Around Maryland

The Montgomery Planning Board unanimously passed an Attainable Housing Plan that would allow residential land in Montgomery County zoned for single-family homes to be used for duplex, triplex or fourplexes. The plan heads to the County Council later this month. "I want to be clear on something. This proposed zoning change is not a mandate for people to turn their properties in to duplexes or townhomes or small apartment buildings," said Planning Board Chair Artie Harris.

In an effort to stave off development that could interfere with operations at Frederick Municipal Airport, Frederick County Council President Brad Young is drafting legislation modeled after the city’s airport overlay zoning district. During a joint meeting of the council and the city’s Board of Aldermen on Wednesday, Young said the idea to create a Frederick County version of the airport overlay came out of discussions with the city’s Airport Commission, of which he and Alderwoman Katie Nash are members.

A heat wave is expected to hit the Tri-State area next week before summer officially arrives. Heat indexes could reach 100 degrees next week, according to National Weather Service meteorologists for the region. The stretch of hot, humid days is forecast to start Monday, though the main concern for heat is expected to be mid to late next week, meteorologist Jeremy Geiger said.

Sonja Santelises, the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, and the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners agreed on a third contract Wednesday after weeks of stalled negotiations. Santelises, 56, will continue to serve under a one-year contract with a $349,989 annual salary. The announcement comes a little more than two weeks before her contract expires June 30 and after months of public concern over the board’s delayed decision.

A yearlong investigation recently published by The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times revealed an unprecedented overdose crisis gripping Baltimore. Nearly 6,000 people have died from overdoses in the last six years, the worst drug crisis ever seen in a major American city. Baltimore’s death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly double that of any large city.

Facing another funding shortfall, the Washington County Board of Education voted 5-2 Tuesday morning to cut nearly $3.7 million from a funding pool for potential raises as a way to balance its $348 million budget. School system officials said that leaves the school board with enough money to provide at least a 3% pay raise for employees, though negotiations are continuing with the three employee groups.

Less than three months after a massive container ship struck the Key Bridge, sending it collapsing into the Patapsco River and killing six workers, officials shook hands with port workers and celebrated the reopening of the river’s shipping channel on Wednesday — marking the end of a crucial phase of the response to the catastrophe.

The Baltimore County school board voted unanimously to reshuffle the district’s language curriculum Tuesday night, cutting 25 classes from the course catalog that administrators say were mostly elective, mislabeled or redundant. Courses in Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, German and Hebrew, as well as English as a second language, were cut.