Around Maryland

Using $2 million in federal grant funding, Baltimore officials will start developing a plan to reconnect Black neighborhoods by potentially demolishing a stretch of thoroughfare that displaced hundreds of families amid a failed highway construction project decades ago.

Members of the Baltimore City Council and police accountability advocates publicly pressured members of Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration to speed up their implementation of local control of the city’s police department. The pleas came during a meeting of the council’s Public Safety and Government Operations committee to discuss legislation before the Maryland General Assembly to move the process forward.

New police officers in Montgomery County, Maryland, are eligible for $20,000 in signing bonuses, officials announced Wednesday. The bonuses, which will be paid in installments, will be offered to the next recruiting class, which is scheduled to begin in June, according to a county news release. The announcement comes amid what county officials called a national police recruiting shortage, which is also affecting most law enforcement agencies in the region.

Baltimore will get $2 million to dismantle the so-called “highway to nowhere.” The money will be used by the city to figure out how to reuse the site. The U.S. Department of Transportation built the highway 50 years ago, but the mayor argues the project divided the communities and has called it a “poster child” for racial and economic inequities.

As antisemitic incidents have multiplied in Montgomery County Public Schools, officials are hoping stronger penalties for students and required sessions for their parents will help prevent further problems. Students who commit hateful acts now will have them documented in their file, Superintendent Monifa B. McKnight announced Wednesday, and their parents will be brought in for follow-up conversations. Community towns halls will also be conducted if the incidents persist.

The agency that oversees parks and planning for Prince George’s County recently acquired a vacant lot in Hyattsville, adjacent to the now-dissolved Beth Torah Congregation, as part of a larger assemblage slated to become a new “multigenerational” rec center. The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which oversees those governmental functions for both Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, bought the 2.1-acre wooded lot at 6710 Adelphi Road on Jan. 9 for $4.7 million.

Young people are emerging as advocates in the crisis of youth homelessness in Maryland. In Prince George’s, Baltimore, Frederick and Howard Counties, those efforts are focused at Youth Action Boards, which work to end young peoples’ homelessness. “This gives [us] the opportunity to come to have a seat at the table with stakeholders and providers so they can hear what is really needed in the community,” said DaeJanae Day, 26 co-chair of the Prince George’s County Youth Action Board, her full-time job with the Department of Social Services, who was among four formerly homeless youth interviewed for this story. Thousands of young people in the state experience homelessness.