John Ristick was sentenced as a teenager in Baltimore County in 1985 to life in prison plus 20 years on charges of first-degree murder and armed robbery for stabbing a man to death. He went up for parole several times, only to be repeatedly denied release. Ristick said he believes people should pay a price for committing crimes. But in Maryland, he said he feels the system is designed to deny people with life sentences parole even if they’ve served decades in prison.

There’s a general rule of thumb at every level of government that when things are well-managed, you don’t hear much about them. It’s only when things are going badly that a particular agency, department or similar public sector entity is suddenly thrust into the limelight. Last week’s announcement out of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works that it intends to comply with the recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order to complete two major drinking water projects at Druid Lake and Lake Ashburton before year’s end would be reassuring if this had been the first time DPW had come under scrutiny.

Baltimore County Public Schools hosted a public information session Monday evening to present possible solutions to relieve overcrowding at Hampton Elementary School. The system is conducting an emergency capacity-relief study this semester that involves Hampton, Cromwell Valley Regional Magnet School and Pleasant Plains Elementary School. At the meeting Monday, BCPS introduced four resulting boundary map options to the public, each moving 40 to 45 students from Hampton to the other two schools.

The County Council’s Planning, Housing and Parks (PHP) Committee recently declined to fund the Office of the People’s Counsel, which operated between 1999 and 2008 but has remained unfunded since then. County Executive Elrich’s FY23 and FY24 budgets proposed refunding the agency, which represents the public interest (but not parties) in land use proceedings and provides technical assistance to residents.

Residents of some of Baltimore’s historic urban neighborhoods are pushing back against a utility upgrade project they say is forcing them to accept obtrusive equipment on their rowhouse facades or risk losing gas service. Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. has been upgrading aging natural gas pipes and equipment throughout the Baltimore region for years, digging up streets and sidewalks and replacing in-home meters and other equipment.

The Senate co-chair of the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit and Evaluation Committee said changes to state procurement law will likely prevent future mishandling of emergency contracts, such as those during the recent COVID-19 pandemic identified in a recent report by the Office of Legislative Audits. The Office of Legislative Audits found that the Office of State Procurement within the Department of General Services skirted some record-keeping requirements and failed to provide timely notification on millions of dollars in contracts.

New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that Black and African Americans experienced over 1.6 million excess deaths over the previous two decades — a trend that researchers believe means more work needs to be done. The study published in JAMA looked at millions of records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spanning from 1999 to 2020, comparing the race of Black and white populations across age groups.

 

The Biden administration is experimenting with new border policies, and asylum-seeking families headed to Baltimore are about to serve as its test subjects. This month, the administration began implementing a range of sweeping new policies at the Southern border. The centerpiece of the new approach is an asylum ban that blocks most migrants from accessing asylum if they traveled through a third country without seeking protection there.

There was doubt leading up to Frederick High School’s graduation on Monday about whether Frederick High School senior T.J. Weaver would be allowed to walk across the stage with a Native American stole. For commencement, Weaver requested to wear the stole — which represents his Native American heritage and his Otoe-Missouria tribe — over his robe.

 

Eric Lin, a junior from Severna Park High School, will sit as the 50th student member of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education starting in July. Lin’s election was announced this month following a debate in late April with the other two finalists, Indu Bodala, of Glen Burnie High School, and Taryn Reinhart, of Annapolis High School.