The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • A15

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016 THE BALTIMORE SUN 15 City liquor board at center of legislative battle But some city residents say the liquor board isn't tough enough on problem bars, and that the board's decisions often favor liquor establishments over neighborhood residents. They've pointed to a decision to allow the Stadium Lounge in Waverly to reopen last summer after serving 71 days of a six-month suspension handed down by the previous liquor board. Stadium Lounge was suspended for having illegal slot machines. If Conway's bill is passed by the House, Hogan would be required to nominate new liquor board members within 15 days. If he fails to do so, the power to appoint members would go to the mayor and City Council.

The Senate voted 43-2 to approve the bill. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller voted for it, but called it a "bad bill." He said he wished it weren't necessary. "It's a bad answer to a problem that cries out for a solution," he the governor "believes the individuals that he put forward are well-qualified and deserve to be approved." Hogan's appointees Benjamin Neil, Douglas Trotter and Elizabeth Hafey are expected to be voted down Monday by the Senate Executive Nominations Committee. Liquor board alternate member Harvey Jones who is Conway's campaign treasurer was on a path to be confirmed, but Hogan withdrew his name earlier this month.

The city liquor board has a history of problems. The commissioners Hogan appointed last July were just the latest to draw the ire of community members. A 2013 state audit found the board had no written rules and an inconsistent inspection process. Board members have said they're trying to correct problems, including rewriting the rules and holding town hall meetings to explain the changes. said.

Miller, a Calvert County Democrat, blamed Hogan, who stuck by his original appointees after Baltimore's senators opposed them unanimously. "It's just a matter of stubborn pride," Miller said. Miller said that senators were compiling a list of candidates for the governor to consider. The two dissenting votes Thursday came from Republicans. Senate Minority Whip Steve Hershey, from the Eastern Shore, said Hogan's team did not aggressively court Republican senators to vote "no" on the bill.

Absent guidance from the governor, most Republicans treated the bill as a matter of local courtesy, deferring to the wishes of the senators from Baltimore. Becky Witt, an attorney with the Community Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks liquor board issues, said she didn't know whether the city's leaders would do a better job in selecting liquor board members than the governor. The current members' terms will end once they are voted down by the Senate, or when the General Assembly adjourns at midnight April 1L If new members are not appointed, Witt said, the city will not have a functioning liquor board. April is a crucial month for the liquor board, Witt said, because liquor licenses are renewed on May 1 each year. Residents and community groups are protesting the renewal of several liquor licenses, and public hearings are usually held in April so the board can make decisions before May If there are no liquor board members available to make decisions on the contested renewals, Witt said, some bars and restaurants will not be able to sell alcohol beginning May Baltimore Sun reporter Erin Cox contributed to this article.

pwoodbaltsun.com twitter.compwoodreporter LIQUOR BOARD, From page 1 will react to the legislation. Baltimore lawmakers in that chamber planned to review the proposal at a meeting this morning in Annapolis, according to Del. Curt Anderson, a city Democrat. If the House approves it, the liquor board could be vacant during a crucial time for license renewals. Sen.

Joan Carter Conway, the Baltimore Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she pushed it forward because Hogan has refused to withdraw his original nominees, despite city senators' opinion that they have made bad decisions that tilt in favor of liquor license holders at the expense of communities. "That's his prerogative," Conway said. "He's the governor." Hogan spokesman Matthew A. Clark said the governor had nothing more to say on the issue Thursday. Douglass Mayer, another Hogan spokesman, said Tuesday that Health care may turn to smaller facilities HOSPITALS, From page 1 offer complementary care and serve as feeders to hospitals.

"Hospitals aren't going anywhere, but they're going to shrink," said Mark Arsenault, vice president of Bowie Health Center, which has added a new CT scan machine and is renovating to add private rooms and ultimately serve twice as many patients. "They're going to be much smaller." Making it easier to get smaller is the point of the legislation. Under current law, hospital administrators must go through what they call a drawn-out process to secure a "certificate of need" from the Maryland Health Care Commission. If the legislation passes, free-standing facilities affiliated with full-service hospitals that already have a certificate of need would face a more streamlined process. Hospital officials say they need the ability to quickly open these centers as they face increasing pressure to reduce inpatient stays and readmissions, and meet cost constraints set by the state's rate-setting commission.

Opponents of the legislation say it would make it easier for hospitals to reduce services and avoid the backlash they might face from communities when they try to shutter a hospital. "Hospitals have been given incentives to treat people in the hospital when necessary, but if at all possible to treat people in the lower-cost community settings," said Carmela Coyle, president of the Maryland Hospital Association. Inpatient admissions at Maryland's hospitals declined by nearly 100,000, or IS percent, in the past decade, according to the hospital association. LLOYD FOX BALTIMORE SUN Mark Arsenault, vice president of Bowie Health Center, passes in front of the facility. Changes in the way medical care is delivered are driving a push to ease the creation of such smaller care centers in Maryland.

nounced plans to replace Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace with a new hybrid care center closer to Interstate 95 even as it expands its Bel Air hospital. And residents of Chestertown are worried that University of Maryland Shore Regional Health may convert its hospital in the Eastern Shore town into an ambulatory care center with outpatient service and emergency care, while shifting those hospital beds to its hospital in Easton. They fear a closure would mean having to travel many miles to get to a hospital, putting people in danger. State health officials and the legislation sponsored by Middle-ton and Hammen exempts that hospital from the bill because of these concerns. They said the exemption gives lawmakers and the health care system that runs the hospital more time to work with community members to develop a plan to address health care access problems unique to rural communities.

The new legislation would require the hospitals to get public input, a lesson Middleton said the legislators learned from the situation in Laurel. "When you look how at how people felt when they found out that Laurel would be shut down the community was in outrage it tells you there needs to be more community input" The legislation has a good chance of passing because of the support of Middleton and Ham-men. It is also backed by the Maryland Health Care Commission and the Health Services Cost Review Commission, which sets hospital rates in the state. Democratic Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith of Prince George's County, who represents parts of Laurel and sits on the health subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers should make sure adequate access to health services is a key component of the legislation.

"As policymakers we remain conscious of the need to continue to make sure there is access to affordable and quality health care in all geographic regions," she said. amcdanielsbaltsun.com twitter.com ankwalker He said the district has lacked such a plan since Andres Alonso resigned as schools CEO in 2013. Thornton recendy presented a plan to the school board, but it does not include specific goals approved by the school board. Pugh said she wants more art and music in the schools. She and others say that keeping schools open for after-school activities and tutoring for students and educational opportunities for parents would help stabilize neighborhoods.

Mosby said some actions could improve schools immediately, including finding private and public money to start City Year, a program that places recent college graduates in schools to assist teachers. Mckesson said the city needs an immediate plan to address the high rate of adult illiteracy. For Mosby, improving education is both policy and personal. After working hard in middle school, he said, he was unprepared for Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He was nearly sent back to his zoned high school, where he said he is sure he would have foundered and never made it to college.

"We have so much wasted potential throughout Baltimore," he said. liz.bowiebaltsun.com twitter.comlizbowie Candidates want more control of schools as Baltimore's mayor Members of the 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East labor union are fighting the legislation, in part to protect jobs. They say it creates a much-too-rapid timetable for such an important decision on whether a community loses a hospital. Under the proposed legislation, a hospital would apply for a conversion and get community input, then the Maryland Health Care Commission would have 45 days to make a decision. The certificate of need process can take many months and sometimes years under the current law.

"We recognize why they want to do this, but we can't see how this is in any way collaborative," said Claudia Balog, a SEIU senior researcher. "We want to see that the community will have a voice in what their health care looks like." Middleton said he proposed the legislation to help hospitals meet requirements to keep a special Medicare waiver the state has that the school board. Pugh and Dixon say they would ask the governor and General Assembly to give the mayor sole discretion in selection of school board members, and therefore a greater say in who is CEO. Others say that would be a waste of time. Warnock, Embry and Mosby say the governor would likely block any attempt to reverse the 1997 law that gave the governor and mayor equal say in appointing school board members and selecting superintendents in exchange for more state funding.

"There is no way we are going to Annapolis and get full control, given the current affairs of the state," Mosby said. He said the "tremendous amount of power" given to Baltimore's mayor in city government makes it possible for that person to influence school leaders' decisions without legislation. Stokes said he would act as though he were "co-CEO" of city schools, and would ask the entire school board to step down. He said the board does not show a sense of urgency in improving schools, in which two -thirds of students in grades three through eight cannot pass the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests in reading or math. Mckesson said mayoral control has worked in some cities but not allows it to set the rates hospitals charge private insurers and Medicare.

Maryland is the only state in the nation with such a waiver from the federal government. Elsewhere, Medicare typically reimburses hospitals at a low rate, and hospitals make up for it by charging patients with private insurance a higher rate. While Medicare may pay more in Maryland, state officials have been able to keep the rate of hospital cost increases lower than in other states. A recent update to the waiver agreement required hospitals to meet new criteria that focused on preventive care and keeping costs down. The hospitals agreed that their costs cannot grow faster than 3.58 percent in the first five years of the revised waiver.

Failing to do so could result in a loss of the waiver. "It is very, very important to keep the waiver," Middleton said. "Hospitals have got to perform. They have to push a lot of the others. "What we know is effective is a clear plan that leverages all of the resources from city agencies in the work of making sure every student" gets a good education, he said.

Embry said the time and effort would be better spent improving schools than fighting a legislative batde in Annapolis. "I think there is room to have a strong role working in partnership with the school board and the CEO," she said. "It is not the governor that is the main problem." Some research suggests that mayoral control results in higher student achievement and better fiscal management. But such a shift in Baltimore would not guarantee improvement, an analyst said. "It is not the silver bullet," said David Steiner, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy.

Some argue that a mayor and superintendent with the same vision for reforming schools can harness other city resources toward reform. Data can be shared across agencies, social services can be focused to help schools, and money can be moved to support a single vision. "All of that is theoretically and practically more efficiently done when you have the mayor in charge of the whole thing," Steiner said. services out into a community setting." Decisions on whether to close a community hospital can be contentious. When Dimensions Healthcare announced last summer that it would transition Laurel Regional Hospital into a $24 million ambulatory care center with 30 inpatient beds and limited services by 2018, the news sparked resentment from members of the community.

Dimensions said the hospital was losing money and patients, but many wondered if the company wanted to shift resources and patients to a new hospital it's planning with the University of Maryland Medical System in Largo. The Senate recently passed a bill that would set aside about $461 million from the state and matching funds from Prince George's County over a four-year period to build die new hospital. University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health recently an There are various models of mayoral control; New York's gives the most direct control. In Boston, Cleveland and Providence, RL, citizens have some voice in the choice of superintendents, Steiner said. The Providence City Council can reject the mayor's selection of a superintendent Baltimore's leading Democratic mayoral candidates share similar views on what needs to be improved.

Nearly all say the lawsuits filed by charter schools to gain more per-pupil funding could be resolved through negotiation rather than expensive litigation. Stokes, Dixon, Pugh and others say they would spend more money on schools. Dixon and Stokes said they would do so by shifting money away from police. Thirteen percent of Baltimore's budget of more than $2 billion is spent on education. In neighboring Baltimore County, die proportion spent on schools is 52 percent.

The candidates say the school system should be audited annually or monthly. Too little money is being spent in the classroom, they say. "North Avenue has obvious issues in terms of its bookkeeping and data systems," Embry said. Mckesson was the only candidate who said that developing a long-term strategic plan for city schools would be a high priority. EDUCATION, From page 1 Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson ran an after-school program and rose to second-in-charge of the school system's human resources department.

Those who have not worked in city schools are graduates. Lawyer Elizabeth Embry graduated from City College. Councilman Nick Mosby says he almost flunked out of Poly because he had been so ill-prepared by his middle school. The seven most prominent candidates express similar priorities for city schools: more money for pre-ldndergarten, more community schools and better job training for high school students. They differ on how they would exert mayoral influence to make those changes.

County executives in Maryland have limited control over what happens in schools, and the mayor of Baltimore has even less. Decisions on day-to-day operations are left to a superintendent chosen by the local school board. Local governments have some power: School budgets are submitted to mayors and councils for review and approval. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg disbanded the school board, took control and picked a superintendent who agreed with his approach to education. No mayoral candidate in Baltimore is suggesting the abolition of.