Politics

Stacy Rodgers will retire in April after almost five years as Baltimore County’s top administrative official, according to a county news release. Rodgers, 63, is the first Black person and second woman after Robin Churchill, who was appointed in 1997, to serve as chief administrative officer, an office that oversees Baltimore County’s agency leaders and day-to-day operations.

Maryland’s Health Department is adding more than 130 new state positions as the state continues to trim contractual positions and beef up the number of full-time government employees. The positions approved Wednesday by the three-member Board of Public Works is the second such request made by the agency in three months.

As winter weather began arriving in mountain passes, the Oregon Department of Transportation issued a warning: The state was running out of money to plow roads and could “no longer maintain the state’s transportation system at the same level as we have in the past.” Drivers would need to anticipate delays and prepare to be stranded in poor weather.

State and Maryland Capitol Police responded Wednesday morning to a bomb threat made against the historic State House in Annapolis. The threat comes on the same day that multiple other states received a threatening email claiming explosives were placed at state capitol buildings. A spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore (D) confirmed the receipt of a bomb threat Wednesday.

The entreaties from Gov. Wes Moore’s campaign started in November and have come every few days since then. The email solicitations warn of the looming “fundraising freeze” and seek quick donations. “On January 10, MD’s fundraising freeze will take effect, meaning that Wes and I won’t be able to accept any contributions to support our campaigns as we work with the General Assembly to strengthen Maryland’s economy, health care access, public education, public safety, transportation, and so much more,” Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D) wrote in a Dec. 30 solicitation.

Gov. Wes Moore’s administration announced Wednesday the hiring of a D.C. labor council president experienced in public employee contract negotiations as the year-end talks with the state’s largest workers’ union near contract ratification. Dyana Forester, who most recently served as the president of the Metropolitan Washington Labor Council, AFL-CIO, will join the governor’s team on Jan. 10.

Governor Wes Moore on Wednesday signed an executive order establishing the Longevity Ready Maryland Initiative, directing the Maryland Department of Aging to prioritize the well-being of older people, people living with disabilities, and caregivers across all of state government, proactively addressing the needs arising from a growing older adult population.

After a 20% drop in Baltimore homicides last year, Mayor Brandon Scott said Wednesday that his administration would carry 2023’s momentum forward and work on “sustained, long-term” reductions in violent crime. Flanked by more than a dozen city officials and community group leaders, Scott said last year’s decline in homicides and slight decline in nonfatal shootings is not cause for celebration, even if it is “meaningful progress.”