Around Maryland

The Howard County Board of Education adopted a nearly $1.5 billion fiscal year 2025 budget Thursday evening that reduces the number of looming staff cuts and restores popular school programs. The approval comes after weeks of public hearings and work sessions, including one budget deliberation earlier in the week that a board member said was “like a bad dream.”

Mid-Shore officials are rallying behind their fishermen, expressing the opposition to recent rockfish regulations imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). Kent County leaders have taken a stand by sending a letter to the state, explaining the detrimental impact these regulations could have on the local economy of the eastern shore.

Every single principal in Worcester County has come to the defense of district leadership. They are hammering home the point that their schools are safe after criticism from law enforcement. The principal at Snow Hill Middle School, Matthew Record, said they have proof that the schools have made progress. Record said the letter points out specific safety measures like vape detectors and protective shield.

William F. Chaney has helped build statues for the Alex Haley-Kunta Kinte Memorial and a plaque honoring Malcolm X in Annapolis. He has also done the same for Robert E. Lee and another Confederate soldier. To some this might be strange mix. But for the millionaire, who has spent millions memorializing American figures of the past, the symbols are a reminder of this country’s history.

In a bid to combat the city’s housing crisis, officials in Cambridge are spearheading an initiative that could mark a pioneering move in Maryland. The proposed program centers around the establishment of a land bank, envisioned as the first of its kind in the state. The concept behind the land bank is to address the commonness and amount of vacant properties and buildings that plague Cambridge. City leaders estimate that there are over 1,000 vacant properties, contributing to the housing shortage gripping the area.

Anne Arundel County is the latest jurisdiction in Maryland to publish a map showing residents whether they need to check their home service lines for lead water pipes. It’s not because officials  think pipes have lead in them. It’s because federal law requires utilities to inventory lead pipes in home service lines. “[T]he probability of finding lead in the County water system is low, with our water quality consistently remaining well above state and federal regulatory standards,” Anne Arundel County officials wrote on the county website.

The U.S. Postal Service is honoring 10 leaders from the Underground Railroad on new Forever stamps, which are being unveiled in a Saturday ceremony in Dorchester County. Many leaders of the Underground Railroad, the secret network of those escaping slavery and those who assisted them, remained anonymous. But the figures being honored on the stamp include Catharine Coffin, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett, Laura Haviland, Lewis Hayden, Harriet Jacobs, William Lambert, the Rev. Jermain Loguen, William Still and Harriet Tubman.

During their recent State of the City presentation, Hagerstown officials discussed benefits and concerns with the upcoming opening of a new downtown ballpark as well as issues developers of smaller projects are facing. The Washington County Chamber of Commerce hosted the State of the City on Tuesday morning in The Maryland Theatre ballroom. About 200 people attended the event, sponsored by Wright-Gardner Insurance.

For a lot of people, the term “organized crime” conjures up images of backroom mafia deals or highly structured street gangs dealing drugs and getting engaged in turf wars. But like everything else in the world, things are changing. “We are witnessing the emergence of smaller, more agile criminal groups that lack the hierarchical structure traditionally associated with larger crime syndicates,” Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy told a House committee in Annapolis, Maryland, on Tuesday.