Around Maryland

It has been three weeks since the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, collapsed after a cargo ship crashed into one of its support structures, and the U.S. Coast Guard is now taking journalists on boats to get a closer look at the wreckage and how it’s being cleared. WTOP’s Nick Iannelli was one of just a few reporters who got the chance to do that Tuesday, circling the disaster site and getting a 360-degree view of the wreckage.

The Baltimore County Board of Education unanimously approved a new public charter school Tuesday night. The Bilingual Global Citizens Public Charter School has a green light to open in the eastern part of the county in the fall of 2025 with a curriculum that would teach in English, French and Chinese. Casey Kirk, the district’s charter school supervisor, and Melissa DiDonato, its chief academic officer, presented a recommendation to the board March 19 to approve the school, which would be the county’s only language immersion school.

Nearly 50 years ago, Rudiger Breitenecker began a quiet crusade for rape survivors. A doctor at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and a former assistant medical examiner for the state of Maryland, the handsome Viennese native calmly asked those who had been sexually assaulted if he could collect bodily fluids as evidence and freeze them to help police catch their assailants. Between 1977 and 1997, nearly 2,000 women, men and children, agreed.

As the Dali cargo vessel approached Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge last month, construction workers on it were repairing potholes. In the seconds before the ship struck the bridge, its pilot made a mayday call. That enabled local law enforcement to help stop any additional traffic from driving on the bridge. But, according to attorneys for Julio Cervantes, one of two workers who went fully into the water and survived, the crew wasn’t warned about the imminent collision. Instead, they said, the workers were sitting in their cars on a break.

The Incident Command Post, it’s the headquarters of the operation for Key Bridge cleanup, where all parties involved come together to manage the response efforts. WMAR-2 News got a tour of what goes on behind the scenes. Addressing problems, answering questions right there on the spot, making it a unified command.

An urban forest is growing in Baltimore, one block at a time. On an early spring day, a work crew from Baltimore Tree Trust has fanned out along the grassy right of way in Westfield, a neighborhood in northeast Baltimore where ArcGIS field maps show low canopy cover. Clearly enjoying the weather, crew leader Camerio Graves carefully shovels, plants, stakes, and mulches 10-foot Swamp Red Oaks on both sides of Pinewood Avenue.

Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater said Monday that her proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 will include a 4.7% increase in the county’s property tax rate, a change intended to help fund school construction projects. The proposed tax-rate increase from $1.06 per $100 of assessed value in fiscal year 2024 to $1.11 per $100 of assessed value in fiscal year 2025 would mark the first change in the county’s property tax rate since the charter model of government took effect in 2014.

Some Montgomery County Council members aim to eliminate the county’s office vacancy rate by providing a financial incentive to encourage businesses to rent or expand their local footprint. “We have 76 million square feet of office space and we want to make sure that as much of that is used as possible,” councilmember Evan Glass (D-At-large) said while promoting proposed legislation Monday during a press conference at the Preserve office building at 2600 Tower Oaks Boulevard in Rockville. “Filling that space is good for all of us.”

Baltimore City is taking legal action against entities it deems responsible for the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and the FBI has opened an investigation into the disaster. The bridge crumbled nearly three weeks ago after its support column was struck by a malfunctioning cargo ship in the early morning hours of March 26, sending eight construction workers into the Patapsco River below, killing six of them.