Commentary

You don’t have to live next door to the LaFarge Quarry in Middle River to recognize that there’s something amiss with how Baltimore County makes land use decisions. To those who haven’t tracked the on-again, off-again dramatics surrounding the plan to turn what had been a sand and gravel quarry into an industrial park, here’s the short version: The controversial project was given fast-track approval last fall when it was located in the district of Councilmember Cathy Bevins, a Democrat who chose not to run for reelection.

There is no shortage of opportunity in Baltimore. Yet, there always seems to be a shortage of resources to seize those opportunities. Even when hundreds of millions of dollars come our way, it feels like a drop in the bucket after decades of disinvestment. Too often, that feeling of scarcity leads to resignation and a lack of imagination.

A nation of laws, not men — a principle undergirded by a system of checks and balances designed to secure liberty and justice for all. In striving to live up to these ideals, the work always begins with owning up to the reality of injustice. When we are silent on the rights of others, or when the will of those in power is forced on the voiceless, we stray dangerously far from justice for all.

Forests and natural areas are our communities’ best defense against water pollution and the climate crisis. Trees sequester carbon, cool temperatures, reduce flooding, and protect our rivers, lakes, and drinking water sources from polluted runoff. Locally, forests are the most important landscape to conserve for the health of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. But in the greater Baltimore-Washington, D.C. metro area, and in every other urban center around the world, our greatest environmental asset is also the one most often discarded.

Frederick County Board of Education members have an unenviable task over the next several weeks, as they try to maintain educational gains, keep important promises to staff and parents, and fill a budget gap. At the start of the month, the school board was contemplating more than $40 million in budget adjustments.

It took Angela Rockstar about a year and a lot of nudging the CBS publicity department to get a blue check on Twitter. But she lost it April 1, along with about 400,000 other people who were previously verified. And she doesn’t think she wants it back. “Having that checkmark opened up so many doors for me,” said Rockstar, a Columbia resident who was a houseguest on the 20th season of reality show “Big Brother” back in 2018.

“Cycling advocates pan Maryland-Virginia bridge crossing plan as potentially deadly” is the latest in a series of well-reported stories by Maryland Matters on the new Nice bridge across the Potomac River, connecting Charles County to Virginia. Containing no surprises, it lays bare the cynical trap intentionally left by the outgoing Hogan administration (and Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary Jim Ports) for the incoming Moore administration, and the newly appointed MDOT Secretary Paul Wiedefeld.

The Mother’s Day the nation celebrates Sunday is the result of the efforts of many women over the last century, especially these three. The first was Ann Reeves Jarvis (1832-1905) of Virginia, who started local Mothers’ Day Work Clubs before the Civil War devoted to improving the health and sanitary conditions of mothers and their children.