Based on the many announced projects moving from drawing boards to groundbreakings, it should be a banner year for development in and around Baltimore in 2023. Despite expected economic headwinds and a pandemic that has not surrendered its grip on us, developers are moving ahead with a wide range of significant initiatives in Baltimore and beyond. I spoke to a representative of one of those developers earlier in the month. Drew Gorman is a Washington, D.C.-based partner with P. David Bramble of MCB Real Estate LLC. The firm has a growing portfolio of developments at a number of locations around Baltimore.

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown made history Tuesday when he was sworn in as Maryland’s 47th attorney general. He is the first Black man to hold the post. A couple hundred people crowded a swearing-in ceremony at the House of Delegates chamber in Annapolis. The hour-long program not only highlighted Brown’s qualifications, but also the symbolism his election represents. “That’s significant,” said U.S. Attorney of Maryland Erek Barron (D), who’s also a former state delegate. “It tells all of us who are Marylanders, and beyond, that we are at the very least running towards that goal of equality, equity, and justice.”

The Archdiocese of Baltimore will hold a Mass on Thursday in honor of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died Saturday. The Mass will take place Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. “Priests throughout the Archdiocese are warmly invited to concelebrate this Mass,” Most Rev. William E. Lori, the archbishop of Baltimore, wrote on the archdiocese’s website. Lori asked the faithful to pray for the repose of the soul of the former pope, who was the first to resign in 600 years. “Pope Benedict was a man of deep faith and keen intellect who placed his considerable gifts at the service of Christ and his bride the Church,” Lori said in the statement on the archdiocese’s website.

A member of M&T’s board of directors has stepped down from the board after being promoted to president and CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Calvin Butler, of Baltimore, left the board Dec. 31, the same day he took the top spot at Exelon Corp. Exelon is a Chicago-based energy company with about $36.5 billion in annual revenue and 18,000 employees. It operates electric utilities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. He has been an executive with the company for 14 years. Butler was promoted from chief operating officer to president in October. Less than a month later, the company announced he would be the next CEO.

Correctional officers assisting in the assault and attempted murder of inmates by other inmates. Correctional officers knocking inmates unconscious, sodomizing them, and then dragging them through the prison unconscious with their pants around their ankles. Prison officials subjecting Spanish speaking prisoners to legal processes without interpreters, violating their due process rights, and then stripping them of good time credits that would see them released earlier. Prison medical contractors denying health care to prisoners and leaving them in excruciating pain for months or years on end. All done under the seal of the great State of Maryland and in the name of its citizens.

Yasmine Young is the historian of her family. As such, she has bought and is in the long process of restoring her family’s big house in Ashburton, built in the 1920s. She’s traced her family’s history back eight generations, including 352 ancestors who came to Baltimore from Virginia and the Eastern Shore. She’s also keeping alive traditions passed down throughout the years. One is Manning’s Hominy at the breakfast table. A corn product first produced in a Canton backyard and one of the last canned goods to leave Baltimore, Manning’s has a more than 100-year legacy in area kitchens. Think of it like Charm City’s answer to grits.

The commission tasked with evaluating the office of Baltimore County’s top watchdog presented preliminary recommendations Tuesday night ahead of a January deadline to produce a report for the County Council about the office’s work examining county ethics laws and practices. Members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Ethics and Accountability floated recommendations about policies that included how interviews are conducted with potential investigative subjects, who should reimburse the legal costs of county employees who retain lawyers when being interviewed, and codifying whistleblower protections as part of its work assisting the office of Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan.

When the USS Constellation began leaking 3,000 gallons of water an hour more than two years ago, Chris Rowsom knew repairs were needed — and urgently. As a stopgap measure before they could get the 19th century tall ship into dry dock for repairs, divers began making emergency patches about every six weeks. “Ideally, a wooden ship needs to get out of the water every five years for repairs,” explained Rowsom, executive director of Historic Ships in Baltimore. It’s taken seven years to raise the money for this drydock visit, which has just been completed at a cost of roughly $1 million. “Visitors keep the lights on and pay staff, but don’t pay for big-ticket items,” Rowsom said. State and city funding totaling nearly $2.8 million also will cover other major repairs to the sloop-of-war, which is considered a National Historic Landmark, at its berth in the Inner Harbor.

When state Del. Brooke Lierman was running for the job of Maryland comptroller, she visited every county and Baltimore City; the first thing she had to do was explain to voters what a comptroller does. “In a nutshell, it sees every dollar in and every dollar out,” Lierman said. The comptroller is also responsible for collecting all the taxes, working on the returns, working on the auditing “to make sure that people are paying their fair share,” she said. The comptroller, along with the governor and treasurer, also sits on the three-member Board of Public Works, which she said, “is responsible for approving or denying every single contract that the state enters into over $200,000.”