Commentary

On Nov. 2, Annapolitans will go to the polls to vote for a mayor and members of the Annapolis City Council. Every election is a referendum on the incumbent. Has the candidate kept their promises to the voters? Gavin Buckley so impressed voters four years ago that he won the mayoral election in a landslide. He won every ward. His campaign theme was “One Annapolis.” What he meant by that was that in order for our city to move forward, all Annapolitans had to be a part of that progress.

Maryland politicians routinely claim to be champions of open government. After all, to suggest otherwise would imply they have something to hide and are thus unaccountable to their constituents. These incentives help explain why during almost every legislative session Maryland politicians introduce and pass legislation that they claim will improve open government in Maryland. The problem is that the worse the open government legislation — the more it is riddled with loopholes and costly enforcement mechanisms that make it unenforceable — the more the General Assembly seems to support it.

Harford County State’s Attorney Al Peisinger and Harford County Circuit Court Judge Diane Atkins-Tobin again have earned the respect and gratitude of Harford residents for their successful prosecution and five-year sentencing of a 20-year-old man for, in part, his possession with intent to distribute the opioid oxycodone pills. This case is especially noteworthy given the recent federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s Public Safety Alert on the sharp increase in fake prescription pills like oxycodone.

It is time for city officials to accept that Baltimore’s central business district (CBD) no longer is the bustling, undisputed hub of commerce in the city. The best hope for its future lies in becoming a more livable mix of high quality residential and commercial uses. For that future to be realized, however, something else must occur: City officials must stop allowing the voices of the city’s business and financial movers and shakers to drown out the voices of the growing number of Baltimoreans who live downtown.

The No. 1 reason lawyers receive ethical complaints is for not communicating with their clients. But while regular and consistent communication may avoid ethical problems, more is needed in order to truly “wow” clients. One of the core values of my firm is to provide clients with the very best client service we can possibly provide. To me, this is of absolute critical importance. We approach this through a variety of ways that focus on one singular objective: consistently showing clients they are valued and appreciated.

In a world where lawyers think their law degrees and Bar membership give them a license to spin conspiracy theories to support claims of a “stolen election” and justify participation in an attempted insurrection, judges must insist and if necessary, enforce the ethical obligation of every lawyer to comply with the applicable “Attorney’s Rules of Professional Conduct.” Every state, as well as the federal courts, have them.

Politicians and athletes often have a tough time letting go of yesterday. In a rare convergence of forced departures and voluntary resignations, the entire top tier of Maryland’s elected officials will be replaced with new faces, little experience in their new roles and total reliance on a continuum of bureaucrats and friendly functionaries who keep the state humming no matter who at the top comes or goes.

In recent pieces, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies, writing for Salon, and Claire Cain Miller, writing for The New York Times, did an excellent job researching the global child care and education picture compared to what we provide here in the United States. Benjamin and Davies provided the data demonstrating that, “In the developed world, the United States is an outlier in its low levels of financial support for young children’s care. The U.S. spends 0.2 percent of its gross domestic product” – the total value of all goods and services produced in the country – “on child care for children 2 years old and under, which amounts to about $200 a year for most families.”

The vaccination numbers out of Montgomery County are so incredible, they sound as if they’re election results from an authoritarian regime. But according to the county itself, they’re real, with 99.9 percent of eligible Montgomery County residents having received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 90 percent considered “fully vaccinated” with two doses. Our hospitalization numbers reflect this near-universal vaccination, with only 22 new coronavirus-related admissions in the past seven days (as of Oct. 18), a 42 percent decrease from the prior week, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It quite literally does not get much better than Montgomery County when it comes to coronavirus vaccines and hospitalizations.