Politics

When Dr. David Bishai stepped into the role of Harford County health officer, he did so with an eye toward mitigating the coronavirus pandemic in the relatively conservative Baltimore suburb. He hoped to keep more people out of hospitals, prevent sickness from spreading and improve outcomes among residents of color. In Bishai’s view, he did what he could over the next nine months with the powers he had. He navigated a complex COVID-19 vaccine rollout, advocated for sensible mask-wearing guidelines and helped oversee the process of county children returning to schools this fall.

Federal officials announced in Baltimore Wednesday they will invest more in nationwide harm-reduction strategies to reduce drug-related deaths after Maryland and the United States saw record-breaking numbers of fatal overdoses last year. It’s part of a national effort to tackle the growing problem, and brought senior Biden administration officials and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott to the Healthcare for the Homeless building in Penns-Fallsway.

The 2020 census revealed that Latinos grew from 8% of the Maryland population in 2010 to 12% in 2020, making representation in government more critical than ever, Latino leaders said Thursday. “Representation matters because if we’re not present, we are an afterthought. We are invisible,” Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s) said in a virtual discussion about Latino representation with Maryland Latinos Unidos, a statewide network of organizations and businesses that support Latino and immigrant communities, on Thursday.

For decades, one Northeast Baltimore community near Lake Montebello has lived in fear that every time it rains, their homes will flood. But on Thursday, they got some good news. City and state leaders announced a $5 million plan to help stop the flooding. One homeowner stood in front of his house and watched the mayor’s announcement. “Hopefully they’re going to be fixing the flood problems that’s been going on here for years,” he said.

While the pace of Covid-19 infections in much of central Maryland is slowing, Frederick County is dealing with a positivity rate almost 50% higher than Maryland’s average. That has county leaders talking about an indoor mask mandate. They discussed the issue this week. “We continue to have people dying from Covid every week. One person in the past 24 hours. It concerns me greatly in a period of high transmission,” County Executive Jan Gardner said this week.

The choice of Comptroller Peter Franchot, the state’s chief tax collector, as his running mate in the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial primary has had her own run-ins with state and federal tax agencies and was also chastised in August for violating ethics law in Prince George County. Prince George’s County Councilwoman Monique Anderson-Walker was tapped by gubernatorial candidate Franchot Wednesday to be his lieutenant governor running mate in the 2022 Democratic primary.

U.S. Rep. Anthony G. Brown, a Prince George’s County Democrat and former lieutenant governor, will run for attorney general of Maryland next year. Brown, 59, is the first major Democratic candidate to jump into the race to replace outgoing Attorney General Brian Frosh, who announced Friday that he will retire at the end of his current term and not seek reelection.

Unionized state employees gathered in Baltimore on Wednesday evening to demand that Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) invest part of Maryland’s $2.5 billion 2021 budget surplus in underfunded and under-staffed state agencies. “The time is now for the state to fund our front line heroes,” said AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran at a rally held Wednesday at State Center, a complex of state government offices in midtown Baltimore.

Perry, White, Ross & Jacobson (PWRJ) today announced that Eddie L. Pounds would join the firm as a partner. Pounds is an accomplished attorney and lobbyist with sixteen years of legal experience and served as General Counsel for government, quasi-government entities, boards & commissions, and businesses.