City officials had made a late push against Question H, warning residents that approving the measure, which sought to cut the City Council to eight members from 14, would reduce representation and mean poorer constituent services.
Democrats appeared poised to sweep contests for the City Council, an expected outcome of Tuesday’s election that would cements a younger and potentially more progressive panel of legislators to represent Baltimore for the next four years.
The shift likely has major implications on who is nominated in future elections as more voters opt out of participating in closed primaries and partisans gain power.
Whether the David Smith-financed effort to shrink the City Council is approved or rejected has big implications for the future of politics in Baltimore.
The tourist town’s lawsuit, filed Friday, comes after months of threats and as seaside communities in other parts of the East Coast have waged an offensive against a nascent U.S. offshore wind industry.
A ballot measure to cut the size of Baltimore’s City Council nearly in half is financed almost exclusively by Sinclair exec David Smith. Though it is broadly opposed by city leaders, Baltimore voters almost always approve ballot measures.
The Sparrows Point logistics hub and community leaders were considering an agreement to trade $40 million for a dredging site on the little island that houses a state park, but plans fell through after forceful community pushback.
More than 136 employees in the solid waste division don’t receive health insurance from the city, the inspector general found, and many of them didn’t even realize they were uninsured.
Councilwoman Odette Ramos championed legislation to establish a “land bank,” but she pulled back the legislation when it came time for the city council to vote.
Underground fires have broken out three times in a stretch of Baltimore’s North Charles Street, raising questions about safety and the cause of the subterranean blazes.
Not only are ballot measure efforts relatively cheap compared to electoral politics, they’re effective. Baltimore City voters rarely reject charter amendments.