or providing money to improve tracks, should be dealt with separately, he said.
 
 "The state ought to have the greatest control, and it has the greatest control by actually owning the facility," Busch said. "Then, you have a competitive bid for a management contract to run the facility. It not only puts you in control but it takes all the personalities out of it. ... Everybody has a fair and competitive shot at it."
 
 Busch said the Maryland Stadium Authority, which built the stadiums used by the Ravens and Orioles, could be the vehicle to construct state-owned slots emporiums - either on the grounds of existing racetracks or other places such as downtown Baltimore, Rocky Gap Convention Center or the site of the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Cecil County.
 
 Richard Slosson, executive director of the stadium authority, met with Hixson Monday. "The fastest way to build is on land owned by the state," Slosson said. "We think we can do it more cheaply" than private developers.
 
 But Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, who backed Ehrlich's slots plan, said the state has no business trying to run a slots emporium.
 
 "Anyone who wants the state to be involved in this ought to go down to get their driver's license renewed," said Miller, a Prince George's County Democrat.
 
 Busch said that Ehrlich needs to provide guidance on the slots issue and on the larger question of how he wants to deal with Maryland's budget problems.
 
 "We're two months away from the session, and we're looking for some direction," Busch said.
 
 Miller agreed that Ehrlich needs to be more engaged on the slots issue. "This is going to be the governor's bill," he said. "If it is going to pass, it needs to be an administration bill."
 
 Ehrlich's office did not return telephone calls yesterday seeking a response, but the governor vowed after his bill died this year in the House that he would let the Assembly take the lead in crafting a new bill.
 
 Miller, Busch and Ehrlich agree on a few things: Full-scale casinos, with table games, are not right for Maryland, and slot machines should not be permitted in bars and restaurants.
 
 Hixson said the committee hasn't decided whether it will draft proposed slots legislation or submit a report with its recommendations to the General Assembly and the Ehrlich administration.
 
 Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun

October 30, 2003
 
 Valerie Lorenz says she wishes that Maryland lawmakers who are considering legalizing slot machines could sit in her chair for a while and hear firsthand the stories of lives ruined and families destroyed by gambling addiction.
 
 "We have slots addicts here all the time who have lost their entire businesses ... slots addicts who have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed their addictions," said Lorenz, who heads the nonprofit Compulsive Gambling Center Inc. in Baltimore.
 
 Those numbers are certain to swell if Maryland brings in casino-style gambling, Lorenz said, adding that the state needs to be prepared to set aside at least $2 million to $3 million a year to treat problem gamblers.
 
 A legislative panel that is studying slots and collecting information on some of the social costs of casino-style gambling is to visit Lorenz's residential treatment center today.
 
 While experts say that compulsive gamblers are a small percentage of the population, believed to be less than 2 percent, they can leave a wide path of destruction: embezzling from employers, stealing from family members or plunging into bankruptcy.
 
 The type of electronic slot machine gambling Maryland legislators are considering is the most rapidly addicting form of gambling, according to a recently updated research study done in Rhode Island.
 
 The study focused on people seeking treatment for gambling disorders and found that those playing slots moved from social to pathological gambling in an average of 15 months -- four times as fast as those who developed a problem betting on horse or dog racing.
 
 "It's much more rapidly addicting," said Rhode Island Gambling Treatment Program Director Robert Breen, the study's author.
 
 He said 70 percent to 75 percent of Rhode Island's treatment center patients are addicted to slots and had lost an average of $75,000 to $80,000.
 
 Breen said slots allow bets every five seconds compared to the slower process of betting on a horse race or calling a bookie to bet on a football game that can last three hours.
 
 Arnie Wexler, a recovering gambling addict from New Jersey known nationally for his consulting work on the treatment of compulsive gambling, agreed video slots are particularly addictive.
 
 "They're quick," Wexler said. "The quicker the action, the quicker a compulsive gambler will get hooked. They're addictive."
 
 Lorenz said slots can be an escape from reality for some people, as drugs are an escape for others.
 
 "They disassociate," she said of players who get hooked on slots. "They don't have to think about their reality, the pressures and pains in life they can't cope with. Temporarily, they are in another world. It's just like a drug addict who is stoned."
 
 Breen, who is a clinical psychologist, said certain features appear to increase the addictive nature of the machines.
 
 "You put in paper money and you get electronic credits, which makes it seem like it's not real money," he said.
 
 In addition, Breen said, modern-day electronic slot machines are controlled by computer chips that are programmed to trick people into falsely believing they are close to winning a jackpot. This keeps players "glued to the screen," and reaching for more cash to feed into the machines, he said.
 
 Christine Reilly, executive director of the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders, said it is misleading to say that slot machines are more addictive than other forms of gambling.
 
 "I think the jury is still out," she said.
 
 The institute, based in the division of addictions at Harvard University Medical School, is largely funded by money from the gambling industry.
 
 Reilly said Breen's study focused on people seeking treatment and that most people who have a problem with gambling don't seek such help because of the stigma attached to it.
 
 "Things are not addictive," she said. "It's the relationship that a person brings to gambling and the environment in which they are doing it. We need to find out what their vulnerabilities are. It could be depression, or bipolar disorder."
 
 Breen said he agrees that depressed people are more likely to become addicted but added that "all other things being equal, [slots] are going to addict them more quickly" than other forms of gambling.
 
 He said he sees many patients in their 50s, professionals with families, who tell him they had dabbled with gambling during the course of their lives by buying lottery tickets or placing bets on sporting events.
 
 "They never had a problem," Breen said. "Along come [slots] and 'boom.' ... Within a year, they say, 'I've lost everything or caused a lot of damage to myself and my family.' That's what really caused me to do the study in the first place, the reports of my patients."
 
 Lorenz said it is reports from people whose lives have been turned upside by gambling that Maryland lawmakers most need to hear as they consider allowing slot machines.
 
 "What do you say to an 8-year-old child whose father is going to jail because he's stolen money to gamble?" she asked. "What do you say to the family of the police officer who is in jail for the same reason?"
 
 
 
 Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun
 

October 25, 2003
 
 
 Both reporter David Nitkin ("Md. wants to demolish Supermax as obsolete at 14," Oct. 16) and columnist Dan Rodricks ("Raise a toast to the decline of Supermax era," Oct. 19) think closing Supermax, the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center (MCAC), has something to do with the rehabilitation-vs.-incapacitation debate, the perennial yin and yang of prison policy. They are mistaken.
 
 The population of MCAC falls into three categories: death row prisoners, federal prisoners facing trial and the most dangerous Maryland convicts -- escape artists, gang leaders and those who have killed other inmates or assaulted prison staff. These are the worst of the worst prisoners, and they arrive at MCAC not to be rehabilitated, but to be caged.
 
 Whether they remain in Baltimore or are sent to the new prison in Cumberland, these men require the most secure housing, with the greatest restrictions on internal movement. They are not candidates for return to the community, nor should they be.
 
 Mary Ann Saar, Maryland's secretary of public safety and correctional services, is quoted as saying she is interested in "razing" MCAC. But this would only exacerbate Maryland's chronic prison overcrowding problem.
 
 And, in fact, no prison rehabilitation program -- education, job training, boot camp, drug treatment, psychotherapy -- has ever been proven to keep released convicts from committing new crimes. If Ms. Saar devises new programs that do so for Maryland, this will be first in American history.
 
 Prison programs are all to the good if they keep convicts busy. But they are sold to the public on a promise that is never kept: that graduates will not have to go back to jail.
 
 The truth is that we have no idea how to "correct" or "rehabilitate" anyone. But we use the false promise of rehabilitation to accelerate release, and thus to manage our criminal population without building new prisons.
 
 In Maryland we have perfected the art of releasing current offenders as fast as new ones are brought in.
 
 
 
 Hal Riedl
 Baltimore
 
 
 
 The writer is a correctional case manager of the Maryland Division of Corrections, but he does not speak for the department.
 
 
 
 Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun

October 16, 2003
 
 
 
 
 Maryland's Supermax prison, a $21 million structure that houses death row inmates and other hard-core troublemakers in the heart of Baltimore, could be torn down less than 15 years after its construction as the state shifts its philosophy on corrections.
 
 "We do hope to get rid of Supermax," state corrections Secretary Mary Ann Saar told Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and other officials yesterday. "It does not serve our purpose programmatically or any other way."
 
 The austere prison keeps inmates in confinement 23 hours a day and offers no space for counseling, drug treatment or education, services that Saar and other corrections experts consider vital to helping criminals return to their communities.
 
 Saar offered a synopsis of her plans for the maximum-security institution during a meeting of the state Board of Public Works. In an interview later, she said she hopes to transfer the roughly 290 inmates there to a new prison being built in Allegany County - possibly within 18 months.
 
 "It's easier to manage them in a new facility, and it's easier to manage them a good distance from Baltimore, for a lot of reasons," she said.
 
 While the fate of the orange-brick building, which opened in 1989, has not been decided, Saar said her preference is to raze it.
 
 "If we have the money, I hope to bring it down," Saar said. "If we don't have the money, we should rethink its use."
 
 Saar's announcement was greeted by surprise among some who were unaware that the relatively new building was considered obsolete and by praise from others who said the prison was an expensive mistake and a relic of a failed trend.
 
 "Didn't we just build it? It's a bolt out of the blue for me," said state Sen. Brian E. Frosh, chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, in an interview. "I didn't realize that Supermax was either inadequate or outdated."
 
 But Vincent Schiraldi, executive director of the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute, called the Supermax lockup philosophy an "overreaction" made by many states in the 1980s and 1990s that is proving to be bad public policy.
 
 "It was just a frenzy. It was, 'How can we lock a lot of people up, and how can we make it more unpleasant?'" he said.
 
 "People are coming out of supermaxes like animals," Schiraldi said. "They've lived on 23-hour lockdowns for decades, and we expect them to come back into communities and live like human beings. They [the prisons] are of questionable value."
 
 The maximum-security facility in Baltimore, formally known as the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, was once considered an improvement over the violence-prone South Wing of the Maryland Penitentiary, which it replaced. A guard had been stabbed to death in 1984.
 
 At Supermax, peace is maintained with strict measures: Concrete beds are fastened to the floors, and inmates are not removed from their cells until they stick their arms through food slots in doors to be handcuffed.
 
 Still, the building had problems from the start, said former state corrections chief Bishop L. Robinson, on whose watch the prison opened.
 
 The U.S. Justice Department demanded some "expensive changes," Robinson said, to meet demands for programs.
 
 "I think it's overly expensive to operate. The design doesn't lend itself to modern penological programs," Robinson said. "It's probably outlived its usefulness."
 
 Robinson said he doesn't think the building can be salvaged.
 
 "I don't know of any way to rehab the facility because it's a maximum-security prison," he said. "It's one of those things: We were following the trend at the time to incarcerate the most difficult prisoners in a very secure and difficult environment."
 
 Supermax's rapid demise stands in marked contrast to its neighboring corrections building, the castle-like state penitentiary, which was built in 1811 and remains functional after many modifications.
 
 Employment figures for Supermax were unavailable yesterday, but more than 200 guards and other staff members worked in the building when it opened, according to news accounts at the time.
 
 Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said the North Branch Correctional Institution under construction in Allegany will be technologically advanced. This year's state budget contains $33 million to build the second of four 256-bed pods at the prison site and to begin planning for a third.
 
 Maximum-security inmates, including 10 now on death row at Supermax, will be moved when the second pod is completed, Saar said.
 
 The North Branch construction comes as the state is dealing with a prison bed shortage, housing roughly 24,000 inmates in facilities designed for about 21,000.
 
 Ehrlich said yesterday that he hopes to help relieve the crowding in part through better coordination and planning between the state's juvenile services department and the prison system so that younger nonviolent criminals aren't unnecessarily incarcerated.
 
 "What we are trying to do is bring a focus and a comprehensive plan to each population," Ehrlich said.
 
 Added Juvenile Services Secretary Kenneth C. Montague Jr.: "Once a child gets into detention, the chances are they will go deeper into detention."
 
 Schiraldi, of the Justice Policy Institute, said Maryland cannot afford to keep building prisons. Instead, the state should reduce the demand for space by changing sentencing policies for nonviolent offenders
 
 "A quarter of our inmates are in for drug offenses," Schiraldi said. "Does that really make sense?"
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun

Oct. 3, 2003
 
 Hiring a lobbyist is like buying a house or car.
 
 "Buyer beware," advises Suzanne S. Fox, executive director of the Maryland Ethics Commission, which monitors lobbyists.
 
 "Just because there are rules guiding the conduct of lobbyists doesn't exempt you from doing your homework," Fox said. "There is due diligence here. ... Lobbyists may have competing interests."
 
 Questions about such conflicts arose last week when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) asked the state Ethics Commission to investigate lobbyist Gilbert J. Genn's dual representation of Diebold Election Systems Inc., the contractor providing the state's $55 million voting system, and Science Applications International Corp., the company hired by the state to analyze the voting system for security flaws.
 
 Budget Secretary James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr., who oversaw SAIC's investigation, said the administration did not know about Genn's clients when it asked the company to look into questions about possible security flaws with the voting machines.
 
 DiPaula said neither Diebold nor Genn influenced the heavily edited voting systems report, which was released last week. "As a matter of fact, he tried. And he was refused."
 
 That's not accurate, said Genn, a former Montgomery County delegate. The state Board of Elections requested comments from Diebold on the SAIC report, Genn said, and Diebold offered several corrections -- some of which the report reflects, others that it does not.
 
 Exactly what rules the governor thinks Genn might have violated is unclear.
 
 While lobbyists may double as lawyers, the conflict-of-interest rules change as soon as they leave the courthouse for the political ring. Unlike a lawyer, who could face disbarment for harboring conflicting interests, there is nothing in the state law to keep a lobbyist from doing so. Lobbyists' required public disclosure of their employer lists and campaign contributions is an employer's only guaranteed line of defense.
 
 Henry P. Fawell, a spokesman for Ehrlich, said the governor is being careful not to draw specific conclusions. The administration requested the inquiry, Fawell said, because "we wanted to err on the side of extreme caution."
 
 DiPaula said Genn should have alerted the administration to his dual interests -- even though Genn has not worked for SAIC for more than three years, and his last assignment for SAIC, a diverse company, involved cancer research rather than computer security matters.
 
 The administration acknowledges that Genn followed the state's golden rule of disclosure: Both SAIC and Diebold appear on the state Ethics Commission's public list of Genn's 11 employers.
 
 In a statement, Genn said he welcomes the inquiry "to validate that the independent, third-party examination by SAIC" was not compromised by his relationships.
 
 "I fail to see the real conflict there," said Annapolis lobbyist William Pitcher. "We always have to be careful, but if he represented [SAIC] unrelated to this contract, I don't see the conflict."
 
 As the lobbying business and contract lobbyists' employer lists continue to expand, so does the potential for conflict of interest -- something businesses try to avoid at all costs, said Kathleen T. Snyder, president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. After all, the indiscretions of a lobbyist can reflect directly on his employer.
 
 "Those public perceptions are very difficult to change," Snyder said.
 
 The state Ethics Commission maintains lists of lobbyists and their clients, Fox said, so employers can find out who represents whom in Annapolis.
 
 "That's one of the reasons all of this information is public, so that any employer, citizen or public official can look on our Web site and review the listings of which lobbyist represents which company," Fox said.
 
 But with no explicit regulating statute, exactly what constitutes an interest conflict for a lobbyist remains open to interpretation.
 
 James Browning, executive director of the government watchdog Common Cause Maryland, has questioned lobbyist Laurence Levitan's representation of the American Lung Association of Maryland and several auto dealer associations.
 
 "The lung association's goal is to make the air cleaner," Browning said. "I would think sharing a lobbyist with the [auto industry] would call their interest into question."
 
 But Levitan, a former state senator, said those clients generally do not wind up on opposite ends of the same issues.
 
 The key to avoiding conflicts, he said, is vigilant disclosure -- both to the state and to clients. At times, he said, he has turned down clients because a potential conflict was evident.
 
 Peter Kitzmiller, president of the Maryland New Car and Truck Dealers Association, said he was not aware that Levitan also represented the lung association.
 
 "But frankly it doesn't give me great pause," Kitzmiller said. "We haven't been directly on the other side from the lung association on a lot of issues."
 
 Deborah Kubecka, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association of Maryland, said the association advocates for cleaner air, bicycling and mass transit use, but "we have to live in reality and realize that people need their cars. It'd be different if, say, they were representing power companies not complying with the Clean Air Act."
 
 Kubecka pointed her finger at what she considers a clearer conflict -- the interests of the tobacco and health care industries. She questioned in particular lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano's representation of both an association of tobacco vendors and Dimensions Healthcare Corp., parent company of the Prince George's Hospital Center and other health care outlets.
 
 "I find it difficult to accept that a health care provider would want the same lobbyist as an industry that kills millions of people a year," Kubecka said.
 
 Bereano said the "tobacco police" are misguided in their accusations because they are not privy to his disclosures and discussions with his clients.
 
 "Secondly, if the hospital client does not involve itself in tobacco issues, but remains within the four corners of hospital issues, there is no conflict because you're not working at cross-purposes," he said.
 
 "I went to law school and I practiced law for 30 years," said Bereano, who was disbarred after being convicted of federal mail and wire fraud in 1994 but continues to maintain a powerful lobbying practice in Annapolis. "I was schooled in the standards for professional conflicts. I have always, throughout my lobbying career, applied the legal standards of a lawyer ... to my lobbying practice."
 
 Julie Hoffman, spokeswoman for Dimensions Healthcare, said her company is aware of Bereano's full portfolio and evaluates that contract on an ongoing basis. "Within that process we expect, and we do get, full disclosure."
 
 But public interest watchdogs say conflict of interest is a concern for more than just a lobbyist's employers.
 
 "If you have a lobbyist economically benefiting from a particularly company ... it is not the people of Maryland that are the top priority of that lobbyist," said Craig Holman, campaign finance lobbyist for Public Citizen.
 
 Disclosure laws are a helpful but possibly inadequate check, Holman said, given the mounting numbers of lobbyists and their employers.
 
 "We shouldn't have to rely on a disclosure system," he said. "We should go further."
 
 But business interests, which hire most of the lobbyists and perhaps have the most at stake, hesitate about piling on more regulations.
 
 "I think, particularly where ethics is concerned in Maryland, they've already gone overboard," said Robert O.C. Worcester, president of Maryland Business for Responsive Government, a nonpartisan organization working to improve Maryland's business climate.
 
  The perceived climate for business in Annapolis is unfriendly enough without further tightening regulation, Worcester said. But the lack of more stringent rules does not excuse complacency on any lobbyist's part, he said, especially given the "almost uninterrupted" history of political chicanery in Maryland politics.
 
 "Given that, a lobbyist should take special pains -- and I'm not saying [Genn] didn't -- to explain to both of his clients what the potential relationships are, or recuse himself from any overlapping issues," Worcester said.
 
 While disclosure is critical, a lobbyist's client list alone is not sufficient evidence of a problem, said Gary R. Alexander, whose firm Alexander and Cleaver represents health care providers as well as the state's top insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.
 
 Alexander said those interests do not constitute a conflict for his firm, one of the top earners in Annapolis, noting that only one lobbyist at the firm -- former House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. -- is registered as a lobbyist for CareFirst.
 
 "We don't do the same things for those clients," he said. "Both know who all our clients are. ... We don't represent clients on everything a client does; these are targeted, specific assignments."
 
 One of the firm's other clients is Adventist HealthCare Inc., which operates Shady Grove and Washington Adventist Hospitals in Montgomery County.
 
 Adventist spokesman Robert Jepson said the portfolio for Alexander's firm has changed since Adventist first hired it; in the beginning, its clients did not include the CareFirst insurance company. But the firm has always proven itself to be "ethically inclined," he said.
 
 "That's at the top of our priority list because there is such scrutiny of the entire legislative process," Jepson said.