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The Maryland Court of Appeals has disbarred former Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson.
The court issued an order disbarring Johnson on Friday.
I have heard the comment that downzoning and smart growth will ruin property values, but I have heard no evidence to support this claim. Those who say this may be using the strategy that if you say something often enough, people will believe it is true.
Studies show that Charles County has enough housing in the pipeline to meet 90 percent of the county’s needs until 2040. Yet some still believe that they can profit from a demand for additional sprawl housing.
In response to the articles about Charles County Planning Commission members Lou Grasso, Joe Richard, Bob Mitchell and Joan Jones short-circuiting the Charles County comprehensive plan update process and killing the county’s Priority Preservation Area [“Panel speeds up ’12 comp. plan update,” “Commission kills preservation area,” Maryland Independent, Jan. 25], how did we get a planning commission that seems to have virtually unlimited and arbitrary power?
[...]
It is absolutely unacceptable that a commission with apparently unrestricted power be arbitrarily appointed and not elected by all the voters of Charles County.
Trucks are safe on the edges of Charles County roads, at least for now.
On Tuesday, the county commissioners rejected a proposal to allow the Charles County Sheriff’s Office to ticket large commercial vehicles, like buses and tractor-trailers, parked alongside roads in residential areas.
The change in county code, suggested in response to complaints about large vehicles parked in neighborhoods with homeowners associations, could harm rural residents with small businesses, the commissioners said.
A charter form of government wouldn’t necessarily be an improvement on what Charles County has now, an academic told the county commissioners Tuesday.
Professor Jeanne E. Bilanin, associate director of the Institute for Governmental Service and Research at the University of Maryland, declined to say what structure would be best for Charles County, but asserted that both charter and code county governments have strengths and weaknesses, and neither stands out as superior.
[...]
The state board plans to propose regulations next month that would require school districts to develop a plan to reduce suspensions for nonviolent offenses as well as the number of suspensions of special education and minority students, said James H. DeGraffenreidt Jr., state board president.
The board also proposes eliminating expulsions, except in cases of students who have a firearm.
Reducing suspensions has been an overall goal for the state board, which has been concerned about an increase in suspensions among certain racial and other student groups, MSDE spokesman Bill Reinhard said.
Date: 01/24/2012
Agenda
Date: 01/24/2012
The number of business bankruptcies in Maryland declined for the second consecutive year in 2011 after increases the three previous years, according to federal bankruptcy court figures.
Some 630 companies filed for bankruptcy in Maryland courts in 2011, down 22 percent from 2010. Last year’s level was about the same as in 2008, but still well above the 352 filings in 2007.
Nationally, business bankruptcies fell a bit less last year than in Maryland, falling 19 percent, according to Alexandria, Va., research group American Bankruptcy Institute and data firm Epiq Systems.
Legislation would end immunity for abuse while in office
Senate Judicial Proceedings Chairman Brian E. Frosh has filed legislation that would allow for state and local lawmakers to be prosecuted in state courts if they are charged with seeking or taking bribes related to their official duties.
Four Republicans and 10 Democrats have joined Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda in sponsoring a bill that would amend the Maryland Constitution to state that legislative privilege or immunity from civil and criminal liability does not apply to “prosecution for demanding or receiving a bribe, fee, reward, or testimonial” to influence their action or inaction in office.
As a constitutional amendment, it would need approval by three-fifths of the House of Delegates and three-fifths of the Senate to move to the ballot in November, where a majority of votes is needed for it to become law.
Several bills in the General Assembly take aim at threatening personal messages sent via popular social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.
The measures would expand the definition of criminal harassment to include text messaging and other forms of electronic communication.
Currently, the only form of electronic harassment the law governs is that sent through email, said Del. Mary Washington, the sponsor of a bill that would expand the law to include any electronic transmission of information or data from one person to another that Maryland law considers harassing or obscene.
Maryland’s toothless, outdated financial disclosure law needs a major overhaul, and it needs it now.
To begin with, our state is the only state that requires citizens to show up in person to view financial disclosure reports.
This means that anyone from Accident to Ocean City must go to the office of the State Ethics Commission in Annapolis to see these reports. Other states provide financial disclosure information online or send it electronically or through the mail upon request.
St. Mary’s County’s “New Teacher Induction Program” is being held out as a model for school systems around the state as those systems develop their own local initiatives to address the national “Race to the Top.”
Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion U.S. Department of Education initiative funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act announced by President Obama in 2009. States compete for the funding and Maryland garnered $250 million in the second round of awards. St. Mary’s County is receiving from that pot $1.4 million over the next three years.
Six criteria were used to determine which states receive funding. One of those criteria goes under the broad heading of “Great Teachers and Leaders.” One of the parts of that is “providing effective support to teachers and principals.”
Governor Martin O’Malley today released the Maryland Genuine Progress Indicator Policy Maker calculator, a tool that will allow users to manipulate various economic, environmental and social factors to see what impact these mock scenarios would have on the world around them.
“This tool will help us see how small lifestyle changes can help ensure a more sustainable future for ourselves and for our State,” said Governor Martin O’Malley.
The new Calculator allows visitors to alter one, some, or all of the 26 indicators that make up the Genuine Progress Indicator. This means users can create true-to-life or hypothetical situations to see how certain factors compliment or play against one another. Once the factors are adjusted, the results show the user whether the changes positively or negatively affect Maryland’s genuine progress rating, information that can be used to assist in policy decisions.
America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system’s conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue.
Hospitals and doctors’ offices increasingly are going digital, the Bipartisan Policy Center says in a report being released Friday. But there’s been little progress getting the computer systems to talk to one another, exchanging data the way financial companies do.
“The level of health information exchange in the U.S. is extremely low,” the report says.
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