City officials voiced concern about the financial impact of ending tax sales after learning that Baltimore faced a $79 million increase in education spending — an unanticipated cost that Mayor Brandon Scott likened to a ”gut punch.”

For the first time since the Great Recession, the city will balance its budget by tapping a reserve fund typically used for legal settlements.

A state investigation into the Fleischmann’s Vinegar plant in North Baltimore was prompted by complaints from Blue Water Baltimore, which also filed a lawsuit against the company this week.

This time all five members of the board were in the room. But there was no discussion, and no vote taken.

Tensions between the mayor’s public safety office and Roca had delayed a new agreement and cast a shadow over plans to expand the city’s promising anti-violence strategy.

Thirty-nine high school-age residents were shot and 11 died in the first three months of this year – the deadliest start to a year for Baltimore teens since at least 2015.

Safe Streets outposts reduced nearby homicides and nonfatal shootings by an average of 16% to 23%, with larger reductions in homicides during the first four years of the longer-running sites.

Two of Maryland’s third parties have lost their official recognition due to poor showings at the ballot box.

Like other kinds of work in the gig economy, such a program could help address city agencies’ severe staffing needs while connecting people with jobs that could last as long as a day, a week or a month.

The administration was pursuing a first-of-its-kind strategy to deliver fiber internet to every home in Baltimore. But turnover and delay have thrown the approach into question.

The city has only sanctioned a company once before for failing to uphold minority- and women-owned business requirements, and leaders hoped Wednesday’s decision would send a signal about their commitment to supporting them going forward.

Of cars sold to Maryland dealers in model year 2027 — or just three years from now — 43% must be zero emissions. That share steadily increases every year until the 100% requirement goes into effect in model year 2035.

Last week, Baltimore landed a $2 million federal grant to begin studying removal of the infamous highway dividing West Baltimore — funding that proponents hope is just the beginning.

Council President Nick Mosby said the abbreviated, 12-month extension is intended to put pressure on Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration to get moving on a long-promised review of how tax incentives are effecting disinvested parts of town.

Baltimore Gas and Electric defended its controversial conduit deal with Mayor Brandon Scott during another marathon probe into the agreement Thursday, arguing the arrangement will bring long-term benefits for an aging city asset while delivering millions in costs savings to utility ratepayers.

The debate over a maintenance contract for Baltimore’s conduit exposed fault lines in city politics with the 2024 city elections approaching.

The vote culminated a dramatic series of events at Wednesday’s Board of Estimates meeting, in which the protest by Council President Nick Mosby and Comptroller Bill Henry, both critics of the deal, tried but failed to delay the decision.

The emails, obtained in a batch of records requested by The Banner, shed more light on the lead-up to the chaotic chain of events in January that resulted in BOPA Director Donna Drew Sawyer’s resignation and a last-minute dash to hold a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

The finance department has called the city’s menu of tax credits “highly inequitable” and singled out the historic preservation incentive as especially in need of reforms.

The community cleaning initiative, which will focus on low-income neighborhoods of East, West and South Baltimore, comes as the city’s public works department is managing severe staffing problems.