Opinion: Ivan Bates: Baltimore’s new state’s attorney has a monumental task

With independent candidate Roya Hanna dropping out of the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s race, Democratic primary winner Ivan Bates officially becomes the city’s next top prosecutor, with no opponents left to face in the November general election. And while it took two campaigns, four years apart, for him to win that role and unseat two-term incumbent Marilyn Mosby, we suspect Mr. Bates will find that his biggest challenges still lie ahead. The office he inherits in January is overworked, understaffed, underexperienced and underpaid. And many employees are suffering from an acute case of low morale prompted by those conditions combined with: the city’s consistently high homicide rate, a lack of cooperation among agencies and ceaseless criticism of the current officeholder.