Around Maryland

As a huge soccer fan, devouring the Premier League and Champions League, Mike Steenstra dreamt of opening his own soccer bar — a place for like-minded fans to soak in a unique atmosphere. But when it came down to it, between raising his two children and affording a mortgage with his wife, Steenstra felt he needed to reach one rung lower on a ladder of dreams. So instead, he’ll settle for keeping his day job while organizing a week-long watch party for the World Cup. It’s not his full dream, but it’ll do. For now. “Soccer bar was the goal,” Steenstra said, “and World Cup Pop Up was what it became eventually.” At the SoFive indoor soccer complex in Columbia, Steenstra has organized an event that encapsulates a World Cup experience.

Baltimoreans prepping for Thanksgiving dinner can add one more item to the shopping list this year: higher prices. Rising costs for everything from turkey to cans of pumpkin are putting a strain on budgets as the country continues to deal with burgeoning inflation rates. Overall inflation was 7.7% in October, according to the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the fluctuating costs of goods and services. The growth in grocery prices was even more substantial, at 12.4%. “It’s a real thing that it’s going to be more expensive,” said Laurence Ball, a professor of economics at the Johns Hopkins University. “There’s been inflation in general, but [the increasing cost of] food at home has been faster than inflation, and certainly faster than people’s wages have been growing.”

Writer and filmmaker John Waters is sometimes introduced as “the one and only,” but he’s the first to say that’s not accurate. “My father would take difference to ‘one and only,’ because I’m a Junior,” he told Asma Naeem, the interim co-director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, after she introduced him that way this week. The occasion was a press preview for “Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection,” an exhibition of 83 works of contemporary art from Waters’ personal collection. They were culled from a larger group of about 375 works that Waters, a Baltimore native and BMA trustee, has agreed to donate to the museum when he dies. The museum mounted the exhibit, which opens Sunday and runs until April 16, 2023, as a sign of “coming attractions.”

The 15-year-old accused of fatally shooting a man armed with a baseball bat during an altercation with a group of squeegee workers near the Inner Harbor over the summer will be tried as an adult, a Baltimore judge ruled Thursday. After a daylong hearing, Circuit Judge Charles Dorsey denied a request from the teen’s attorneys to have the murder case transferred to juvenile court, where sentences emphasize rehabilitation rather than punishment.

Howard County Delegation Chairs Sen. Clarence Lam and Del. Courtney Watson proposed, under legislation filed last week, changing the county’s all-elected school board model to include two members recommended by the state delegation and appointed by the county executive. In a Nov. 15 news release, Democrats Lam and Watson said the move would “improve the coordination and collaboration among the Howard County state delegation, the Howard County executive, and the Howard County Board of Education” and more effectively implement the $3.8 billion Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation.

After County Executive Steuart Pittman’s expected re-election to a second term this week, five top officials in his administration will leave at the end of Pittman’s current term, the county said in a news release Thursday. Stepping down are Matt Power, chief administrative officer, and Kai Boggess-deBruin, chief of staff; Pam Jordan, deputy chief administrative officer for health and human services, Lori Rhodes, deputy chief administrative officer for land use, and Chris Phipps, director of the department of public works, are retiring.

Baltimore County’s executive declined Thursday to share any reasons behind his police chief’s departure from the agency, a day after his team announced she and four other directors would leave county government in coming weeks. Democratic County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr., who won reelection earlier this month, didn’t directly answer questions from reporters about whether he’d asked police Chief Melissa Hyatt to leave, whether she had any say in the decision or about any factors that changed since he stood behind her six months ago during a no-confidence vote by the police union representing county officers.

Colonel Woodrow W. Jones III, the superintendent of Maryland State Police, will retire at the end of the year, Gov. Larry Hogan announced Wednesday. Jones became superintendent of the statewide law enforcement agency in February 2020 after four years leading the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. His retirement comes after 35 years in law enforcement, according to a news release from Hogan’s office.

In a report issued Thursday, Baltimore County’s inspector general determined the county improperly paid nearly $70,000 for a deteriorating alley in downtown Towson, almost entirely surrounded by businesses, to be repaved. The alley didn’t meet the requirements for the county’s alley paving program, which is usually reserved for residential areas, according to the inspector general’s report. But the county paid to repave the alley anyway, after the property owner brought the issue to County Council Chairman Julian Jones.