Commentary

This is a critical week for our future. President Joe Biden is joining leaders from across the world in Glasgow, Scotland for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, to discuss commitments for addressing our climate crisis. We have joined with 537 state legislators from 47 states and territories in this letter, calling on the federal government to raise our ambition and strengthen our national climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

When the governor of Idaho was out of state recently, his second in command issued an executive order rescinding the boss’s actions on COVID-19 vaccinations and requirements for wearing masks. Both are right-wing Republicans and they are supposed to be political partners. But Lt. Gov. Janice Mc Geachin is far to the right of the top official, Gov. Brad Little, and she was trying to buff up her bona fides while he was in Texas at a meeting of Republican governors. Little, upon learning of the seditious act — and it was not the first betrayal by his understudy — quickly countermanded the order.

Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were among the great champions of progressive ideas in the 20th century. But they didn’t exist within an insular, self-validating community whose values and assumptions were often at odds with those of the rest of society. Increasingly, that cannot be said of modern progressivism.

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the city’s task force working to address complaints about the state of downtown Frederick at night. The complaints tend to focus on too much noise, or code violations or problems at bars. But the underlying issue, which often goes unmentioned, is fear. And fear can do more to degrade and ultimately destroy a thriving central business district than anything else.

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.