Sen. Cory McCray: My New Year’s Resolution for Governor Hogan

By Cory McCray

The writer represents the 45th District in the Maryland Senate and is also the first vice chair of the Maryland Democratic Party. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

Governor Hogan, while I know it doesn’t fit your narrative around public safety in Baltimore City, I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some successes in the 45th Legislative District.

While doing so, I would like to recognize Major Steve Hohman, Commanding Officer of the Baltimore City Police Department’s Northeastern District, who has given his service for 21 years. I also want to recognize Major Hohman’s Northeastern Police District team, Director Dante Johnson and his Belair-Edison Safe Streets Team, my Main Street leaders Daniel Doty and Denitra Braham, Amy Macht and her Regional Management team, my school leaders, and my community leaders, and other stakeholders.

Governor Hogan, I know that you value data. Through their hard work, the Northeast Police District has reduced the homicide rate by 40% plus, non-fatal shootings by 20% plus, and overall crime by double digits in their geographic boundary. As the state of Maryland and urban jurisdictions across the nation deal with rising crime, this should be a blueprint for Maryland.

While you maintain the stance that mandatory minimums are one of the only ways to deal with public safety and violent crime, I challenge that theory and dig deeper into the work in Northeast as the clear data set to proven solutions.

Dante Johnson is a neighbor residing in the 45th District who each day without fail, works to lead the Belair-Edison Safe Streets team. With crime increasing all around Maryland, the Belair-Edison Safe Streets team has worked to exceed 365 days without one homicide in their footprint.

In 2020, State Senator Jill Carter introduced Senate Bill 708: Maryland Violence Intervention and Prevention Program Fund and Advisory Council, which you vetoed. Seeing the value of the bill, legislative leadership took up the override in 2021. As Baltimore City legislators, we know and respect the consistent work that leaders like Dante Johnson and the Belair-Edison Safe Streets team do. We also understand that we need to support them with resources to address public safety in our neighborhoods.

With the largest geographic footprint in Baltimore City, the Northeastern District has worked tirelessly to address issues impacting public safety like income disparities, inadequate access to employment, inadequate food access, and poor public transportation.

I salute Regional Management, which provides affordable housing, recreation, and two shopping centers offering food access to their tenants, however greater food access is needed throughout other communities that face challenges in our city and across the state of Maryland.

My neighbors in the Northeastern footprint have five supermarkets available to them with a new market opening soon on Belair Road. In 2014, Governor Martin O’Malley formed a task force to implement a grocery store initiative, bringing supermarkets and fresh food access to priority areas across Maryland, and he applied dollars to this effort.

However, in 2016, your administration merged the program with Neighborhood Business Works, where greater food access has not been a priority. Why not take the opportunity to form strong private sector partnerships to address these issues?

The Maryland Transit Administration has been an utter failure during your administration because the MTA is under resourced. The lives of people depending on unreliable public transportation are negatively affected. In 2020, myself, Senator Craig Zucker, and Delegate Brooke Lierman tried to set the MTA on a corrective course through Senate Bill 199, the Transit Safety and Investment Act. You vetoed that bill, and we had to override it during this most recent special session.

We have phenomenal school principals at City Neighbors, Hamilton Elementary/Middle, The Belair-Edison School, and Moravia Park Elementary who are showing real leadership in moving the educational outcomes for our young people. The legislature recognized their leadership by passing “The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future” — another bill you vetoed. And the legislature showed bold leadership by overriding.

Governor Hogan, is it possible to cooperate on at least one of the great ideas we have put before you to create holistic neighborhoods and prevent crime without you pushing back and vetoing?

Many critical issues in Maryland contribute to the drastic public safety issues of homicides and non-fatal shootings and other crimes.

From the data in the Northeastern Police District during the year 2021, we addressed violence prevention, increasing incomes, lowering housing vacancies, healthy food access, and building stronger relationships between schools and their respective police department.

We have done a lot to address public safety directly and indirectly.

While there will always be disagreements, I humbly ask that you set your “New Year’s Resolution” around collaboratively solving the problems indirectly impacting public safety. Can we find common ground to move our great state of Maryland forward?

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