An Instagram post on Mayor Brandon Scott’s page seeking volunteers for the Baltimore Commission for Women immediately piqued the interest of Kionne T. Abdul-Malik. “I saw the post right at the same time that I felt the urging to do more community work within the city. I applied and went through the process and was selected to serve,” the 44-year-old Ten Hills resident said.=

As Marylanders took to the polls Tuesday for local elections, voters in the liberal communities of Greenbelt and Rockville drew different conclusions about whether noncitizens also should be allowed to vote. In Greenbelt, preliminary results showed a decisive 67 percent of voters favored expanding ballot access for local elections, a first step toward the small city joining the growing number of suburban Maryland localities to embrace noncitizen voting in the most diverse state on the East Coast, which boasts a rising immigrant population.

Local lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday aimed at enhancing participation of minority-owned and small businesses among tow truck companies used by the Prince George’s County Police, marking another attempt by the County Council to deliver on a promise to increase opportunities for local minority businesses.
The new rules recommend that 51 percent of department money budgeted for towing annually be spent with minority-owned and small businesses in Prince George’s County, and require that at least 29 percent of towing funds be spent with these vendors.

For the past several years, congressional elections in Maryland’s 6th District have been among the most expensive in the nation. That’s largely due to the presence of self-funders on the ballot — including the current congressman, U.S. Rep. David Trone (D), who is using his fortune this election cycle to run for an open U.S. Senate seat.

Juvenile justice stakeholders told state lawmakers Wednesday to hold the line on reforms they passed one year ago amid public concern and amplified media attention on rising youth gun violence and a spike in auto thefts. During the second in a series of briefings, the powerful House Judiciary Committee opened the year-old Juvenile Justice Reform Act to dissection.

Baltimore Community Lending (BCL) will spend close to $5 million on a new headquarters on Calvert Street to expand its business development program and give its staff some breathing room. The community development financial institution (CDFI) purchased the former American Office headquarters at 309 N. Calvert St. back in March for $3 million. Watchen Bruce, BCL’s CEO, said the nonprofit had been searching for a new building as the organization had outgrown its much smaller space in the University of Maryland Biopark.

Delta Hotels Baltimore Inner Harbor appears to have closed, the second from the brand under Marriott International to close in Greater Baltimore this year. The 150-room hotel at 1 E. Redwood St. has been boarded up and its signage removed. There is no availability for rooms on its website. The apparent closure comes as a Delta Hotels in Hunt Valley closed at the end of October.

“The doors of the church are open.” That’s how the Rev. Grady A. Yeargin Jr. ended almost every one of the hundreds of sermons I heard him preach at the City Temple of Baltimore (Baptist), the Bolton Hill church I attended for half my life. Technically, that meant Sunday’s lessons were now ready to be carried from inside the walls of the building into the world. But if you knew “Rev,” as the kids who grew up at City Temple called him, you knew that openness started with him.

Maryland lawmakers face tough budget decisions that could include program cuts or tax increases when they return to Annapolis in January. Members of the joint Spending Affordability Committee were briefed on a budget picture that sees hundreds of millions in structural deficits balloon to $2 billion by fiscal 2029. That picture raised the specter of tax increases.

 

Over the last 50 years, Montgomery County’s Ride On bus system has turned itself into the region’s second busiest bus network, only behind Metrobus in terms of ridership. Prior to the pandemic, Ride On carried 68,000 people over 81 routes every day, about 18% of regional bus ridership; currently, ridership is at 60,000 daily according to the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT). And while Ride On has grown dramatically over the past half-century, much of its routing has remained untouched.