Longtime Bowie Politician Douglas Peters Dead at Age 60
Surrounded by family, retired Sen. Douglas J.J. Peters died at age 60 due to complications of multiple myeloma. The University of Maryland alum and business owner was held in high esteem by his former colleagues along with many Bowie constituents.
Peters was first elected to the Bowie City Council in 1998, later being elected as mayor pro tempore, county council member and eventually was elected to the state Senate in 2006.
In the state legislature, he was known as a bipartisan legislator who advocated particularly for businesses and the veteran community. He served on the Budget and Tax Committee for 15 years before resigning his Senate seat in 2021 to serve on the Board of Regents for the University System of Maryland.
A viewing will be held on Monday, Jan. 22 at Bowie’s Beall Funeral Home from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The funeral service will be private.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation to continue the fight against the disease.
A more detailed obituary is available here.
$215,000 For Jobs Training Donated to Laurel Union Training Center
Laurel’s Local 24 of the Heat and Frost Insulators Union and Allied Workers hosted some high-profile guests on Dec. 5, including a Congressman with a big check for $215,000 to support jobs training. During the tour, the Biden administration’s push towards building a clean energy workforce to power America’s green economy and the Department of Energy’s announcement of $40 million to expand clean energy workforce training were highlighted.
“Green jobs are essential to our competitive business landscape, vital to our environmental future and to the prospects of young people who want to start a career in the building trades,” said Congressman Glenn Ivey (D-District 4). “I commend the Biden administration and my colleagues in the House and Senate who provided this funding.”
A new building and trades center also opened in Lanham on Dec. 8 of last year.
“ I’m going to be very clear,” said Governor Wes Moore (D) at the time of the site’s opening. “When we say that this is going to be a time that we are going to create pathways for work, wages and wealth for all Marylanders, we mean that it is an opportunity to find a good fulfilling job that pays you a fair wage.”
County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) said the career center will be home to training programs and apprenticeships for all unions within the building trades. It is the first training center at a site dedicated to the building trades.
“We’re bridging the gap between union labor and demand for skilled workers in construction,” she said.
Maryland’s 2024 Business and Tax Climate
One immediate change to begin 2024 for Marylanders was the minimum wage increase to $15 an hour. The legislation, supported by Gov. Wes Moore (D), implemented the minimum wage increase two years faster than prior laws would have.
Montgomery County and Prince George’s have been on a faster timeline than the rest of the state to raise their local minimum wage.
Amid the budget crunch, one revenue stream has shown to bring consistent returns: cannabis. The Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) reported over $700,000,000 in cannabis sales in just the first year of legalization. 1,708 applications were received for the state’s 179 social equity cannabis licenses, with 99 of those applications coming from Prince George’s. A bill to amend Maryland’s cannabis laws was requested by the MCA and is being proposed by Economic Matters Chair C.T. Wilson (D- Charles County), although the details of the bill are not yet known.
Maryland legislators are also considering tax proposals such as a millionaire’s tax and closing corporate loopholes to address the roughly $400 million budget shortfall.
“I don’t think anything’s off the table,” said Maryland’s House Ways and Means Committee Chair Vanessa E. Atterbeary (D-District 13). “This is the session to do something if we’re going to do it. Some folks say to wait until the next session. I say rip the Band-Aid off, and let’s just solve the problem.”