Politics

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman began his second attempt to pass public campaign finance legislation at Monday night’s County Council meeting after his efforts to get it on the ballot failed in 2022. The bill would set up a framework in which candidates running for county office could receive public funds that match small donations.

Seven months of wayfinding for Montgomery County leaders with often clashing visions for restoring trust in the county’s planning board culminated Tuesday in the selection of Artie L. Harris Jr. as board chair. Harris, vice president of a nonprofit housing developer, edged out former county council member Hans Riemer to round out the board, alongside four others recently picked to relaunch an institution rocked by scandal last year.

During the past 14 years he spent working in maintenance for the Maryland Transportation Authority, Harold Coleman, 54, has thought of advancing. But his options are limited, he explained to Maryland lawmakers earlier this year, by a burglary charge he incurred while homeless on the streets of Baltimore.

The Baltimore County Council will soon consider and adopt the 2030 Master Plan, giving finality to a process that has been delayed three years due to the coronavirus pandemic. The county began community input meetings in the fall of 2021 to solicit feedback. Public comment ended April 14, though people can still send in feedback until Wednesday, May 17, at 12 p.m.

The Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education violated part of the state Open Meetings Act during a closed session last year by failing to provide sufficiently detailed disclosures to the public before meeting in closed session, according to an opinion letter from the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board that was made public Friday.

When Glenda Gathers moved to Severn in 1980, she saw a neighborhood that was missing something. Squished between Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Fort Meade in western Anne Arundel County, Severn was viewed by some as crime-ridden and violent. Yet, Gathers, known locally as Miss G, saw potential and a future for the community where young people had a safe haven in which to grow and mature with their peers.

Thoroughbred horse racing, renowned for its excitement and splendor, was once dubbed the “sport of kings.” Seabiscuit and Secretariat captured the national imagination. One of the first Sports Illustrated articles, in 1954, highlighted a horse owned by Queen Elizabeth II running at Laurel Park. Today, racing remains historic and entertaining and, perhaps most notably in Maryland, brings the state its most iconic annual event, the Preakness.