Business

When the Maryland Stadium Authority voted last Thursday on a nonbinding agreement between the state and the Baltimore Orioles for a future lease at Camden Yards, they did so over the phone and out of the public eye, raising questions about transparency. The public body, comprised of members appointed by Gov. Wes Moore, legislative leadership and Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott, regularly approves agreements, both legally binding and nonbinding, during monthly public meetings.

An event billed as the largest minority business conference in the country will bring thousands of attendees to Baltimore later this month. The National Minority Supplier Development Council will hold its annual conference at the Baltimore Convention Center from Oct. 22 through Oct. 25. The four-day conference, which jumps from city to city each year, will be hosted in Charm City for the first time.

Maryland lost two billionaires this year on Forbes’ list of the 400 richest people in the country. Five Maryland billionaires made the cut for the annual list, two less than last year. One billionaire, Bernard Sauls, fell below the $2.9 billion in net worth needed to make the list, while Steve Bisciotti, owner of the Baltimore Ravens, is now listed as residing in Florida. Maryland’s richest resident is really an entire family, according to the list, which uses net worths as of Sept. 8.

The late A. Bartlett Giamatti, a one-time commissioner of Major League Baseball, once wrote of the sport, “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone.”

An Anne Arundel County Council bill introduced this week would require a portion of all new residential developments with 20 or more units be set aside for people with incomes at or below the Baltimore-area median. Called the “Essential Worker Housing Access Act,” the ordinance would mandate that qualifying new rental developments designate 15% of units for people earning 75% of the area median income or below, and all new for-sale developments with more than 20 units would assign 10% of them for people earning no more than 100% of the area median income.

The Greene Turtle’s parent company has raised millions to continue its growth plans, which include opening more sportsbook restaurants. ITA Group Holdings recently closed on a $6 million equity round led by TABLE Management, the family office run by billionaire investor Bill Ackman. The investment, raised over the course of three weeks, will be used to expand Greene Turtle’s reach outside of Maryland, along with growing other brands within the parent company’s portfolio.

The ballot issue committee with ties to Sinclair Broadcast Group that put a successful charter amendment to set term limits for Baltimore elected officials is now pursuing a measure that would reduce the size of the City Council from 14 districts to eight. In August, the People for Elected Accountability & Civic Engagement updated its statement of organization to the Maryland Board of Elections to reflect the new ballot measure effort. PEACE’s original statement of organization was to support ballot measures to create term limits for elected officials and recall other elected officials.