Commentary

On its face, Baltimore County Council Bill 33-24 is a reasonable measure. It proposes an amendment to the county charter requiring that all appointments to the county’s planning board, including those made by the county executive, be confirmed by a vote of the County Council before taking effect. Eight members of the board are appointed by the county executive, and each of the seven members of the County Council appoints a member.

I salute Mayor Brandon Scott’s victory over former Mayor Sheila Dixon in the Democratic primary election, a de facto general election win in heavily Democratic Baltimore. The electrifying purpose of elections is not to win or lose, but to ensure that the people’s voice is heard and respected. One person, one vote; not one dollar, one vote.

Once again, the Ausherman Family Foundation has stepped forward to lend a helping hand to the government of Frederick and to the residents working and living in the city. This time, the foundation has contributed $1.5 million and is working with the city government to create a youth center downtown, where young people will be able to get access to services.

I’m 30 feet above Interstate 97, peering through a chain-link fence at the concrete trail below. Traffic is light on this bright May morning, but I feel like a red-tailed hawk testing the exhaust-flavored wind flowing up from all that horsepower. I try to picture how different it must have looked from this overpass on March 24, when 1,000 cars traveled it in a midnight stampede.

For a half-century, West Baltimore’s “Highway to Nowhere” has stood as a testament to how big transportation projects can run over, literally and figuratively, disadvantaged communities. The demolition of hundreds of homes and businesses to create what turned out to be an isolated 1.4-mile-long stretch of sunken blacktop was an example of what happens when a predominantly Black, working-class community is seen by the powerful as no more than an obstacle to progress.

Last month, Gov. Wes Moore signed into law one of the most ambitious housing bills in Maryland history. It removed regulatory and zoning hurdles for desperately needed affordable housing across the state. Around the same time, the Baltimore County Council filed legislation to stop the construction of new units under the auspices of expanding the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, otherwise known as “APFO.”