Commentary

This week, Councilwoman Lisa Rodvien introduced a resolution before the Anne Arundel County Council “apologizing for civil rights violations that occurred under the administration of a former Anne Arundel County executive.” The resolution read in part, “whereas, the former county executive ordered his executive detail and other county employees to create dossiers on those he perceived as political rivals, as well as women who complained that he harassed or discriminated against them, in the years leading up to 2012″.

The announcement by Gov. Larry Hogan that he will end the federal subsidies for unemployment disproportionately affects women and people of color. According to Oxfam America, women in Maryland make up 35% of workers making $15 per hour or less. The percentages for people of color are even more daunting with 51.5% of Hispanics, 37.7% of Black people, and 30.5% of Asian people making $15 per hour or less. Compare that to only 27.6% of white people earning $15 per hour or less.

The COVID-19 state of emergency in Anne Arundel County ended today. More than a year after the County Council passed legislation handing enormous, extra powers to County Executive Steuart Pittman this ending seems almost anticlimactic. Before the county moves on, however, there is good reason to wonder whether the process that granted these powers should be changed.

Two decades ago, infectious disease experts warned that our country was uniquely vulnerable to epidemics because, unlike every other affluent nation, the United States has millions of residents without health insurance. Many who lack health coverage cannot afford to seek medical attention, even if they feel sick. A highly contagious virus “left undetected” because a person chose to forego care could “spread to family, neighbors, and other contacts,” making health insurance gaps “a risk to the nation’s health.”

For the past 67 years, Fortune magazine has compiled a listing of the top publicly held U.S. companies based on revenue, which many have used to gauge a region’s success and prominence in the American business world. If you’ve got a Fortune 500 company in your midst, you’re on the business map. Unfortunately, the Baltimore region has not had any companies on the Fortune 500 list since Constellation Energy was acquired by Exelon Corp. in 2012.

When John Hammond, the former Annapolis alderman and longtime budget officer for Anne Arundel County, first raised the subject of merging city and county services a few months back, he predicted it would a big factor in this fall’s city elections. Alderman Sheila Finlayson, long an advocate for city employees, may have just put a huge crimp in that forecast. Monday night, after a marathon City Council session, a majority of aldermen and alderwomen voted to approve Mayor Gavin Buckley’s $152 million budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

A mentor of mine once explained to me his theory of what kinds of people get involved in politics in Our Great American Democracy. His opinion was that there were three types of personalities who got involved in politics. The first is perhaps the most admirable. That would be the person who feels strongly about a particular cause or issue such as civil rights, war and peace, the environment, education, etc.

The road to pandemic unemployment benefits in Maryland is long and fraught with difficulties. Applicants endure endless processing delays and unanswered calls, and tens of thousands of Marylanders have endured lengthy delays waiting for the Maryland Department of Labor to process their applications for benefits. If you call the claimant hotline today (667-207-6520), chances are high no one will answer your call. Even if you finally gain access to benefits, the department may demand you pay them back, threatening possible legal action via inexplicable and abruptly assessed overpayment notices.

Well done, Maryland. The state deserves a pat on the back, an atta-boy — or these woke days more appropriately an atta-person — as it proceeds to phase out its Big Top vaccination sites and take its needles directly to communities and even neighborhood hangouts. The state — our state — ranks in the top percentile of those that’ve completed the most COVID shots — more than 6.2 million and more than 3 million fully vaccinated — to be exact, eight slots ahead of neighboring Virginia and five notches ahead of the District of Columbia, to complete the DMV roundelay, and eighth by actual count among the 50 states.

At the end of May, Gov. Larry Hogan issued his last round of legislative decisions, vetoing more than 20 bills in total and letting hundreds of others go into effect without his signature, bringing to an end the state’s legislative work this year. It was a year like no other. The legislature held its full 90-day session in Annapolis during the pandemic and accomplished a great deal. Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones deserve credit for establishing strict health protocols that helped avoid a COVID-19 outbreak and kept legislators, staff, media and the public safe.