Around Maryland

The Maryland Board of Public Works will spend more than $5.2 million on turning a historically Black beach on the Chesapeake Bay into a public city park. The money will go towards preserving the legacy of a beach used by the Black community during a time of segregation.  The beach was once owned by the Carr Family and is close to Carr’s Beach and Sparrow’s Beach, which are popular resorts on the Chesapeake Bay.

After eight years as dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, Donald Tobin will step down at the end of this academic year and return to teaching full time. In an interview with The Daily Record, Tobin reflected on his time in leadership at the state’s top law school, starting amid a crisis in legal education after the Great Recession. Tobin also led Maryland Carey Law through the 2015 unrest that followed the death of Freddie Gray, and saw the school through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state of Maryland has agreed to pay the first death row inmate exonerated post-conviction by DNA an additional $83,000 for his wrongful conviction. The award highlights the state’s ongoing reckoning with those who have been wrongfully convicted. It also reflects the damage done to individuals whose lives were upended by what Comptroller Peter Franchot called “an unconscionable broken system.”

As Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias detailed what the next 12 to 18 months look like for left-hander John Means, another part of him looks toward the rest of the rotation, too. By the time Means returns from Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery — Elias hopes Means will be ready in the first half of the 2023 season — the rotation around him will look different. There are arms currently in the rotation still developing, such as left-hander Bruce Zimmermann.

Transportation is one of the major reasons for economic inequality, according to county leaders throughout the region who participated last Thursday in the United Way of Central Maryland’s virtual Realities of Inequity Series. Leonard Parrish, director of community and economic development for Harford County, was joined by Mike Kelly, of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council; Cheri Cernak, of CRC Restaurants; and Joseph T. Jones Jr., of the Center for Urban Families; as they discussed the transportation challenges for people living in both urban and rural areas, as well as solutions to break down transportation barriers.

The Board of Education of Harford County discussed the future of Harford County Public Schools’ elementary school health curriculum, and the construction of a new Homestead/Wakefield Elementary School that will reduce overcrowding at the current school, during its board meeting Monday, which lasted more than three hours. The board was presented with updates to the career, technology and health curricula for the 2022-23 school year. Proposed changes to the health curriculum for grades Pre-K to 4th grade are being reviewed by the Maryland State Department of Education to ensure the material is age appropriate.

Baltimore County and state leaders will provide $20 million in funding for the community-driven revitalization of Security Square Mall and the surrounding areas — the mall’s first improvement since 1998. Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski earmarked $10 million in county capital funding from fiscal 2022, and House Speaker Adrienne Jones, a Baltimore County Democrat, secured an additional $10 million in the state capital budget, which was approved by the General Assembly.