Around Maryland

Everyone seems to have an opinion about jury duty in Baltimore. Among the most common — it’s inconvenient, expensive for almost everybody involved tedious, taxing and oh, so boring. But is change possible? In shrinking cities like Baltimore, jury duty has become an almost annual obligation for some residents. The city’s jury pool is typically small — last year it amounted to 247,840 potential jurors, less than half its population, according to a Maryland Judiciary spokeswoman. The total number of jurors who show up for service is even smaller.

 In the June 2010 issue of Applause, his high school magazine, senior Jonathon Heyward wrote that by 2020 his “huge overall dream is to become music director of a major symphony orchestra.” “Well,” Heyward, said earlier this month, while visiting the Charleston County School of the Arts, “I was three years late. But here we are.” In September, Heyward will become the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s top baton. Since music director appointments are made years in advance, Heyward will likely be the only Black conductor leading one of the nation’s largest classical orchestras — and just the second in U.S. history. At age 31 this fall, he also will be the youngest.

The judge overseeing the Baltimore Police Department’s federal consent decree on Thursday asked what he described as “awkward, and even ugly” question: What about incidents in which police should have used more force, but didn’t? The tangent came nearly two hours into the first quarterly consent decree hearing of 2023. The Police Department is about to enter its seventh year since the court adopted the consent decree, which follows a 2015 U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found widespread unconstitutional and discriminatory policing in the city, particularly in poor, predominantly Black neighborhoods.

The Maryland Environmental Service arrived Wednesday morning to help the Midland-Lonaconing Water System restore safe and sustainable water to its customers. A malfunction last week caused water to appear cloudy, which prompted the Maryland Department of the Environment to order a boil water notice for roughly 5,000 people at 1,700 metered properties in and around Lonaconing.

More than $15 million in capital projects are being proposed for Worcester County in the coming fiscal year. Last Friday, Gov. Wes Moore announced his preliminary budget plan for fiscal year 2024. The $63 billion spending plan – which includes $500 million to fund Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and $500 million dedicated to transportation initiatives – also proposes a $7.1 billion capital budget that includes $15,715,174 for projects in Worcester County.

Marilyn Mosby’s lead attorney says battling the prospect of criminal contempt charges for his conduct in her case means he’s no longer putting his full effort into her trial defense, a conflict that affects other attorneys at his firm. The argument came in a new filing Wednesday, after federal prosecutors said Mosby’s attorneys hadn’t given good cause to withdraw from her case two months before trial.

Baltimore County’s school system did not follow state recommendations to relocate its servers to a more secure data cloud prior to a 2020 cyberattack that wiped crucial data and affected thousands of students, employees, and retirees, state officials have found. The Maryland Office of the Inspector General of Education this week released a report based on its review of a complaint the office had received. While the inspector general did not substantiate numerous claims, it did find that Baltimore County Public Schools failed to follow recommendations by the Maryland Office of Legislative Audits the year of the attack, as well as similar suggestions made five years prior.

The Baltimore City Fire Department is proposing three different options to recoup its dwindling vehicle fleet of fire trucks but the scenarios as suggested to city leaders, may force the city council to make some hard decisions next budget cycle. The fire department told city lawmakers last month that it is operating with 30% fewer fire engines than it needs to properly cover Baltimore City and keep residents safe when they call 911.