Commentary

Our Democracy is hanging by a thread. Less than two years ago, we witnessed a full scale insurrection in Washington, D.C., where rioters assaulted Capitol Police officers and threatened to assassinate the vice president and members of Congress. It is against this backdrop of recent political violence that makes the behavior exhibited at Tuesday’s City Council hearing so troubling. As members of Baltimore’s governing body, we collectively condemn the outrageous and dangerous behavior exhibited at City Hall. The free exchange of ideas should never be accompanied by petty, personal insults or thinly veiled threats of a riot.

School board members work hard but usually get more grief than appreciation for their labors. I was one of them, serving two separate stints on the Baltimore City school board. Nonetheless, the evidence is overwhelming that school boards generally do more harm than good. And their negative impact is getting worse.

The grander myths of Christopher Columbus were long ago exposed as false. As we’ve outlined on this page before, he didn’t set out to prove the world was round, didn’t discover America and might not even have been Italian. He was never the hero his legend grew to portray him, but instead a complicated man whose journeys commercially linked the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and led the way toward European conquest of North America, as well as the enslavement and domination of its Indigenous peoples.

My family moved 11 times during the 12 years my dad was in the Marine Corps. After he left active duty, we returned to the civilian world, settling in then Baltimore area. Life after the military was supposed to be calm and predictable. Unfortunately, my dad began struggling with post-traumatic stress and an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury. My mom immediately stepped up as his caregiver. As the oldest child, I was her assistant. Separated from the understanding and support of the Marine Corps community, life became difficult and lonely. At 12 years old, I was completely overwhelmed, and I began to think that my parents would be better off without me.

Montgomery County is large and prosperous with a highly educated workforce. But that doesn’t mean we can throw money away. The County Executive and members of the Council have approved plans to expand their Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system despite its failure to attract riders. The BRT, marketed as the Flash bus, is an expensive solution for a bygone time. Meantime, county leadership turns a blind eye to alternative transit options. Transit riders don’t like buses. In 2019, The New York Times reported that bus ridership had dropped for nearly seven years straight and was at its lowest level since the 1970s.

Once again, our state legislators have failed our most vulnerable children, killing a bill that would have required cameras to be installed in special education classrooms. Introduced for the third straight year, the bill would have required installing cameras in all self-contained special ed classrooms over the next two years. Lori Scott, vice president of The Arc Maryland and a leading advocate for the legislation, told News-Post reporter Jillian Atelsek that the House of Delegates “murdered the bill” by changing it to a pilot program for just 10 schools before passing the amended version 128-4. That stripped-down version never got a hearing in the state Senate.

Memorial Day is still weeks away, yet in Ocean City, civic and business leaders are already fretting about the seasonal challenges ahead. Weather? They can only hope for clear skies and warm temperatures. Traffic jams on U.S. 50? That’s in the hands of out-of-towners, like the Maryland Transportation Authority, the state agency that operates the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Good fishing, calm seas for boating? Again, strictly higher powers in control.