Commentary

“Cycling advocates pan Maryland-Virginia bridge crossing plan as potentially deadly” is the latest in a series of well-reported stories by Maryland Matters on the new Nice bridge across the Potomac River, connecting Charles County to Virginia. Containing no surprises, it lays bare the cynical trap intentionally left by the outgoing Hogan administration (and Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary Jim Ports) for the incoming Moore administration, and the newly appointed MDOT Secretary Paul Wiedefeld.

The Mother’s Day the nation celebrates Sunday is the result of the efforts of many women over the last century, especially these three. The first was Ann Reeves Jarvis (1832-1905) of Virginia, who started local Mothers’ Day Work Clubs before the Civil War devoted to improving the health and sanitary conditions of mothers and their children.

On Tuesday, Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott lifted the masking requirement he had put in place for City Hall during the pandemic. “With this announcement,” he said in a news release, “we take one more step toward returning city business to a state of normalcy after a long and difficult chapter in our history.”

Across Maryland, local governments are putting together their Fiscal 2024 budgets, and a familiar pattern has emerged. Without the safety net of federal American Rescue Plan funding made available during the peak COVID-19 years and, on the other side of the ledger, expanded K-12 public school costs mandated by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, some are finding their resources stretched thin.

Maryland’s 2023 legislative session has ended, and it is time to take account of legislative casualties. One such casualty was House Bill 96/Senate Bill 93, the Youth Equity and Safety Act, which was stalled in committee. This is a juvenile justice bill championed, respectively, by Del. Charlotte Crutchfield (D-Montgomery) and Sen. Jill Carter (D-Baltimore City), that would end, once and for all, the automatic charging of youth who commit any one of 33 offenses as if they were adults. It would end a practice that has failed young people and our communities.

I always laugh a little when I see ads for Mother’s Day presents inviting grateful children to take their maternal parental figure to lunch, buy her flowers or jewelry, or send her to a quaint bed and breakfast. I laugh because I am a single mother whose child lacks both the height to reach the cereal and credit enough to shell out for brunch. Just like at Christmas, unless some other relative makes sure he has a gift ready to give me, I’m pouring my own special holiday coffee. And that’s OK.

The Frederick County Council made a puzzling choice recently when it refused to rezone roughly 223 acres in Adamstown from agricultural use to general industrial use. The owners of the land, Windridge Properties LLC and Windridge Farm LLC, did not submit development plans, but indicated that they were seeking approval to move forward on a future data center development.