Around Maryland

The Allegany County Board of Education approved a $128 million budget Tuesday that will be presented to Allegany County officials for review next week.
School board members approved the budget by unanimous vote at their regular meeting at the Central Office on Washington Street. Larry McKenzie, chief financial officer for Allegany County Public Schools, said “the superintendent’s budget is 1.2% less than last year’s budget.”

A delegation of five Ukrainian doctors visited Baltimore Thursday. As the war in Ukraine rages on, so do the injuries to soldiers and civilians. The doctors hope to learn from trauma experts here so they can modernize care in their country. Dr. Kritis Dasgupta from Good Samaritan Hospital is grateful for the opportunity.

The director of the Baltimore County Department of Correction has responded to the Office of the Public Defender’s Juvenile Protection Division concerns about conditions for young inmates at the Baltimore County Detention Center. Last Monday, March 6th, the Office of the Public Defender sent a letter to BCDC, saying it “fails to comply with the mandates prescribed under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act (JJDPA) Sight and Sound Separation requirement, Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act.”

Jadet Charriez said he came from a place of drugs and violence. As a child, many of his basic needs, like clothes, food and water, were not met. He remembered getting bags of food for the weekend in elementary and middle school from the group Blessings in Backpack, so he would have something to eat. As he got older, he said, he started selling drugs to financially support his family, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

Overall crime in Maryland steadily declined between 2010 and 2020, according to data from Maryland’s Open Data portal and yearly Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), a compilation of crime statistics from Maryland police departments. Yet homicides increased in that same period. Homicides in the state rose to a ten-year high of 573 in 2020, a nearly 35% increase from 2010. The largest year-to-year increase occurred in 2015 when homicides rose to 553, a 52% increase from the previous year.

Charles County Public Schools in Maryland will join a growing number of D.C. area public schools with advanced gun detection technology. Weeks after a number of Virginia schools detailed security screeners that could be coming to schools in Prince William and Alexandria City Public Schools, the Maryland school system announced plans to incorporate artificial intelligence “visual gun detection technology” into their schools.

Homeowners in Frederick are concerned about their safety after a tanker crashed and exploded along a busy highway earlier this month. State and local leaders held a meeting Wednesday to hear the concerns of those residents. “It wasn’t good,” Frederick resident Jeff Oranczak said. “It wasn’t good at all.” Oranczak and his wife live along U.S. Route 15 in Frederick, right near where a tanker truck crashed into a tree and exploded on March 4. Firefighters said the truck was carrying flammable liquid.

Residents in Frederick sounded off after a tanker explosion killed a driver and damaged several homes and vehicles earlier this month. Wednesday night, they received a promising response. Frederick City held a community discussion Wednesday night discussing the incident and the steps the city and Maryland are taking moving forward. The biggest issue residents like Lamar Reese brought forward is a lack of barriers between U.S. Route 15 and nearby neighborhoods.