Politics

Over the past few years, Anne Arundel County has incrementally upgraded its bus system, including launching an app that allows residents to track buses and expanding a feature that enables them to call a bus. Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman told state transportation officials at a meeting last week he was actively trying to improve transit service in the county. “There is the, ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy as opposed to, ‘well people aren’t riding it so let’s not bother to build it,’” he said.

Marylanders interested in handgun ownership still must apply for handgun qualification licenses despite Tuesday’s federal court decision deeming them unconstitutional. According to the Maryland State Police, which is charged with registering firearms owners, the portion of the 2013 Gun Safety Act requiring handgun qualification licenses will remain in effect until the federal court issues a mandate for the licensing process to cease.

A Maryland police union says a new law meant to allow access to officer disciplinary records should not apply to those created before the law took effect. Release of the records would be unfair to an officer, the union says, because he was guaranteed confidentiality when the investigation into his conduct took place. The argument is among those from Montgomery County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35 in a case widely seen as an early test of Anton’s Law, passed by state lawmakers in 2021 to ensure public access to complaints of police misconduct.

Del. Mike Rogers (D-Anne Arundel) this week confirmed what his filing with the Federal Election Commission last week suggested: He’s joining the race in the 3rd congressional district. “I’m in,” he said in an interview. After almost 30 years in the Army and five years in the House of Delegates, Rogers said he views the potential to be in the House of Representatives as an extension of his public service.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown on Tuesday suspended a member of the state’s relatively new hate crimes commission for her social media comments on the latest war between Israel and Hamas. Zainab Chaudry, who is the executive director of the Maryland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is temporarily suspended from her position as a member of the Maryland Commission on Hate Crimes Response and Prevention, the attorney general’s office said.

Maryland state lawmakers are proposing a new bill requiring sellers to notify potential homeowners of any Superfund site near a residential property and the associated risks. The bill, which state Sen. Karen Lewis Young and Del. Kris Fair plan to file, would require that addendum for all sales contracts on residential properties within 0.5 miles of a Superfund site across the state.

Carroll County’s Triple-A bond rating from three independent credit agencies resulted in the county securing a low interest rate of 3.63% during this year’s bond sale. Carroll County Comptroller Jenny Hobbs said the interest rate was lower than last year’s rate of 3.79% and was somewhat unexpected. “I guess the [financial] markets are moving,” Hobbs said to commissioners on Nov. 16.

Baltimore mayoral candidate Sheila Dixon ended a campaign event at a bar early on Monday night, after a shooting one block away left two men injured. The former mayor was addressing a small crowd at Maceo’s, a neighborhood bar near North Avenue, about her 2024 mayoral platform. Mondays are a busy night for the tavern, where neighborhood residents watch football and play cards during commercial breaks. The Democrat said the bar owner had invited her to speak.