Commentary

Tom Kerr was 30 years old in the spring of 1973 when the legendary William Donald Schaefer, then in his first term as mayor of Baltimore, called and told him he wanted Kerr to organize a Christmas parade. “And you didn’t say ‘no’ to Mayor Schaefer,” Kerr says, reminding me — not that I needed it — that WDS was a strong-willed and demanding mayor who could explode into shards of nasty if you crossed him.

In May 2019, Maryland became the first state to establish a board to set drug prices. But nearly five years later, the board still hasn’t determined which medicines deserve limits or how to apply them. Maryland was smart not to rush. There’s a distinct danger that cutting prices by government decree through a politically appointed Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) will do more harm than good. That’s certainly what Colorado is learning.

Not since the glory days of the B&O Railroad has Baltimore been so much in the limelight of railroading as it has recently. Last week, it was President Joe Biden’s announcement of $16.4 billion in spending on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, a big chunk of which is headed to Charm City. On Monday, top Biden administration officials were back to talk with Gov. Wes Moore about a secondary benefit of all that spending including the $4.7 billion committed to create a new Frederick Douglass Tunnel through Baltimore — the chance to put a lot of young people on the right track toward high-paying transportation jobs (as a “workforce hub”) connected to such public investment.

State Sen. Karen Lewis Young said she plans to propose a bill giving student members of county school boards in the state a much broader baseline for voting rights. Lewis Young, a Democrat, said she and Democratic Del. Kris Fair want to propose legislation to require all student members of local school boards to have at least the same voting rights as the student member of the Maryland State Board of Education.

“The racial wealth gap is intentional. It was created. It was created by the Homestead Act. It was created by urban redlining. It was created by the inequitable distribution of the GI bill. It was created by unfair appraisal values. It was created by racist procurement policies. The racial wealth gap was created by the misguided choices of people in power.

I love the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I know that is a controversial statement for legions of people who commute over it every day or spend hours crossing it for vacations or are trapped in their neighborhoods by the miles-long anaconda of slowly moving cars. I know some people fear driving across it. But I love the bridge.No other engineering marvel shapes Maryland like the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial (Bay) Bridge.

With the news last week that the FBI headquarters is moving to Maryland, the state has a major reason to celebrate. It also has a major reason to make new plans. The new headquarters, which will be built on a currently empty site adjacent to the Greenbelt Metro Station — the terminus of the Green Line — is expected to house 11,000 workers. They are moving from the J. Edgar Hoover building in central DC.