Commentary

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.

Stephen H. “Steve” Sachs should have been the governor of Maryland. He radically changed and reformed the attorney general’s office during eight years on the job and believed he was ready for the next step in 1986. There was one problem: The men (and they were all men in those days) running the state’s Democratic Party thought Sachs was too liberal. So, they convinced wildly popular Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer to run against Sachs, and Schaefer beat him handily.

When the pandemic first hit Maryland in 2020, it sent us all into a tailspin from which we have yet to recover. In the wake of rising cases and deaths, a statewide lockdown was declared, though due to the lack of information we had at the time due to its spread, after Gov. Larry Hogan’s state of emergency declaration, the extent of the lockdown was piecemeal and took too long to fully implement.

As state legislators convene on Wednesday, there will be even more frenzy than usual. The pandemic will cast its viral spell over every deliberation, and it’s an election year to boot. How then will schools and schoolchildren fare? What legislative action should be sought? For sure, the education landscape is far different than it was three years ago.

When the pandemic first hit Maryland in 2020, it sent us all into a tailspin from which we have yet to recover. In the wake of rising cases and deaths, a statewide lockdown was declared, though due to the lack of information we had at the time due to its spread, after Gov. Larry Hogan’s state of emergency declaration, the extent of the lockdown was piecemeal and took too long to fully implement. As such, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people were left scrambling to stay safe while also making sure their livelihoods were kept intact and they could keep a roof over their heads.

Johns Hopkins Medicine recently made the callous decision to cut nearly 6,000 seniors in Baltimore City and Calvert County from its Hopkins Medicare Advantage plan, leaving many elderly Marylanders scrambling to find new health care coverage on a short timeline. Among those left confused and worried by the impending loss of their Hopkins Medicare Advantage plans were my parents, longtime residents of East Baltimore. In early October, they received letters in the mail from Hopkins indicating their current plans would not be offered in 2022.