Around Maryland

With the count of mail-in ballots beginning Thursday, candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty, a national conservative political action group focused on parental rights in schools, are in the lead for four of the six seats up for grabs on the Harford Board of Education. “There are thousands of mail-in and provisional ballots yet to be counted,” said Zack Frink, communications director of the Harford County Democratic Central Committee. “The committee is waiting until all ballots are counted until taking a course of action.”

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott will hold a news conference on Thursday to announce the Squeegee Collaborative’s final report. Scott convened the Squeegee Collaborative in July. He gathered a cross-section of youth, business, community and government leaders to meet weekly to develop a citywide, public, private and community-based response.

“Justice” will come to Maryland. Maryland voters Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to change the name of the state’s top judicial tribunal from the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court of Maryland and the title of its jurists from judge to justice, with the chief judge becoming the chief justice. The name of Maryland’s intermediate court will also change, from the Court of Special Appeals to the Appellate Court of Maryland. Its judges, however, will still be called judges.

Baltimore’s short-staffed public works department has no timeline yet for resuming weekly curbside recycling pickup since scaling back the service at the start of this year. Department of Public Works Director Jason Mitchell told city council members during a quarterly briefing Wednesday that, even if the agency is able to boost staffing levels again, they’re “still going to have some challenges” returning to a weekly recycling schedule.

Maryland voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment raising the amount in controversy that entitles litigants to a jury trial from more than $15,000 to more than $25,000. The change marks the state’s first increase to the jury trial threshold since 2010, when Marylanders approved a boost from more than $10,000 to more than $15,000.

At 60 years old, Pearlie Cornish gets up every morning to take her 40-minute walks in Cherry Hill. She heads a mile from her house on Seamon Avenue to Waterview Avenue, where she can overlook the Middle Branch area of the Patapsco River as she walks back. But she no longer needs to walk that far for her daily exercise. On Wednesday, city leaders and residents celebrated the opening of the Middle Branch Fitness and Wellness Center in Cherry Hill at Reedbird Park, two block from Cornish’s home.

Two seats on Baltimore City’s school board were up for grabs this election cycle with voters choosing from four candidates with strong ties to education and equity. School board races in Maryland are nonpartisan with the city’s school board members elected at-large to serve four-year terms. Candidates April Christina Curley, Ashley Esposito, Salimah Jasani and Kwame Kenyatta-Bey appeared on the ballot vying for two seats.

In Maryland’s Montgomery County, wastewater is now being monitored to detect COVID-19, with the aim of getting ahead of any winter surges. “Wastewater surveillance will be a game changer for our efforts to better predict outbreaks and prevent them from happening,” said County Executive Marc Elrich, in a news release. “With winter around the corner, we want to be prepared if there is another surge in COVID-19 cases and this surveillance system helps us do that.” The county first announced plans for the surveillance in March. The county is collecting water samples twice a week at five sites and sending them to the University of Maryland for analysis. The data then goes to the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services.