The specialized unit charged with implementing the city’s flagship strategy has struggled with high-profile departures and simmering morale problems.

Since 2020, when city voters overwhelmingly passed a charter amendment designed to weaken the strong mayor system by granting the council expanded financial powers, some council members and aides have waited with bated breath for this year.

Federal deadlines could mean rerouting money from agencies or projects that have already been promised funds, Mayor’s Office of Recovery Programs Director Shamiah Kerney told council members over two budget hearings in recent weeks.

Baltimore’s Department of Human Resources said the elevated salary is commensurate with other cities, arguing that the existing compensation made it “extremely difficult” to recruit and retain attorneys.

Mayor Brandon Scott will nominate Richard Worley, the deputy commissioner for operations, as interim commissioner and intends to nominate him to the position permanently.

While Mayor Brandon Scott has faced criticism from advocates and researchers about the effectiveness of the controversial youth curfew, he has pushed ahead with an approach that emphasizes social services while aiming to minimize teen interactions with police.

Public works officials said the city is on track to meet Mayor Brandon Scott’s pledge to reinstate weekly recycling pick-up by early 2024.

The status update on spending of Baltimore’s $641 million in COVID-19 recovery aid comes as the city’s spending has chugged along gradually but as looming federal deadlines could prompt the city to reassess parts of its spending plan.

Messaging from Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration in the days leading up to Memorial Day weekend — when enforcement of the city’s long-standing curfew kicks off again — has been muddled and at times misleading.

Mayor Brandon Scott’s controversial decision to reinstate curfew enforcement on weekends and holidays this summer comes in response to the city’s recent surge in teen gun violence.

The first-term mayor has doubled down on plans to enforce a youth curfew despite concerns from criminal justice researchers and advocates that it could criminalize kids.

City officials called on the environmental agency to reconsider its mandate to finish the Lake Ashburton and Druid Lake reservoir projects by the end of the year, calling the order “much harsher and more burdensome” than the agreement the two sides had been negotiating.

The EPA cited last September’s E. coli scare in West Baltimore as among its justifications for the end-of-year deadline and required the city to complete monthly tests for bacterial contamination.

Baltimore County residents will see a 4.9% hike in rates for their water consumption.

The departure of Director Shantay Jackson, who has led an office with tens of millions in federal funds for alternative approaches to violent crime, marks the latest in a string of high-profile departures from the mayor’s administration.

Wednesday’s discussion touched on unsolved homicides, staffing issues, youth gun violence, the Group Violence Reduction Strategy and a newly proposed arsonist registry.

The scope of the problem in Baltimore is enormous, city documents show.

At a bill signing ceremony this week, Gov. Wes Moore highlighted one of the measures receiving his signature: the Maryland Sign Language Interpreters Act.

Sixteen percent of respondents to the poll said they will be more likely to use cannabis recreationally after Maryland’s long-awaited legalization.

The bills, which follow the expiration of a city moratorium on facial recognition technology, would grant City Council authority to approve agency purchases of surveillance tech and impose strict regulations on their use by both the government and the private sector.