A parking space on a snowy street, a winning team or two, a few fun festivals — we Baltimoreans don’t ask for much from our city. But maybe the time has come that we should. As far as I know, San Antonians never demanded River Walk, nor did New Yorkers demand Central Park, or Parisians, the Place de Voges. Still, they got them. Why? Because their leaders thought their citizens were worth the time, energy and sacrifice of potential tax revenue to provide places for them to relax, to maybe meet people from different parts of town and then go home feeling a deeper connection to their city.

Despite last week’s announcement of a one-year infusion of cash, Maryland is wrestling with a projected $3.15 billion dollar transportation budget shortfall, exacerbated by the end of federal COVID-era support for transportation operations, overreliance on gas tax when vehicles are becoming more efficient, inflation, and more. The Moore administration recently proposed to balance the six-year transportation budget with 8% across-the-board cuts to all the agencies within the Maryland Department of Transportation.

When it’s time to talk about Baltimore’s economic revival, the conversation often starts with the big. Take the proposed redevelopment of Harborplace, the ongoing efforts at Baltimore Peninsula and the continued growth of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore: big buildings, big cranes, and big stacks of cargo containers like pancakes on a dinner plate (mmm, pancakes). These things are identifiable, often controversial and any one of them may involve hundreds of new jobs — a veritable buffet spread of economic opportunity. (And who doesn’t like a good buffet?) Yet too easily ignored may be another potential driver of opportunity that’s on the smaller side, the small business side.

You know your public meeting has gone horribly wrong when the assistant city attorney assigned to it starts yelling at the chair: “Stop!” “Hold up.” “Please stop!” The gathering of the Annapolis Art in Public Places Commission devolved into angry accusations, indignant interruptions — “don’t talk to me like that” — and finger-pointing over how members wound up on the hook for public art gone awry.

Some of Maryland’s top education officials converged in Annapolis on Wednesday to give the House Ways and Means Committee one message: Make sure public education remains fully funded. The representatives from the Maryland State Department of Education, Maryland Association of Boards of Education and Public School Superintendents’ Association of Maryland also asked lawmakers to continue to support the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan.

New Baltimore Sun owner and Sinclair Broadcast Group Executive Chairman David Smith has been quietly involved in a lawsuit accusing Baltimore City Public Schools of defrauding taxpayers, documents show. Smith has had several discussions with the plaintiffs and their attorneys about the suit and is behind a corporation paying the plaintiff’s legal fees, according to documents obtained by The Baltimore Banner. All the while, Baltimore’s Fox45, Sinclair’s flagship TV station, has covered the case extensively without disclosing Smith’s role.

Former Baltimore mayor and current mayoral candidate Sheila Dixon unveiled a plan Thursday to combat crime in Baltimore, recommending a return to strategies she credits for lower crime rates during her time in office. The plan, which Dixon rolled out at a news conference at a West Baltimore recreation center, calls for increased police recruitment efforts, expanded intelligence gathering through community intervention programs and a strong push on state and federal officials to better fund juvenile justice systems.

When Howard County schools officials presented the superintendent’s $113 billion spending plan last week, they repeatedly referenced a 600-page budget book. Wanting to be as transparent as possible, acting Howard County Public School System Superintendent Bill Barnes wondered how the school system could make the budget process easier to follow, particularly the massive spending plan. Schools officials came up with a digital toolkit.

For years, John Lewis’ sister urged him to get an internet plan. He felt lost without it, he said, but he was stubborn and uninterested in learning to navigate something that felt so new. That changed in late November, when Lewis wandered into the community room of City View at McCulloh, the West Baltimore tower where he lives in public housing, and found officials from the housing authority signing up residents for home internet. Now Lewis has an Xfinity connection in his apartment. Soon, $30 of his monthly bill will be covered by the federal government.

A $1,000 ticket to Sunday’s AFC Championship game at M&T Bank Stadium might not be the most expensive part of football fans’ weekends in Baltimore. Hotel prices across the city are up again as fans from far and wide — plus TV crews and maybe a few Taylor Swift fans — travel to Baltimore to see the Ravens host the Kansas City Chiefs for a chance to go to the Super Bowl. Properties close to the stadium, like the Hampton Inn Baltimore-Downtown-Convention Center and the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court, are fully booked from Jan. 26 to Jan. 28.