MarylandReporter.com (http://marylandreporter.com/author/len-lazarick/)
Sports betting is the latest frontier for the expansion of legalized gambling in Maryland, panelists at the Maryland Live! casino Thursday made clear. It is crucial to “get the federal government out of the way” of sports gambling, said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, which sponsored the event touting the industry’s contribution to local jobs and nonprofits.
This is the 12th and final part in a series of monthly essays leading up to Columbia’s 50th birthday celebration this month. Veteran journalist and longtime resident Len Lazarick wraps up by looking back over the past 50 years and looking forward to Columbia’s future. All 12 chapters have now been published as a 200-page book.
The depositions of Maryland’s three highest official make interesting reading, though the format is trying. The Washington Post has put the depositions on Document Cloud. Thanks to the AP’s Brian Witte for pointing out the section on MarylandReporter.com and its biweekly columnist Michael Collins (pages 60-62). Here is that whole section in its entirety made easier to read.
Keeping a sports facility open that runs consistently at a big loss may seem like a poor financial decision. Yet it is completely consistent with the original philosophy behind the Columbia Association. As Columbia got started, every one of the amenities and facilities ran at a loss, not to mention the debt it took to build them. As Columbia looks to the future, CA not only wants to keep the pools and athletic facilities open, but to keep Jim Rouse’s vision alive.
Democrats were quick to jump on Republican Gov. Larry Hogan for vetoing their version of alleged redistricting reform on Monday. But the charges were largely partisan spin, and both sides were posturing for the 2018 campaign.
Gov. Larry Hogan’s strategy on President Trump’s budget apparently worked: Shut up and let the Maryland’s members of Congress do their job. Democratic officials and party leaders had demanded the Republican governor stand up to Trump and resist plans to cut funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup, medical research at the National Institutes of Health, and funding for the Affordable Care Act. Hogan said it was up to Congress to act on the president’s budget, and a spokesman said the governor would act if and when the cuts actually happened.
Delegate Pat McDonough has “had it with the legislature,” he said. “It will be torture for me even to go back for the last session,” said the populist conservative from Middle River in Baltimore County. Now the four-term delegate has set his sights on the Towson courthouse, hoping to become county executive for Maryland’s third largest county that has turned more Republican over the past decade, particularly on its east side.
This is the 10th part in a series of 12 monthly essays leading up to Columbia’s 50th birthday celebration in June. The Merriweather Post Pavilion was one of the first structures built before Columbia even had its first residents. Now it is being redeveloped and is at the center of the Merriweather District that is part of Columbia’s new downtown. But Merriweather is only part of the arts scene in the planned community.
By Capital News Service and MarylandReporter.com
“It was a great session,” Gov. Larry Hogan said about the just closed 90-day meeting of the Maryland General Assembly. “This is the way government is supposed to work…. This was all about compromise.” “It was a session we can all be proud of,” House Speaker Michael Busch, sitting next to Hogan at a bill signing ceremony Tuesday morning. “This year your staff did a great job.”
Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has chosen not to fight the Democrat-dominated legislature on 15 bills they sent to him early, expecting vetoes on some. The most surprising among the 15 bills Hogan let go into law without his signature is HB913, forcing the governor to put $1 million a year in the budget of the attorney general in order to sue the Trump administration. Hogan had called the bill “horrible” and “crazy.”