“Youngsters put Baylor on the map - Houston Chronicle” plus 1 more

Youngsters put Baylor on the map - Houston Chronicle

Posted: 30 Jan 2011 10:42 PM PST

Jon Eilts AP

Baylor point guard Odyssey Sims matched a season high with 25 points in Sunday's win over Texas A&M.

COLLEGE STATION — When it comes to Baylor women's basketball, all eyes are, understandably, on Brittney Griner.

Sims takes control

Look of a winner

jerome.solomon@chron.com

Solomon: Youngsters put Baylor women on the map

On Sunday, the top-ranked Baylor Lady Bears proved they are more than just sophomore sensation Brittney Griner. 'O' so much more.

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Mayor to unveil new City Council map - Baltimore Sun

Posted: 30 Jan 2011 12:12 PM PST

The other most dramatic shift occurs on the other side of the Inner Harbor, where Councilman James B. Kraft would gain Greektown and a large swath of industrial Southeast Baltimore and lose Little Italy and part of Butcher's Hill.

Council members had predicted privately that Rawlings-Blake would shear Greektown and its primarily white and Latino population from the district long represented by Councilman Nicholas D'Adamo. He is not seeking re-election this year.

The move increases the concentration of black voters in the district, a shift that presumably favors Brandon M. Scott, a staffer with the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods in East Baltimore who is expected to run for the seat. Scott declined to say if he was running for the council seat and said he was "100 percent focused" on his current job.

D'Adamo, who is white and whose power base was in the district's white ethnic neighborhoods, said he believes Scott could win either way.

"He's a hard worker," he said. "He's a go-getter and people like him and respect him in the district."

Alejandro Necochea, vice president of the Greater Greektown Neighborhood Alliance, said that he was not aware of Scott's possible candidacy or the political motivations ascribed to the redistricting. But he said he would like to see his neighborhood included in a single district.

"It will be easier to reach out just to one councilman in the future," said Necochea, whose group now invites both Kraft and D'Adamo to meetings.

Kraft said he would be comfortable representing Greektown, but expressed concern that Butcher's Hill and Highlandtown would be split among districts.

He says his goal in redistricting is "keeping neighborhoods together and putting neighborhoods together that had been together in the past," said Kraft. "But I did not want to put them together at the expense of taking other neighborhoods apart."

The proposed changes in Central and North Baltimore are not as dramatic as elsewhere, but some still have raised community leaders' eyebrows.

Rawlings-Blake would move lower Remington from the district now represented by Councilwoman Belinda Conaway to the district represented by Councilman Carl Stokes.

Joan Floyd, president of the Remington Neighborhood Alliance, said her community should stay in Conaway's district, which includes Hampden, which shares Remington's blue collar, mill worker roots.

"We have more in common with Hampden," she said. "History is one thing, socioeconomics is another."

Conaway's district would gain the neighborhoods south of Druid Hill Park. Conaway said she's "very satisfied" with the current makeup of her district and does not wish to see substantial changes.

She and Kraft are co-chairing a committee that will oversee the redistricting process; a preliminary work session is slated for Feb. 8, with a hearing to be scheduled once the Census data is available.

Kraft said the council has retained an attorney who specializes in redistricting to guide the process. Under federal law, the new districts must mirror the racial makeup of the city, which will not be known until the Census data is released.

Hickey, the Locust Point resident considering another run for the council, urged residents to scrutinize the redistricting plans.

"I hope when they see things that look too politically expedient, they question it and force our council members and our mayor to explain the rationale behind it," he said.

julie.scharper@baltsun.com

twitter.com/juliemore

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