A digest of Baltimore news from local sources.
From the Baltimore Sun: Maryland Groups Expect Big Turnout at Martin Luther King Jr. Day Service Activities
"On the eve of President Barack Obama's first inauguration — Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2009 — he asked Americans to honor the slain civil rights leader by volunteering in their communities.
"In Maryland and across the nation, thousands of people responded to Obama's call, and the number of service events more than doubled to 12,000, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service.
"On this year's King holiday, thousands of volunteers will be engaged in projects in all 50 states, according to the CNCS, created by Congress in the 1990s to encourage community service. But the exact number of events and participants is hard to track, spokeswoman Samantha Jo Warfield said.
"Still, in Baltimore and central Maryland, organizers have a pretty good sense of how many volunteers are coming to their events, and more seem to turn up every year. For some nonprofits, the King holiday is no longer a day off.
"'We used to be closed, but now I have to pay staff to come in in support of the volunteers,' said Bita Dayhoff, president of the Community Action Council of Howard County. 'But it's absolutely worth it.'
"As they have done in previous years, dozens of volunteers will solicit donations of food items outside supermarkets in Howard County. More volunteers will sort and shelve the donated items at the Howard County Food Bank.
"Dayhoff is convinced that Obama's call to action in 2009 firmed up the King holiday as a day of service across the nation."
From City Paper: “Beautiful Walls for Baltimore” Tells the Stories of Early Murals, and Their Makers, in Baltimore
"'Can I geek out for a second?' Maggie Villegas asks, grabbing a pile of old photographs. It's the last Sunday in November and she's in a basement workroom at the School 33 Art Center surrounded by piles of papers, slide sheets, stacks of photographs, posters, and various ephemera documenting 40 years of public murals in Baltimore. As the public art project specialist for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, she's in charge of the Baltimore Mural Program. Since starting in March 2014, she's been digging through her office archives and reaching out to participating artists and previous administrators to get a sense of the program's history and discovered that today's mural program grew out of one started in the 1970s called Beautiful Walls for Baltimore. After flipping through a few stacks of photos, she pulls out the reference image for one of the more beloved murals from that era: James Voshell and Pontella Mason's 'The Checker Players,' which was painted on a building near the intersection of Edmondson Avenue and Franklin Street that has since been destroyed.
"The mural showed two African-American men, seated facing each other, playing checkers on a board resting on their knees. A young man stands watching, right hand on his hip. The photo in Villegas' hands shows almost the exact same image. 'I feel like everybody I talk to about [Beautiful Walls], if they have a favorite, nine times out of 10 it's this,' she says, adding that Voshell told her that he and Mason would drive around the city taking photos of people to come up with ideas for their murals. She points out how the artists changed the young man's stance a bit in the mural, and exhales heavily. 'I would love to find this young guy, to see if he is still around.'
"With the exhibition 'Beautiful Walls for Baltimore' currently on view at School 33, Villegas hopes to reach out to anybody still around that was involved with it and to document that era's creative energy. In addition to new pieces by contemporary artists and historical artifacts from the Beautiful Walls era installed in the galleries, Villegas and filmmaker Khoran Lee have been collecting oral histories from muralists, and she hopes to put together a publication about the program."
From the Baltimore Sun: Water Quality Advocates Press for Reforms as City Negotiates new Deadline to Stop Sewage Links
“After Baltimore missed a court-imposed deadline to fix its leaky, antiquated sewer system by the end of 2015, environmental groups are pressing for more explicit water quality improvement goals and more aggressive policing of sewage spills they argue often go ignored.
“City officials are negotiating with state and federal environmental agencies on a revised plan to keep dangerous levels of fecal bacteria out of waterways going forward. Despite the city spending $700 million over 13 years to stop sewage leaks, it remains well behind in efforts to satisfy an agreement struck in 2002 that laid out a plan to fix the problem.
“Water quality advocates said that after years of slow progress, with some major projects yet to begin, they are hopeful the new agreement will require the city to do more. But they also left open the possibility of legal action if they think it's still too weak, or if it extends the deadline too far into the future.
"'I'm optimistic many of our concerns will be addressed,' said David Flores, the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper, who works for the watchdog group Blue Water Baltimore. 'Whether or not they'll be addressed sufficiently to our concerns, I can't say yet.'"