Commentary

In real estate development and financing, when you hear the word “preservation” I already know what you’re thinking – rehabilitating old buildings is expensive, and the red tape to adaptively reuse them can be extensive. However, neither of those issues has to prevent a project from successfully moving forward thanks to a tax credit that has been around for decades.

After Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema made it clear that they were not in favor of altering the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation, essentially dooming the bills to failure and ensuring that Republicans could continue their efforts to unleash an era of modified Jim Crow, the best the White House could say not to sound completely defeated was that they were going to keep fighting.

Imagine that, in her version of the famous Grant Wood painting, Heather R. Mizeur posed as a high school student with her welder-farmer father with a pitchfork in front of their “American Gothic” house in the prosperous agricultural township of Blue Mound, Ill., which had a population of 537 in the 1980 census. No doubt her high school had a Future Farmers of America chapter. Now working the 34-acre organic farm called Apotheosis Farm near Chestertown, on the gorgeous Eastern Shore, Mizeur runs for the Democratic nomination in the 1st congressional district primary. According to her campaign website, her family has been farming for seven generations.

Last month, the Supreme Court declined to block Texas’ restrictive 6-week abortion ban. And later this year, the same nine justices will decide whether to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the U.S. exactly 49 years ago as of Jan. 22. While the legal right to an abortion is vital, the truth is Roe has never been enough. We at the Baltimore Abortion Fund (BAF) continue to witness how systemic racism creates unnecessary obstacles to care, especially for people of color and those working to make ends meet.

It’s that time of year when everything feels bright, shiny and new. Except it doesn’t. Not here in Baltimore. Our foe, COVID-19, is in the throes of a hellish comeback; a funeral was just held for one of Baltimore’s finest; another city official was indicted on a charge of lying and betraying our civic trust; and there have been nearly as many murders as days so far in January. It’s hard to hang onto hope that 2022 will be better.

The authors want to acknowledge after submission of this commentary, but before its publication two positive developments: MSDE staff communicated willingness to talk with the coalition and added a feedback form to its website. Labor Day weekend, we began the work of forming a grass-roots coalition to monitor, provide input to and improve the policy recommendations of the Workgroup on English Language Learners in Public Schools, which was created by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future/Kirwan legislation and housed within the Maryland State Department of Education.

Baltimore City’s leadership, particularly as the Omicron infections rates surge, must focus on supporting the majority of residents in need of dire assistance: renters. As outlined by Baltimore Renters United during our news conference on Jan. 4, 2022, hundreds of evictions are currently scheduled, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, 23,228 Baltimore families — the vast majority of whom are Black — are behind on rent, thus facing possible eviction according to the latest census data.

After 12 years as Maryland’s chief public defender, Paul DeWolfe is retiring in June. As president of AFSCME Local 423, the Maryland Defenders Union, I know just how important the selection of a new public defender is, not only to the nearly 700 workers at the Office of the Public Defender but also to the hundreds of thousands of indigent clients we serve each year. But in the past, OPD workers have not had a voice in the selection process or in almost any aspect of agency policy.