Oyster harvesting in Maryland’s Chesapeake waters on public bottom opened for the 2024-2025 season on Oct. 1. Hand tongers got the first crack at this year’s crop of market-size oysters since the season for power dredging doesn’t open each year until Nov. 1. The open season continues until April 30, 2025.

There’s nervousness on the water because the new season opens against the backdrop of two wildly different past two seasons.

According to state statistics gathered from oyster buyers up and down the Bay, Maryland’s watermen harvested and sold 722,850 bushels of oysters during the 2022-2023 season with an estimated dockside value of $31,241,577. The following 2023-2024 season’s numbers showed a harvest of 437,536 bushels with a dockside value of $15,528,786, a dramatic decrease.

Curiously, despite a large increase in the number of individuals reporting catches in the 2023-2024 season compared to the season before – 649 vs. 415 – the results in bushels harvested and their dockside value were much lower. It turns out that the high harvest and sales in the 2022-2023 season, that drew so many more individuals into the harvesting the following year, was an outlier.

Relative to the recorded harvests over the past 25 years, the 2022-2023 harvest represented a huge spike. A radically fluctuating market appears to be the dominant factor.

The decline the following year didn’t occur because the volume of oysters in the Chesapeake went down. Strong spat sets over the past few years have resulted in expanding oyster populations. Rather, problems in Gulf of Mexico oyster populations that led to harvesting moratoriums led to greater demand for Chesapeake oysters in that strong 2022-2023 season.

With the Gulf oyster industry back online during the season just past, demand for Chesapeake oysters along the East Coast declined, especially after the typically strong holiday season. In January, February and March there were many weeks when buyers only had a market two or three days.  Instead of harvesting five days a week as permitted by law, watermen had to stay home when there weren’t market days.

Jeff Harrison, a waterman and president of the Talbot Waterman Association, said things weren’t so great for Maryland oystermen last year and he expects the same for this new season. “We’re getting $35 per bushel this year.  That’s the same as we got 25 years ago. It might go a little higher before Christmas but not much.  The biggest thing is the market. It’s not what it was and we’re not sure why.  There’s lots of oysters out there.  The spat set in Broad Creek is amazing again this year, possibly because of the sanctuaries where the state’s putting oysters and prohibiting harvesting. And it’s not the quality of the oysters. The quality is as good as I’ve ever seen. It’s a good time to be eating oysters. I think the shuckers are getting two to three pints of oysters more per bushel than they were last year, but we’re still only getting $35 per bushel.”

Harrison said this year’s crab market was also soft.  “Everything hit great around the Memorial Day holiday.  Best ever. We were getting $200 per bushel and there were plenty of crabs around. Making good money.”

But then, he said, the market softened through the summer.  “The crab volume went down when they spread out from the creeks. We weren’t catching as many and the price also started going down.  By the fall, when the crabs are the fattest and the best, the price at the dock for us had dropped to $70 per bushel for number ones.  It’s been a long time since we got that little. Better product and less dollars, for the oysters and the crabs. It doesn’t make any sense.

 “Apparently, the same thing’s going up and down the coast,” he said. “Lobstermen and shrimpers are saying they’re not getting any real money either.  And 85 percent of our seafood still comes from overseas. Why don’t people want to buy local seafood and pay for it?  Maybe it’s the economy. I don’t know. But something’s going on.”

Chris Judy, director of Maryland’s Shellfish Division, tried to inject a dose of reality into the situation with a touch of the positive. “From what we hear, this season’s catch is down, but note that even if it ends up at about 400,000 bushels (compared to the earlier 722K or 437K) this is still a strong harvest compared to the trend of the prior decades.”

Watermen harvest oysters by hand tonging, dredging under sail and power on skipjacks, diving and hand picking from the bottom, and using hydraulic-powered patent tongs for working deeper water bars. Dredging the bottom under power with typical workboats has become the most popular and efficient method.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist, and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972. He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

State lawmakers will return to Annapolis in January facing a widening structural budget gap that analysts said is on track to become one of the worst fiscal situations in two decades.

One-time fixes including tapping available cash in the Rainy Day Fund could ease the pain, lawmakers were told Tuesday, but doing so could leave the state at risk for an array of other concerns, including a recession.

“The overarching takeaway from today’s meeting is that there’s an enormous gap between the ongoing spending commitments the state has made and ongoing revenues,” said David Romans, a Department of Legislative Services budget analyst, in a presentation for legislative fiscal leaders, including members of the Joint Spending Affordability Committee.

Romans said that in just five years, the state will face “a significant challenge” in paying for those commitments.

“By fiscal 2030 — the final year of our forecast — we are showing the state will only have enough revenue to cover 84% of the expenses we’re projecting the state to incur,” Romans said. “That is the largest gap that we have seen in the last 20 years. It is more significant than the Great Recession.”

In fiscal years 2008 and 2009, during a deep recession, budget projections said the state was on track to have only enough revenue to cover 89% and 87% of its ongoing spending, according to the Department of Legislative Services.

Maryland faces more than $1 billion in combined structural and cash deficits in the current year. That gap more than doubles to $2.7 billion in fiscal 2026 and 2027.

By fiscal 2028, the state will exhaust the money set aside to cover the costs of education reforms, and will require money from the general fund. The structural deficit grows to nearly $4.7 billion in 2028, then $5.2 billion a year later, and again to $5.9 billion in fiscal 2030.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey (R-Upper Shore) called the outlook “pretty dismal.”

“A $2.7 billion deficit is not something that, unfortunately, … you can just make up with cuts,” Hershey said. “I hope that you can, but that’s a pretty big gap. It makes it very concerning that the governor and General Assembly are going to have to raise taxes. I’m hoping that’s not going to be the case, but I’m not sure how they can close that gap.”

Tuesday’s briefing was a stark reminder of budget pressures facing Gov. Wes Moore and a legislature controlled by Democrats.

An impasse between the House and Senate earlier this year led to a budget compromise that failed to fully address concerns. House leaders wanted a $1.3 billion tax and gaming proposal, while Senate leaders opposed broad-based taxes in favor of targeted increases. The result was a projected $1 billion structural deficit — the difference between expected spending and revenues — for fiscal 2026 .

By July, those budget concerns were growing.

Moore proposed $150 million in budget adjustments this summer that were billed as cuts, but in reality reduced spending in several state agencies that was then shifted to cover costs of growing Medicaid enrollment and the state’s child care subsidy program.

Multiple legislative sources said in July that Medicare spending alone could add $800 million to the projected deficits.

Moore and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore) said this summer that they had a “high bar” for any tax increase. Moore also warned county officials in August of the likelihood of tough budget decisions.

It comes as recent polling shows Marylanders are still feeling pinched economically. The issue was top of mind for many voters in Maryland and nationally during last week’s election.

A spokesman for Ferguson said the Senate leader would have a comment on the fiscal briefing soon.

A stagnant economy

Over the next five years, ongoing expenses in the state budget are projected to grow at 6% annually, while revenues are projected to grow at around half that amount, legislative analysts said Tuesday.

Maryland’s economy remains stagnant: The Board of Revenue Estimates said in September, in a first look at expected revenues for fiscal 2026, that taxes and other funds flowing to the state would grow by 0.9% over the current fiscal year.

“We have not seen a lot of employment growth,” Romans told lawmakers. “We do have very low unemployment, but we’re just not seeing much employment growth, and that’s suppressing our revenues a little bit.”

Coming state budgets will have to absorb billions in additional costs for education reforms in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. The state also faces higher-than-expected costs for Medicaid, driven by inflation and increased enrollment, and greater demand for the state’s childcare subsidy program.

“So, all those additional spending pressures are leading to spending growing much faster than the revenues,” Romans said.

“Significant long-term solutions” needed

Moore and lawmakers could draw down on the state’s Rainy Day Fund. At $2.5 billion, the cash in the account is twice the statutory requirement of 5% of annual revenues. Taking half the fund would cover the gap projected for the current year and a portion of fiscal 2026.

The state could also suspend a requirement to set aside hundreds of millions to hedge against revenue volatility, and it could shift $250 million in cash to the deficit and opt to borrow money to pay for the already approved capital projects.

“If you did those three things, you can get through fiscal ’25 without any really difficult decisions, and you solve roughly half the fiscal ’26 problem,” Romans said.

Those moves are not without risk, however.

First, Romans said Moore and lawmakers still face “an enormous problem in ’26 and it grows dramatically by (fiscal) ’28.” That problem likely will require “significant long-term solutions.”

Those include cuts to spending or increased taxes or both.

“You’re not going to be able to just use the cash resources the state has to manage our way out of the problem,” Romans said.

“This budget problem is not being driven by a recession,” he said. “It’s being driven by a somewhat stagnant economy and by our spending ambitions.

Advocates renew push for $1.6 billion tax plan

The cash options are a one-time fix.

“So, if you use the Rainy Day Fund and you get rid of the revenue volatility, you’re eliminating two of the things that you sort of can rely on during recession to help mitigate the impacts of a recession,” Romans warned.

“I would be cautious in using these strategies without having a longer-term plan to solve the budget problem, because if we were to fall into a recession in the next few years, you would have very few options left to deal with it, other than making substantial cuts.” he said.

Advocates for a broad-based tax package proposed earlier this year seized on the briefing to renew calls for their plan.

“Now is the time to fix our tax system and ensure we have the revenue we need to fund the education, health, and public safety programs that make our communities stronger,” Fair Share Maryland, a coalition of 40 organizations, said in a statement Tuesday. “The Fair Share Maryland plan reforms the state’s upside-down tax system that currently gives unfair tax breaks to large corporations and the ultra-rich.”

Advocates said the plan, as introduced in January, cobbled together a number of proposals from earlier, failed legislation. The largest revenue source — $576 million a year — would come from closing what advocates called “corporate tax loopholes.” That includes counting corporations and their subsidiaries as one entity for tax purposes, preventing corporations from moving profits from one state to another state or country with a lower tax rate.

“Maryland leaves hundreds of millions of dollars on the table each year it fails to close corporate tax loopholes,” the group said. “Our state policies also allow the wealthiest 1% of households in Maryland to pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than anyone else. This puts the burden for public services on working families and our small businesses.”

The bill also included an increase in taxes for residents earning $1 million or more annually, as well as a 1% surcharge on capital gains.

“We can build a durable and resilient economy by righting our state’s tax code,” the group said. “Maryland can also raise $1.6 billion in revenue each year to support good schools, health care, transportation, and the state workforce needed to deliver high-quality services. Doing so will also cut taxes for more than 1 million Marylanders with a family income of $65,000 or less.”

But the deficits projected 10 months ago were smaller. It is unclear how much the Fair Share plan would cut into the current projections.

Possible Trump effect looms

None of the projections outlined Tuesday included potential changes as the result of the 2024 presidential election.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to purge federal employees and move federal agencies outside the Washington, D.C.,  region. Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said last week that he ordered a review of potential impacts to the county budget, but predicted there would also be consequences for the state.

There are also concerns about funding for the replacement of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the relocation of the FBI headquarters to Prince George’s County.

One proposed project important to Moore – the Red Line rail system — was not mentioned. But Hershey said he does not believe the Trump administration will ever fund the east-west transit line.

“I think honestly, with the Trump administration coming in, essentially, for all intent purposes, the Red Line is dead,” Hershey said. “We’re not going to see federal funding for that.”

Maryland receives about $19 billion annually in federal aid. That’s in addition to the 256,000 residents – about 8% of all state taxpayers — who received some form of federal wages or pension payments in 2021, according to the Comptroller’s Office.

The economy could also take a hit if Trump follows through with other proposals, including mass deportations and tariffs that analysts worry could trigger inflation and recession.

“We don’t have any real way to model what they might propose to do, and a lot of those sort of things will require congressional action, so we’ll certainly be monitoring that,” Romans said. “There’s certainly a significant risk to our economy.”

By Bryan P. Sears

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks appeared to be on her way to a historic Senate win Tuesday, with early returns giving her a comfortable lead over Larry Hogan, the popular former governor.

With 92% of the 1,958 precincts reporting at 11:20 p.m., Alsobrooks, a Democrat, had 1.2 million votes to 1.1 million for Hogan, a Republican, a 52% to 46% lead. Libertarian Mike Scott had 59,395 votes for 2% of the early total.

The vote capped a hard-fought, and occasionally bitter, race in which Alsobrooks looked to make history by becoming the first Black woman from Maryland — and one of a handful in U.S. history — to be elected to the Senate, while Hogan looked to recapture the magic that let the Republican be elected governor twice in a heavily Democratic state.

They were running to replace Sen. Ben Cardin (D), who sought not to seek reelection after 58 years in elected office. The apparent victory would make Alsobrooks the first woman senator from Maryland since Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulksi, who stepped down in 2017; Hogan was seeking to become the first GOP senator from the state since Sen. Charles “Mac” Mathias left in 1987.

During a 20-minute victory speech before several hundred supporters at The Hotel at the University of Maryland in College Park, Alsobrooks said Marylanders proved to be “absolutely amazing people” during her campaigning across the state.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank each and every Marylander. To serve this state, my hometown [of Prince George’s County] is the honor of a lifetime,” she said. “I had the great honor of traveling all across this state to meet Marylanders where they love, where they worship, where they build businesses, where they educate their children and where they dream of a better day.”

Alsobrooks also pledged to work with Marylanders who didn’t vote for her or who didn’t vote.

“I will never stop working to prove that public service, that the work we do, can and must change the lives of people for the better,” she told her supporters.

The enthusiastic crowd, some sporting black-and-lime-green Alsobrooks for Senate T-shirts, cheered, clapped and yelled her name throughout the speech. Many were like Wanda Durant, a community activist in Prince George’s and the mother of NBA superstar Kevin Durant.

“It is an exciting opportunity for the state of Maryland to have a Black woman, in particular, Angela Alsobrooks. She is intelligent. She is a person who is a lover of the people. She does not see her own interest,” Durant said a few minutes after Alsobrooks’ speech. “She has proven time and time again that Maryland does matter to her.”

Hogan supporters gathered in Annapolis clinging to hope that the state’s two-term Republican governor — an acknowledged underdog in the Senate race — could pull off an improbable win. Delays in releasing initial  early and mail-in voting tallies briefly kept that hope alive, but by 9:30 p.m., the race was called for Alsobrooks.

“Tonight did not bring the outcome we had hoped for,” Hogan told the crowd, before striking a conciliatory tone.

“In our nation’s history, only three African American women have ever served in the United States Senate. Tonight, regardless of who you voted for, we can all take pride in the election of the first Black woman to represent Maryland,” Hogan said. “Now is the time for us to come together and to move forward as one state and one nation, to respect the will of the voters and the outcome of the democratic process.”

He called on supporters to work together with Democrats to fix a broken political system, and to hear “the voices of the exhausted majority” rather than defer to “the demands of the loudest and angriest few who seem hell-bent on tearing America apart.”

“From day one, this was the only campaign in America that reached out to Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, because that’s what it’s going to take to solve the serious problems we face,” he said, echoing a theme of his campaign.

“We need to stop dismissing or even hating those we disagree with. We have got to find a way to listen and to believe in each other once again, because there really is far more that unites us,” Hogan said.

The race attracted tens of millions of dollars in outside campaign funding, unusual for Maryland where Republicans are typically given little chance in statewide races. But Hogan’s history of being elected statewide, and leaving office in 2022 with high popularity ratings, put the state in play.

The themes were set early in the race and repeated often, with partisanship being a key Alsobrooks’ campaign attack line against Hogan, who was recruited at the last minute by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to enter the Senate race. Democrats currently hold a one-seat edge in the Senate but are likely to lose control of the chamber in this fall’s elections, a point hammered by Alsobrooks.

Democrats also made abortion rights a central element of their campaign at a time when states — including Maryland — are struggling with abortion rights and restrictions after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old case that recognized a right to an abortion. Alsobrooks campaign pointed to Hogan’s history of abortion opposition and his veto of some abortion-rights legislation as governor, and they tried to tie him to former President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe.

The Maryland Democratic Party flooded email inboxes almost daily with two main messages: A vote for Hogan means Republicans control the Senate, which could lead to “extreme” policies, such as a push on a national abortion ban.

That message gave pause to voters like Naekasah Johnson of Prince George’s County, a first-grade math and science teacher who said Tuesday that she voted for Alsobrooks because she was worried about Republican control of the Senate. “Sometimes he [Hogan] could say one thing and then could possibly do something else,” Johnson said.

Hogan pushed back forcefully, against both the abortion rights charges and the claims that he would be a partisan in the Senate.

He said during the one-and-only televised debate with Alsobrooks last month that he would support codifying the protections of Roe v. Wade nationwide, despite being personally anti-abortion. He accused Democrats of mispresenting his record.

Even though he ran as a Republican, Hogan also insisted that he would be in independent voice in the Senate, able to work across party lines as he said he did as governor. Hogan, long a critic of Trump, tried to distance himself from the former president, whom he briefly considered challenging for the presidential nomination in 2020.

In a phone call with reporters Tuesday afternoon, campaign aides complained about what they called false and misleading advertising directed at Hogan, as well as “really dishonest ads” they said misrepresented Hogan’s position on abortion.

“We’re still optimistic and we think that this is going to be a very close race and a long night,” said David Weinman, Hogan’s campaign manager, said Tuesday afternoon.

About $27 million came into the campaign in support of Hogan from Maryland’s Future PAC, with at least $11 million spent mostly on TV and radio ads and mailers that attacked Alsobrooks.

The ads highlighted Alsobrooks’ failure to pay all the property taxes on homes she owned, one of which she rented even though it was listed as her primary residence at the time. Alsobrooks chalked it up to simple mistakes in filing her taxes, and quickly worked with officials in the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County to pay the back taxes.

Democrats responded with a series of attacks on Hogan for land deals the state made while he was governor that benefited his real estate company — deals Hogan and supporters insisted were proper and vetted by state ethics officials.

Hogan also questioned Alsobrooks’ effectiveness as Prince George’s County executive and, before that, as the state’s attorney, claiming crime rose under her watch. But it’s unclear how much impact those charges had.

Pollsters suggested that Hogan’s previous magic touch, that allowed him to attract large shares of Democratic and independent voters, was not enough to overcome Maryland voters’ dislike for Trump, who was beaten soundly in unofficial Maryland returns Tuesday by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Hogan’s campaign predicted — consistent with that early polling — that he would attract more votes overall than the top of the Republican ticket in Maryland, but that the popular Republican former governor still faced an uphill battle in a “presidential election year in a state not inclined to vote Republican.”

The election puts Alsobrooks on track to become the first Black woman elected to the Senate from Maryland, and the first woman since Mikulski, who was the first woman to hold the office from Maryland.

Ward 1 Council member Tim O’Brien submitted a letter of resignation to the Chestertown Town Council today.

The letter follows a legal filing and ongoing litigation claiming O’Brien’s residential move from Ward 1 to Ward 4 immediately disqualified him from holding the Ward 1 seat as per the town charter and that the amended Resolution (No. 06-2023) only allows future candidates the allowance to move to a different ward after two years of service, not retroactively.

Find more about the legal summons here.

“Mayor, Council, and residents of Chestertown: It has been a great honor to serve on the Town Council, and I am proud of the work we have done during my term period today, November 4th, 2024, I am writing to announce that after careful deliberation regarding the best interest of the Town, I made the difficult decision to voluntarily resign from my seat on the council, effective immediately. I hope to remain active in the community, and I look forward to what’s to come in the future of Chestertown.”

Timothy Michael O’Brien

Ward 1 representation is now vacant. More information will soon be available from the town manager.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) and the state’s top Republican leaders put partisanship aside Tuesday to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new medical facility that will better serve the citizens of the Middle Shore, a long-awaited project to replace the aging Shore Medical Center in Easton.

“This shows what is required for progress to happen, and it takes all of us,” Moore said Tuesday at the Talbot County Community Center, which sits adjacent to the construction site of the future hospital. “It takes every sector. It takes the private sector, it takes philanthropy, takes government — both sides of the aisle of government.”

Ahead of the groundbreaking, there was a sense of relief that construction of the new facility was set to begin. The effort to coordinate funding and community approval to build the new facility that will be operated by the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) has been over a decade in the making.

“I can hardly believe that this day has finally come. This is the culmination of so many years of working towards this goal,” said Ken Kozel, president and CEO of the University of Maryland Shore Regional Health. The new facility is scheduled to be open by summer 2028.

The current Shore Medical Center in Easton has been described as “outdated” and “obsolete,” with several portions of the hospital constructed between 1955 and 1975. The current facility is the primary health care provider for Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot counties, and serves about 170,000 residents spread across those counties.

“There is joy, because we are delivering on a long-held promise and the future is so great for the mid-shore, the medical system and the state of Maryland,” said UMMS President Mohan Suntha.

Sen. Johnny Mautz (R-Middle Shore) said at the ceremony that it was a “tremendous day.”

“This hospital is going to be transformative for the future of our children, for ourselves and for the entire region,” Mautz said. “It’s an incredible effort that we’re undertaking and it’s going to bring more benefits than I think most people can possibly imagine.”

This past summer, a state hospital regulating agency approved rate increases for the hospital to help fund construction of the new site. UMMS officials say the new location, just off of Route 50, will be a more convenient location to access than the current facility, which sits in a residential area.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore) said that it took more than 13 years to get shareholders on board, including hospital administrators, local county leaders and state officials,

“An entity can not just build a hospital wherever they choose,” Hershey said. “We had to bring together a vast number of shareholders and sell them on what would become a very unique hub-and-spoke approach to deliver health care to a multi-county region.”

He said that he valued the bipartisan collaboration with the Moore administration to support and fund the new facility.

“I remember one of my first formal meetings with the governor … he asked me, ‘What’s important to you?’ That’s a pretty dangerous question coming from the leader of the opposite political party,” Hershey said.

“I thought if I really tell him, he could use that against me to kind of make sure that I stay in line with maybe some of his, uh… questionable policies,” he said. The audience chuckled at the light-hearted jab at Moore, who also laughed.

“But I trusted him, and I told him that we need a new hospital on the Eastern Shore.… So I guess he does listen to me sometimes,” Hershey said. “We’re thankful that you’ve made this one of your priorities — providing us not just $100 million, but also the support of your administration.

Maryland’s rural communities, including counties on the Middle Shore, tend to struggle with various health needs as well as transportation challenges. Moore and the state’s Republican leaders believe that the new hospital location will help provide greater health care access to residents in that area.

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), Maryland’s lone Republican in Congress, said he “rearranged his schedule” so that he could attend the groundbreaking ceremony.

“Medical care has advanced greatly since that facility was built and it needs a new building in order to deliver the first-rate care that my constituents and the citizens of Middle Shore deserve,” Harris said.

Moore later said that it’s “too long that we’ve had people on the Eastern Shore who have been left behind.”

“And we have made it a core priority to make sure that the Eastern Shore is seen, that the Eastern Shore can thrive,” Moore told reporters. “We needed to make sure that we had a hospital that could actually see people and care for people. And so it’s been a long time coming.”

By Danielle J. Brown