Commentary

After five years of political, economic and social upheaval in America, this month has seen some hints of a return to normalcy. The question is whether the two political parties (and their rabid ideological bases) are willing to settle for the benefits of “normal” politics instead of going for the “transformative” variety — which is tempting but almost always destructive. Consider the events of November so far: Republicans won a gubernatorial race in Virginia by running an issues-based appeal to voters, particularly on education.

How well I remember Thanksgiving in mid-20th century Baltimore. We lived on Biltmore Avenue, a shady, almost bucolic street about a mile northwest of Pimlico. After breakfast my parents would load us four kids into an old Buick Roadmaster and head down Park Heights toward Charles Street (the Jones Falls Expressway wasn’t completed until 1990), and look for a parking space in the vicinity of Howard and Lexington. Sometimes we’d bring folding lawn chairs, but usually we’d just stand.

I grew up in Park Heights, the same neighborhood where Mayor Brandon Scott announced that Baltimore will use $50 million in federal COVID relief money to fund collaborative gun violence prevention initiatives. Mayor Scott’s announcement comes on the heels of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s 14-month study that found less than a 1% increase in violent crime and no threat to public safety as a result of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s March 2020 decision to decline prosecution of drug possession and prostitution cases.

Today, more than any time in history, effective and business-centric IT is critical to success in a competitive, customer-centric market — no matter the industry. Small and midmarket firms need to keep pace with their larger competitors to stay relevant. The challenge for many organizations is budget, with leaders contemplating if they have the resources – budget, time, and talent – for innovation or digitalization.

In Maryland, success stories about rural local governments often do not make the news. Unlike the State of Maryland or the larger, more affluent jurisdictions, places like Caroline County on the Eastern Shore do not have teams dedicated to tweeting, touting, or otherwise trumpeting accomplishments. By many measures, Caroline is Maryland’s second poorest county. Like many local governments, it was devastated by the Great Recession of 2008. The loss of revenues from falling property assessments was compounded by the State taking 90 percent of local road maintenance money.

The gigantic federal infrastructure bill, which finally passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Biden, is going to provide enormous benefits, transforming our community and our state. While the total size of the spending plan is $1.2 trillion, much of that is renewal of existing spending programs. But the new money in the bill is about $550 billion over the next five years. Think about that for a moment.

Although vaccination rates continue to rise and coverage on COVID-19 is fading away from prominent news dashboards, our rates are still higher than in summer 2020. While we still adapt to living and working with COVID-19, we must prepare for future public health emergencies so we do not lose another year figuring out our response. While many provisions of the Maryland Essential Workers’ Protection Act (MEWPA) expired when Gov. Larry Hogan ended Maryland’s state of emergency, one important, future-looking provision remained. Under the law, the Maryland Department of Health is required to develop a template catastrophic health emergency preparedness plan.

There’s nothing particularly pretty about the latest round of maps carving up Maryland’s eight congressional districts — even by preschool finger-painting standards. The shapes fashioned in the four entries produced by a legislative redistricting committee last week are sensible in the rural periphery (the Eastern Shore, Southern Maryland and Western Maryland stay intact), but in the central part of the state, they swirl like the artist dropped her colors by accident. This was no mischance, however; the results were carefully crafted.

Dollar houses have become a sort of urban lore in Baltimore. The fabled William Donald Schaefer-era program breathed new life into neighborhoods like Barre Circle and Otterbein, and most people in Baltimore have heard about someone’s mother or aunt or cousin who was able to grab hold of a piece of the American Dream for just $1 if they promised to fix up a vacant and falling down house. Community members still ask: Can we bring back dollar houses? And over the years, elected officials and candidates for office have opined about the possibility of handing over the keys to vacant, city-owned properties to regular folks, so they can fix them up and live in them and revitalize neighborhoods house by house by house.