The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page B1

FRIDAY 06.09.2006 baltimoresun.com maryland SCHOOL CLOSING DELAY SOUGHT Reversal on Southwestern follows concerns about gang conflict REGION LAURA VOZZELLA Lawyer and ex-candidate Anton Keating has plans for a TV series about city public defenders. PG2B BRIDGE CLOSED Route 90 bridge is closed to traffic outside Ocean City after a crane accident. PG2B OBITUARY GROCERY OWNER Ben Schuster, who developed the Food-A-Rama supermarket chain, dies at 85. PG 7B got a mixed greeting, with parents fearful that they could face the same problem in a year, after the gubernatorial election. Some said they thought Mayor Martin O'Malley, a candidate for governor, did not want to face their wrath in an election year.

"The fight's not over yet," said Carol Brockington, Lafayette Ele-mentary's PTA president. "This is Please see CLOSING, 8B and Calverton Middle schools in West Baltimore have been in an uproar about a plan to move the Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts, one of four high schools in the Southwestern complex, under their roof. They say the move would cause a gang conflict and that children from kindergarten through 12th grade should not be in the same school. At a meeting at Calverton last night, Morris said he wants the school system to wait another year to move Augusta Fells Savage and another of the four schools, Southwestern High No. 412.

The other two schools, Renaissance Academy and Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy, will move this summer as scheduled. Though the Lafayette and Calverton community got what it wanted, Morris' announcement Chairman Brian D. Morris said he will ask the full school board to vote Tuesday night to postpone moving two of the four schools in the complex for a year. The proposal was made amid community concerns that a gang conflict would result from moving some of Southwestern's students to an elementary and middle school building.

Parents at Lafayette Elementary BY SARA NEUFELD SUN REPORTER In a reversal that could jeopardize millions of dollars in state funding, the Southwestern High School complex in Baltimore would not close this summer as scheduled under a proposal presented last night by the city school board chairman. Goodwill for Godspeed Lobbying push tied to resort approval 10 were hired to help defeat building limits near wildlife refuge DiPaula pans plans on BGE rate rise Focus on cutting costs, not on PSC, Ehrlich aide urges PHOTOS BY KENNETH K. LAM SUN PHOTOGRAPHER The 2006 Godspeed (above), a replica of one of three ships that brought English settlers to Jamestown in 1607, is greeted by a Baltimore fire-boat as it sails into the Inner Harbor. At right, mast captain Kaia Danyluk (right) and cook Noel Veden secure the ship's lines after docking. The ship and its crew are on an 80-day six-city East Coast tour as part of the year-and-a-half-long celebration of Jamestown's 400th anniversary.

ARTICLE, PAGE 3B BY TOM PELTON SUN REPORTER The developers of a $1 billion golf resort and housing development near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore hired 10 prominent State House lobbyists and paid them at least $125,000 in a successful fight against restrictions on the project, records show. The lobbying push one of the most intense and costly of the General Assembly session that ended in April was aimed squarely at state Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat who introduced legislation to limit construction in the environmentally sensitive area. "It's absolutely disgusting," Brochin said of the lobbying, which was disclosed in recent filings with the State Ethics Commission. "It means that big money and high-powered lobbyists triumph over the environment and the Chesapeake Bay.

That's exactly how it shouldn't be." Brochin's bill, which would have barred construction on about a third of the site south of Cambridge in Dorchester County, drew heavy criticism from some Eastern Shore elected officials who said a Baltimore County lawmaker should not meddle in their affairs. Several local officials said the project would be a boon to the region's economy, adding jobs and tax revenue. The developer of the almost Blackwater Resort project, Duane Zentgraf, and his attorney, William "Sandy" McAllister, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment yesterday. Among the 10 lobbyists hired by Zentgraf firm, Egypt Road LLC, was J. William Pitcher, an Annapolis veteran who has formed a "strategic alliance" with David Hamilton, the personal lawyer of Gov.

Robert L. Ehrlich according to the Web site of Hamilton's Baltimore law firm, OberKaler. Ehrlich once practiced at the firm. Hamilton founded Ober's government relations practice short-Please see RESORT, SB Keeping a different promise Evangelical group recovering from financial crisis with new plan BY ANDREW A. GREEN SUN REPORTER Gov.

Robert L. Ehrlich top aide said yesterday that some of the key ideas being considered by legislative leaders for next week's special session are not "real solutions" to the looming electric-rate crisis, but he would not say whether the General Assembly plans would draw a veto. James C. "Chip" DiPaula Ehrlich's chief of staff, said in an interview that firing the members of the Public Service Commission, a top priority for many legislators, would be "a distraction" from securing lower rates for BGE customers facing a 72 percent increase on July l. And he said that any attempt to require the return of hundreds of millions of dollars paid by utility customers to compensate Baltimore Gas and Electric parent company for the anticipated but unrealized decline in value of its power plants, known as "stranded costs," would be indefensible in court.

"The governor needs real solutions," DiPaula said. Ehrlich, a Republican, announced Monday that he would call a special session of the legislature to deal with the pending increase, but he has not done so. He said he wants the legislature to reconvene and pass a rate-deferral plan that narrowly failed on the last night of this year's General Assembly session, along with cost-saving ideas lawmakers have. The governor made his announcement hours after Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E.

Busch, both Democrats, had decided to pursue a special session on their own. DiPaula said the governor and his staff are meeting with legislative leaders to work out a deal before formally calling the session. The first such meeting, with Busch, took place yesterday. DiPaula, the administration's point man on the issue, said he has searched for ways to ease the impact of rising rates but has found no better solutions than the plan that failed in the Senate in April. That plan called for a 15 percent rate increase on July with customers brought up to market rates eventually.

Customers would be charged a monthly fee about $1.50 for 10 years to make up for the deferred payments. "The governor has always been open to additional good ideas," DiPaula said. "As yet, we haven't heard them. No one has presented them." Since Monday, Busch and Miller have been collecting leg-Please see RATES, SB at Seneca Creek Community Church in Germantown, is planning to come to Baltimore this weekend for "Unleashed: Releasing the Raw Power of Your Heart," a two-day Promise Keepers conference set to begin this evening at 1st Mariner Arena. With 7,000 men expected at the medium-sized venue, the event will be far smaller than the foot ball-stadium-filling rallies that made Promise Keepers the fastest-growing force in evangelical Christianity.

A 1997 rally that attracted hundreds of thousands of men to the National Mall and captured the attention of the media worldwide was soon followed by a financial crisis that nearly Please see PROMISE, 2B men at RFK Stadium, singing, praying and praising God. "Just the fact that you saw so many thousands of men getting together to worship Jesus Christ, and to hear how their lives had been changed by knowing him in a personal way, that was tremendously encouraging and also challenging," he says. The Gaithersburg man, active BY MATTHEW HAY BROWN SUN REPORTER Paul Schomburg's first Promise Keepers rally changed his life. A lapsed Presbyterian with a wife and two young daughters when he attended the event 10 years ago, Schomburg found himself swaying with 47,000 Man charged with making bomb Police say abortion clinic in Prince George's County was to be target were unable to disable it using a robot, said Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The house was damaged and caught fire, but no one was injured, police said.

Weiler, of the 3200 block of Maygreen Ave. in Forestville, was ordered held without bail at the Garrett County Detention Center pending a hearing in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt on the four charges. Weiler was convicted in Utah in 2003 for obstructing police, ac-Please see BOMB, 4B Weiler was charged with possessing an illegal explosive device, making an illegal explosive device, illegally possessing a firearm with a previous felony conviction and possessing a stolen firearm. Police said that the target was a College Park abortion clinic and doctors who perform the procedures.

The bomb made with black powder, galvanized pipe, nails, seven feet of fuse and one-inch-diameter end caps was discovered in the closet of a friend's home in Riverdale and detonated about 3:30 a.m., after Prince George's police bomb technicians BY NICOLE FULLER SUN REPORTER A Prince George's County man who authorities say was planning to attack an abortion clinic was arrested on charges of manufacturing an explosive device, a pipe bomb that police detonated in a friend's house after trying to disable it. Robert F. Weiler 25, who had a loaded gun at the time of his arrest, surrendered to police early yesterday at a Garrett County highway rest stop, authorities said. A Riverdale house was damaged when police detonated a pipe bomb found there after failing to disable it using a robot. The house caught fire, but no one was injured.

MATT HOUSTON ASSOCIATED PRESS POLICE BLOTTER 3B LOTTERY 3B OBITUARIES 7B WEATHER 14B.