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Politics

UMD survey: Most approve of legalized sports wagering, but concerns over college games remain
August 11, 2022 -

When Tom McMillen discusses college sports and legalized gambling, he’s straightforward about his concern. He fears a game-fixing scandal that would shake the confidence of fans across the country. “I would say 99% of the sports-betting scandals that have occurred had been in the college market,” said McMillen, a former U.S. congressman and basketball All-American at the University of Maryland. Two of the most high-profile betting scandals in sports history have happened at the college level. Boston College’s basketball program was ensnared in point-shaving controversy in the 1978-79 season.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Howard County honing HoCo By Design to shape long-term development
August 11, 2022 -

Howard County officials are working to develop a long-range, visionary plan called HoCo by Design that will detail development and conservation in the county through the year 2040. Once each decade, Howard County updates its general plan that guides land-use decisions. The current plan, PlanHoward2030, was adopted in 2012. The document establishes an overall plan and recommended actions relevant to current and future needs of the county. “Howard County is reaching a critical inflection point,” said Mark Miller, administrator with Howard County’s public information office.

Read More: Howard County Times
Md. lieutenant governor says Hogan could run for president as independent
August 11, 2022 -

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan may have campaigned for a more inclusive Republican Party, but his second-in-command floated the idea Wednesday that Hogan could leave it and run for president as an independent instead. “We could see an independent candidate, possibly, with initials L.H. for president in a couple years,” Lt. Gov. Boyd K. Rutherford (R) told WBAL radio Wednesday morning. “If that happens, I’d be wholeheartedly supportive.” But David Weinman, a spokesman for Hogan’s political organization, An America United, said the governor has no plans to leave the Republican Party, adding, “The lieutenant governor speaks his mind.”

Read More: Washington Post
Baltimore tax credit system is ‘highly inequitable,’ city budget office report says
August 10, 2022 -

Baltimore City’s distribution of tax credits is both inefficient and highly skewed in favor of wealthier neighborhoods, according to a review of the city’s tax credit programs by the city’s Bureau of the Budget and Management Research. Developers and homeowners in economically strong neighborhoods such as Canton and Riverside received a disproportionate share of the $126.7 million granted by the city in property tax breaks this year, the report found, while many historically neglected neighborhoods received little of that investment.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
Baltimore County bill would exempt waterfront businesses from Maryland environmental rules
August 10, 2022 -

Hospitality businesses that want to build or expand construction on their Baltimore County waterfront properties could soon be exempt from state waterway protection regulations, per legislation under the County Council’s consideration. An attorney with a nonprofit that’s focused on restoring the Chesapeake Bay’s health says the proposed bill flouts Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Protection law, designed to prevent additional runoff — and other pollution — from flowing into the nation’s largest estuary.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
Baltimore ARPA official responds to criticisms that city’s pandemic stimulus is moving too slow
August 10, 2022 -

Baltimore is spending its $641 million in federal COVID-19 aid as quickly as similar cities elsewhere, officials told City Council Tuesday, responding to council member criticisms the money isn’t being spent with enough urgency nor being used to resume core services curtailed during the pandemic. Mayor’s Office of Recovery Programs director Shamiah Kerney told members of City Council’s Ways and Means Committee during a quarterly update that Baltimore is keeping pace with other similarly sized cities in the disbursement of money from the American Rescue Plan Act, the sweeping federal stimulus package aimed at boosting the economic recovery from the pandemic in communities across the country.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
Cox calls FBI Mar-a-Lago search ‘police state tactics,’ while Hogan warns of divisions
August 10, 2022 -

Del. Dan Cox (R-Frederick), the GOP nominee for governor, joined the chorus of Republicans who condemned the FBI’s execution of a search warrant Monday at Mar-a-Lago, former President Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., home. The reaction of the man Cox is hoping to replace, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, was more nuanced. In a series of Facebook posts late Monday and Tuesday, Cox said “this FBI raid of Trump’s home is nothing short of communist stasi police state tactics.”

Read More: Maryland Matters
100 us dollar banknotes
Baltimore finance department sent $2 million refund to wrong party, Inspector General reports
August 10, 2022 -

A series of cascading errors by Baltimore’s finance department and city vendors led the Bureau of Revenue Collections to inadvertently send the wrong entity a check for $2 million, nearly $60,000 of which has not been recovered, according to a new report from the Office of the Inspector General. The chronicle begins after a third-party vendor responsible for processing numerous city payments bungled a payment meant to satisfy a company’s roughly $1 million property tax bill, accidentally paying Baltimore on behalf of a different organization, the owner of which held about $1,600 in outstanding property tax.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
Black candidates have never won a statewide office in Maryland. Is 2022 the year for a breakthrough win?
August 9, 2022 -

Wes Moore is careful to say that he’s not in the Maryland governor’s race to make history. But if the Democratic candidate is elected, he’d do just that: Moore would be the first Black man to serve as governor of Maryland. “It’s not lost on any of us, this idea that we’re all attempting to do something that hasn’t been done before, that I think the state is ready for,” said Moore, 43, who is facing Republican nominee Dan Cox, a one-term state delegate who is white. A handful of minor party and independent candidates will also be on the ballot.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
Mayor Scott’s top advisor Michael Huber to depart City Hall for Hopkins
August 9, 2022 -

Michael Huber, Mayor Brandon Scott’s chief of staff, will leave his influential role as City Hall’s top advisor in early September to lead Johns Hopkins University’s government relations team. His departure is the most significant in a first term dotted with high-profile exits, including department directors, several deputy mayors and mayor’s office staff. The attorney has served as Scott’s right hand for three years, providing a source of stability for the mayor across different political offices and the tumult of the pandemic.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner

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