Catholic Charities Opens First-of-its-Kind Transformational Opportunity Hub in West Baltimore

Moore signs Maryland energy bill aimed at cutting power costs

The Unfinished business of Sonia Hayes and Mildred Frisby

This Mother’s Day, I’m reflecting deeply on the two women who shaped my life: my mother, Sonia Hayes, and my grandmother, Mildred Frisby. I honor them, and all mothers who sacrifice without recognition, who silently carry burdens, and who hold families and communities together in the face of incredible odds.

Antonio Hayes, who represents the 40th legislative district of Baltimore in the Maryland Senate, credits his grandmother, Mildred Frisby, for his desire to protect Baltimore families from poverty, violence, addiction or despair. Credit: Courtesy photo

I want every mother in Baltimore to know that you are valued and appreciated, and there is someone in Annapolis fighting for you.

West Baltimore knew my mother as “Pinky.” They knew her toughness, her hustle, and they knew her struggles. My mother battled addiction much of her life, and like so many Baltimore families, we bore the weight of that pain every day. But I refuse to allow her story to be reduced to her addiction alone. My mother was more than her mistakes and failures; despite all she battled, she was present.

Even amid her struggles, she pushed me to take my education seriously. She knew the value of an education because she never graduated high school herself. She wanted something better for her son than what life had given her. She taught me grit, resilience and how to survive difficult circumstances. Some of the best parts of me — my determination, my toughness, my refusal to quit — come directly from her and I’m grateful.

My mother was present when I announced my candidacy for the Maryland Senate, but she passed away before I was elected. I often wish that I could tell her that despite every obstacle, she helped mold a man committed to service and committed to his community. Thank you, mama!

And then there was my grandmother, Mildred Frisby — my everything.

My grandmother raised four children of her own and also took me in. She worked for decades at Fellowes making wire binders, then came home and continued the work of caring for everybody else. She served faithfully at Garrison Boulevard United Methodist Church, volunteering in the food kitchen because helping people was simply who she was. 

For me, she was that constant preverbal light at the end of every dark tunnel.

When I think about why I serve my constituents, it always comes back to her. Every family I want to protect from poverty, violence, addiction, or despair — it all traces back to Mildred Frisby.

Everything I do is a reflection of my love for my grandmother and to make real, the hopes she had for a better Baltimore.

Truth be told, my grandmother should not have had to carry as much as she did. She should not have had to work so hard just to keep a roof over our heads; and my mother should not have had to navigate addiction in a system that too often punishes instead of heals. Families in Penn North and across West Baltimore should not still be facing the same systemic barriers generation after generation.

That is the unfinished business of Sonia Hayes and Mildred Frisby.

It is the unfinished business of women who held families together while the government fell short or simply seemed to look the other way. Women who stretched paychecks, survived hardship, and still found ways to keep their families afloat. Women whose names never appear in history books or get spoken at podiums, but whose sacrifices shaped future leaders and saved entire communities.

Growing up in Penn North was tough. 

Blessedly, there was a village of elders and neighbors who saw my potential and not my circumstances. That love saved my life and motivates me to serve with urgency.

This legislative session, I fought for policies that expand affordability, revitalize neighborhoods, improve public health, and create more opportunities for my constituents. The work of this session and, frankly, years of my career culminated this week with the grand opening of the Parkview Recreation Center. This place is dear to my heart because so much of my childhood was spent there- playing, learning and developing. So many worked tirelessly to bring this project to life because they understand what happens to communities when anchors like Parkview aren’t there.

 As I work to improve Baltimore, I carry my family’s story with me.

The work is not about headlines. It is about honoring legacy and creating destiny.

My mother and grandmother may never have imagined their Antonio serving in the Maryland Senate. But everything I do is rooted in what they taught me: work hard, serve others, and never forget where you come from.

So, when people ask me why I serve the way I do, the answer is simple: I am finishing the work that Sonia Hayes and Mildred Frisby started.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.

Mayor Brandon Scott cuts ribbon on Parkview Recreation Center in West Baltimore & Penn North community

BALTIMORE — A rec center is now open in West Baltimore, bringing new investment to the Penn North community.

Parkview Recreation Center opens in West Baltimore today

The center will be open Monday-Friday 1:00- 9:00 p.m.

Mayor Brandon Scott and city leaders cut the ribbon Thursday on the Parkview Recreation Center on North Avenue.

The project is part of Baltimore’s larger effort to renovate rec centers across the city.

The space is designed to give youth a safe place to learn, play, and grow.

The new center will include:

• A full gymnasium

• Multi-purpose rooms

• A fitness area

• Outdoor playground

• Picnic pavilion

• Community gathering spaces

State Senator Antonio Hayes, who grew up in Penn North, said the center helped shape his life as a young person, "“These people taught me and helped me understand for the first time that even a person like me from Penn North could help create change.”

This is the second of six rec centers expected to open this year.

2026 legislative session supports economic development efforts

MD Senate Dems Digital Campaign

State of Maryland announces grant funding for economic development projects for Baltimore’s most-disinvested residential and commercial corridor in West Baltimore

Senate, House overwhelmingly approve bills banning local-federal immigration agreements

The Maryland House and Senate gave overwhelming gave final approval Tuesday to identical bills that will prohibit agreements between local police and federal immigration agencies.

The votes — 32-12 in the Senate and 99-40 in the House — both exceeded the three-fifths needed to approve the emergency bills, which will take effect immediately after being signed by the governor, who is expected to do so. Each chamber still needs to approve the others’ bill before they can reach the governor’s desk.

Supporters said they hope to have Senate Bill 245 and House Bill 455 approved and on the governor’s desk this month, which happens to be Black History Month.

“That is the goal,” Del. J. Sandy Bartlett (D-Anne Arundel), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said during a press conference alongside various House leaders Tuesday.

The Senate on Tuesday also voted 31-13 for Senate Bill 1, which prohibits face coverings on law enforcement officers while they are on duty. Supporters say the law, sponsored by Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D-Prince George’s),  would apply to often-masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers when they are working in the state. The House has its own version of the masking bill, but that bill is not scheduled to have a committee hearing until Feb. 24.

House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) leads a press conference Tuesday after the House of Delegates voted to approve legislation to ban 287(g) agreements. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

The 287(g) bills come amid a national debate over the aggressive immigration enforcement tactics adopted by the Trump administration, which led to the fatal shootings last month of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — by federal immigration officers.

Nine sheriff’s departments in Maryland currently have 287(g) agreements with ICE for detainers — allowing the local officials to detain someone in their jails for an additional 48 hours for ICE to pick them up, if it is determined the person is in the country illegally.

Supporters of the agreements say work is processed inside a local jail. Transfer of the inmate is straightforward, they say, and local expenses are negligible. If the legislation passed Tuesday wins final approval and is signed by the governor, the program would end immediately in nine counties that currently have such arrangements: Allegany, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Harford, Garrett, St. Mary’s, Washington and Wicomico.

Several sheriffs from those counties traveled to Annapolis two weeks ago to emphasize the agreements are a “public safety tool” and that local police aren’t conducting immigration enforcement and arrests on the streets.

“I rise in strong opposition so Maryland does not become Minneapolis,” Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore) said during Tuesday’s Senate debate, which lasted less than an hour. “We’re taking a model where this questioning and interaction is done in the detention facilities … as opposed to out in the community of what we’re seeing in Minneapolis. All of us must put public safety as job number one for all of our constituents.”

Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee and sponsor of the legislation, was asked by Senate Minority Leader Stephen Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore) what problem is being solved by passing the bill.

“What we’re saying with this piece of legislation is that we are no longer going to cooperate formally to do federal immigration enforcement, which is something that’s purely under the prerogative of the federal government,” Smith said. “State and local law enforcement officers are still going to cooperate with every level of government to solve violent crime and to hold violent offenders accountable. Public safety will be upheld to the highest accord in Maryland.”

‘I said what I said’

A portion of the nearly two-hour discussion in the House didn’t move as smoothly on the measure sponsored by Del. Nicole Williams (D-Prince George’s). When Del. Lauren Arikan (R-Harford) stood up to speak in opposition of the bill, she talked about a previously approved bill. House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) asked Arikan to just speak about the 287(g) measure.

Arikan noted that “my colleague from Charles County (Del. C.T. Wilson) was allowed to go on a 40-minute tirade about Donald Trump on a bill about redistricting. I’m speaking about immigration policy.”

“Respectfully, let’s just stay with the bill,” Peña-Melnyk said.

“You have called me out specifically after many people have gone on wild tangents,” Arikan said.

A couple minutes later as Arikan continued to talk, Peña-Melnyk banged her gavel to tell Arikan that Wilson was serving as floor manager on the redistricting bill Monday, then called on Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery), the House parliamentarian to speak.

“We shouldn’t be having a back-and-forth argument with the speaker,” Wilkins said. “Her point about us staying on the bill is 100% accurate. She determines all points of order.”

Peña-Melnyk then recognized Arikan, whose final words on the floor Tuesday were that the “chamber feels like it’s being run like a Third World dictatorship that is silencing the opinions of the minority [party]. That’s what it feels like. I said what I said.”

House Majority Whip Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s) summarized the viewpoints of his Democratic colleagues on their support to ban the 287(g) program.

“We have a responsibility, and I’ll say it every single day I get a chance to, to protect the most vulnerable among us,” he said. “This bill helps us do just that; 287(g) with this current [federal] administration and this current moment is not keeping us safer.”

At a news conference with House leadership after the session, Peña-Melnyk noted that the House has already acted on immigration enforcement bill, a redistricting plan and proposed energy legislation in a session that is just three weeks old.

“It feels like March in the House right now,” she said. “It’s because there’s serious work to be done here and we’re serious about getting it done.”

Scott urges local leaders to develop response plans following last year’s mass overdose events

Lawmakers offered the Baltimore mayor a ‘job well done’ for the city’s response to dozens of overdoses that resulted in zero fatalities.

A summons to testify before state lawmakers can often be a strained affair, but senators essentially gave Baltimore officials a pat on the back Tuesday for the city’s response to “mass overdose” events last summer that sent dozens to emergency rooms, but resulted in zero fatalities.

“It’s amazing that no lives were lost,” Sen. Justin Ready (R-Frederick and Carroll) said during Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Finance Committee. “It’s just a credit to the care that all of you at the table, and the agencies you represent, took.”

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) said the citywide life-saving effort was thanks to the city’s previous work to build an efficient overdose response network.

“There is no rapid response without the intentional investment and relationship building that happened before,” Scott told lawmakers. “We were able to respond so quickly to these incidents and avoid any loss of life because our agencies had experience working together in response to smaller scale overdoses.”

He urged other jurisdictions to make their own plans before it’s too late.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

“Do not wait until a crisis happens to take action, start laying the groundwork for your communities now,” he said.

Baltimore agencies now have official definitions for “mass overdose” events, following a situation this past summer that sent 27 people to the hospital for treatment, the first of what would be several major overdose events that year.

Officials say mass overdoses are situations with at least five overdoses in a 1-3 hour period at a single site or in a small geographic area.

Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace told lawmakers that first responders were initially notified of just one individual suffering from an overdose on North Avenue near Penn Station. That incident ballooned into the city’s first mass overdose event of the year.

“When our units arrived, they began to treat a critically ill individual — that evolved very quickly,” Wallace said. “We were approached by numerous people in the area, saying that there were multiple unconscious patients in a very unspecified radius around the incident itself.”

A total of 35 people were part of that overdose event, though some refused treatment. Of the 27 transported to hospitals, seven patients were in critical condition requiring ventilators, 15 patients needed immediate attention at hospitals and five needed less intensive care.

“All patient care was successful – we did not lose a life that day,” Wallace said, noting that Baltimore City Police were already at the scene resuscitating people with naloxone, an emergency opioid overdose reversal agent, before emergency medical services arrived.

Followup testing found that drugs involved included a mix of acetaminophen, caffeine, fentanyl, mannitol, methylclonazepam and quinine. Officials declined to elaborate further on the possible cause of the event, citing the ongoing investigation of the matter.

The city continued response on the scene for two weeks after the July 10 event, focusing on harm reduction efforts and safe use resources to avoid additional overdoses in the area, and city agencies began building a protocol on how officials would respond to future mass overdoses.

As the city worked on its mass overdose response protocol, another event on July 18 sent five more people to the hospital. In October, 11 people were hospitalized in another mass overdose event. City officials were able to implement some of the “lessons learned” from July to the October event. All recovered without any fatalities.

Ready asked how more rural areas could adapt Baltimore’s overdose response in smaller communities.

Dr. Michelle Taylor, Baltimore’s health commissioner, urged him to start looking at data on overdoses in his jurisdiction and checking with first responders on how overdose response is currently working.

“How often are they responding? How often are they doing naloxone reversals?” she offered. “How often are you losing people to overdose, and then from there you can decide.”

Scott added that often people overdose in homes, which is a different challenge than the mass overdose events that happened in Baltimore.

“There’s been a lot of conversation about how and where there’s been an overdose. Because this happened at Penn North – outside, right?” Scott said. “Everyone knew. But so many of our residents actually overdose in their own homes.”

Sen. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City), the vice chair of the committee, agreed that other counties should look into their response plans before a mass overdose event occurs, offering the Baltimore officials a “job well done” for their efforts.

“The potential of it happening in other places throughout the state is very great,” Hayes said. “Just want to make sure that our jurisdictions, no matter where it is, is prepared.”

Maryland Senator Antonio Hayes Named Finalist in National Policy Ideas Challenge

Assembly pushes legislation in time for veto overrides

But bill sponsor Democrat Sen. Antonio Hayes of Baltimore said legislative analysts have in fact determined the costs will be low, even for small businesses.

“Employers that have under 14 employees, will not be required to make a contribution to the program but the employees will have the opportunity to participate in the program. At the end of the day, we're talking about a dollar fifty, two dollars.”

Lawmakers Send Statewide Paid Leave Bill to Governor

“This has been a long time coming,” Hayes said, after the 31-15 vote. “I know philosophically there are some differences on how we get there, but I believe that we should be really, really proud of the work that we did this legislative session.”

House Passes Statewide Paid Leave Program

The Time to Care Act, sponsored by Sens. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City) and Joanne Benson (D-Prince George’s), would offer Marylanders 12 weeks of partially paid family leave each year to care for themselves after a serious health issue and up to 24 weeks of paid leave for new parents.

Paid Family Medical Leave Remains Uncertain in Maryland

“People here in Maryland want to see some type of paid family leave,” said Sen. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City) and lead sponsor of the legislation. “I’ve only had the last three years to debate this. Given the overwhelming support of Marylanders, this is something that we should definitely do.”

General Assembly action heats up on “Crossover Day”

That commission is going to be a point of contention. The advocates for the bill as well as Antonio Hayes, the Baltimore Democrat sponsoring the Senate version, say the issue has been studied for 10 years.

“We're passing a really strong bill,” Hayes said. “We made some compromises along the way. But hopefully, (the House) will revert back to their original position at the beginning of session and that they'll pass one that’s more substantive.”

He says the Senate won’t compromise on the commission issue.

Maryland Democrats champion paid family and medical leave, vowing: ‘It’s going to pass this year’

Sen. Antonio Hayes, a Baltimore Democrat sponsoring one of the proposals, said Thursday that workers in Maryland are currently stuck with an inadequate patchwork of existing programs or employer benefits to navigate difficult family or health crises.

“Single parents in particular have experienced an economic and physical strain. Many are forced to choose to work and pay for basic needs or to take leave to nurse ill family members, but with the threat of losing their jobs,” said Sen. Joanne Benson, a Prince George’s County Democrat who is co-sponsoring the legislation with Hayes.

Maryland Senate Democrats Push for Paid Family, Medical Leave

A hearing took place this month before the Senate Finance Committee sponsored by Sen. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City). Before he went to the Senate session Monday night, Hayes stopped by a rally at Lawyers’ Mall near the State House to thank supporters and keep up the pressure to make sure the legislation passes.

Hayes said Thursday he and his wife are expecting the birth of their baby “any day now” and will probably use paid family leave for that.

Maryland lawmakers voice support for paid family leave bill

Sen. Antonio Hayes, a Baltimore Democrat who is sponsoring the legislation, said Maryland and many other states already wrestle with convoluted workarounds and confusing administrative leave policies that need updating. “While some states and corporations and nearly every other developed country on the globe have taken a purposeful and strategic approach to family leave, Maryland has remained behind – stuck in a framework from the past that ignores the realities that the modern workplace and workforce have,” Hayes said with most of his fellow Senate Democrats by his side

State House Spotlight: "The Block" legislation update

"We got to first ask the question, 'Why are we even talking about The Block?' In 2017 and 2018 we closed down liquor stores in the Park Heights community. This year and last year we had legislation to close down stores at 10:00 on North Avenue, where we only have half a dozen bars. In 2020 we had 91 shootings, and 39 homicides. In 2021 we had 73 shootings and 42 homicides. Just this year, we had 6 shootings and 3 homicides. The reason why we're talking about the block is that people come from out of town into the city, but there are other priority issues that don't get the same amount of attention, like neighborhoods like North Avenue," Democratic Maryland State Senator Antonio Hayes said. Sen. Hayes represents Baltimore city. He said mandatory minimum sentencing and homicide clearance rates are also priorities. "If people feel like they're not going to get caught or be held accountable, that's where we should be having our focus," Sen. Hayes said.

Advocates, Lawmakers Call On Hogan To Restore $140M In Education Funding For Baltimore And P.G. County

Sen. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City) seized on Costello’s tweet two days later. “The Governor should not be taking credit for increases in education funding mandated by law while ignoring the law that appropriates Balt City & PG Co, but he damn sure is trying to,” he tweeted on Feb. 5.