MediterraneanGrocery Wholesalers in Baltimore, MD

Monday Evening September 26

Hurricane Ian has continued to get stronger. This evening is is now a Category 2 Hurricane with winds of 100 mph and is expected to reach Category 3 by tomorrow. This brings with it the widespread destructive winds, waves, storm surge, and heavy rain when it brushes up against Florida. While they prepare for landfall in their State of Emergency, we need to consider the impacts of this storm farther up the coast. That includes the potential for flooding across Georgia, the Carolinas, and even into Maryland through the weekend.

The higher cloud tops are shaded in dark red, clack, and purple. There is a lot of healthy convection wrapping around a developing eye wall. This does look like it is ready to make a jump of rapid intensification as soon as it reaches warmer water.

Hurricane Force Winds: Extends 35 miles from the center.

Tropical Storm Force Winds: Extends 115 miles from the center.

In my prior report I showed the forecast for some places to possibly exceed 15 inches of rain. In this report I want to address what we expect as it travels farther north. Once making landfall it will get weaker, but the rain will spread out and is forecast to reach the Mid Atlantic over the weekend.

How much rain is still subject to the intensity before landfall and tracking inland. But there is a lot of agreement that heavy rain will spread up the East Coast with the heaviest possibly reaching into Maryland. Let’s take a look.

If you want a closer look at the Florida flooding from storm surge and rainfall, click here.

This is one solution and not the final call. I have multiple computer plots below. This does however show the expansion of the rainfall inland beyond landfall.

Rainfall may get delayed reaching the Mid Atlantic until late Saturday or Sunday. This will be determined in part if Hurricane Ian does nearly stall for a day near Tampa.

These are all the ensemble members, with the consensus plot highlighted black. That tracks directly through Central Maryland including metro Baltimore.

These are all the ensemble members, with the consensus plot highlighted in the middle. This output tracks farther west of Atlanta, then loses tropical identity. This is not the end of the rainmaker.

These generally track East of the ECMWF and turns up into the Mid Atlantic region by Sunday.

Heaviest Rain north of Tampa FL may reach 15 inches.

Southern Maryland may get into the eye of the 3 to 6 inch rainfall.

Centered on Maryland, this shows the 1 to 3 inches of rain potential north of Baltimore to York PA.

Annapolis to southern Maryland and the Beaches can range from 3 to over 5 inches.

In my next report, I will show you how this may lead to a pattern change and something to watch for atmospheric memory as a favorable pattern for snow this winter.

If you want a snowy winter, this is what you might want to look for in the rest of the tropical season.

NOAA 2022 Hurricane Forecast- Above Normal Again

STEM Assemblies/In School Fields Trips Are Back

Maryland and Baltimore City officials are holding “deliberative conversations” about whether state staffers can remain at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant beyond the expiration of an agreement forged earlier this year, according to a spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Even though the sewage treatment plant in eastern Baltimore County complied with limits for how much pollutants it can release under its state discharge permit in June, July and August, staffers from the Maryland Environmental Service could stay at Back River, Jay Apperson, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Recent inspection reports from the facility show continued maintenance and staffing struggles, though the water coming from the plant is meeting standards.

The Maryland Environmental Service took charge of the plant in late March at the order of then-Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles after state inspectors documented continuing problems resulting in pollution of the Back River.

While the city initially challenged the takeover in court, it reached an agreement with the state in June that clarified the scope and duration of the state’s involvement at the plant.

Under that consent order, the state agreed it would leave the troubled facility after it complied with the limits outlined in its environmental permit for three straight months. In other words, the water discharged from the plant would have to meet certain standards for how much nitrogen, phosphorus and other pollutants it contained.

Now, state environmental officials are waiting on a report from the city, due Sept. 28, that would confirm that the plant also met annual and seasonal limits for the last several months, calculated on a pro rata basis, Apperson said.

Still, given the ongoing problems, the state may remain at the agreement of the city, he said.

”These are deliberative conversations and at this time the current Consent Order remains in place,” Apperson wrote in an email.

Through the agreement, the city has paid the Maryland Environmental Service about $2 million for its work so far, said Sharon Merkel, an MES spokeswoman.

In a statement, Yolanda Winkler, a spokeswoman for Baltimore’s Department of Public Works, wouldn’t say whether the city would back an extension, or for how long it would last, but said that seven staffers from the state are still working at Back River, fewer than earlier this year.

“The collaboration between the Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) and the Maryland Environmental Service (MES) has produced improved results for the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant,” she said.

But according to a court motion filed this month by lawyers representing the city, the two parties are “negotiating an extension to the consent order to allow the ongoing support of the Maryland Environmental Service (”MES”) at the plant through the end of the year.”

Meanwhile, the city recently extended 14 employment offers for new hires at the Back River plant and two for Patapsco, wrote Baltimore wastewater bureau chief Yosef Kebede in his court declaration, dated Sept. 6.

“While the City is still below desirable staffing levels, that is the norm in the industry during these unprecedented worker shortages,” Kebede wrote.

Those filings came in response to the nonprofit Blue Water Baltimore’s federal lawsuit against the city over its management of the Back River and Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plants, both of which have ben flagged by MDE for serious maintenance problems resulting in damaging pollution. The state has not taken over the Patapsco plant, though environmental advocates have pushed for such an arrangement, as that plant remains out of compliance with its pollution limits.

Blue Water Baltimore, which set off inspections at both plants in 2021 after its water quality monitoring efforts caught high bacteria levels in the Back and Patapsco rivers, hopes a judge will impose enforceable requirements for repairs at both plants. It’s also calling for public signage along the two rivers warning of potentially high bacteria levels.

During an initial hearing about the matter, U.S. District Court Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby found that attorneys representing Blue Water Baltimore from the Chesapeake Legal Alliance didn’t provide enough evidence to show that there would be “irreparable harm” if the court did not step in. She allowed them to prepare an additional brief in response. A new hearing to discuss Blue Water’s request has been scheduled for Oct. 11.

According to the state’s last inspection report from Back River, dated August 16, even though the plant’s discharge water has improved in quality, problems remain with the machinery inside the facility.

For instance — although more of the key primary settling tanks were online — filters elsewhere in the plant were clogged and not being washed out frequently enough, the inspector noted.

Dan Latova, a plant representative, blamed the problems on staffing issues, and told the inspector that “they have not been able to get qualified staff,” because the staffers are chosen by the city’s human resources department, rather than plant management, and often do not have adequate prior experience.

”He further stated that there are not sufficient staff to be able to provide training hours needed to get the applicants to a point where they can function on their own,” the inspection report reads.

Desiree Greaver, project manager for the Back River Restoration Committee — a nonprofit that has been among the loudest voices calling for improvements at the plant — said she worries that if MES leaves the facility, mechanical issues will mount once more, and the plant could resume discharging excess pollutants into Back River. It was a worry echoed by numerous community members living along the river during a tense meeting about the plant in July, hosted by the Restoration Committee.

Greaver said she was invited to visit the plant for the first time last Wednesday, and was impressed by how far it has come since inspection reports earlier this year and last year showed severe issues, such as vegetation growing in sewage settling tanks, and discolored water going into the river from the plant.

On Wednesday, she saw workers repairing settling tanks, and observed that the water cascading toward the river was clear.

She’s hopeful that visits like last week’s will allow her organization to serve as a bridge between plant officials and the community, with the goal of restoring public trust in the facility.

“The community doesn’t trust the city, the state, the county. Nobody trusts them. They haven’t earned it,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of work to repair that and to get us all on the same team again.”

Her group also hopes the General Assembly could take up the issue of establishing a regional authority to manage the city’s wastewater plants, so that other entities besides Baltimore City are involved in the plant’s operations, she said.

It’s a possible outcome that’s been floated by officials, including Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.

In the meantime, groups like the Restoration Committee are engaged in a “waiting game,” Greaver said, eager to see whether the city continues footing the bill for extra employees from the state.

Translating career "aha! moments" to clinical informatics for cancer care

Lauren Bruckner, MD, PhD, traveled a savvy and strategic route from laboratory research to clinical practice to administrative leadership to reach her current post as Chief Medical Information Officer at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"I wanted to become a scientist,” she says, explaining that she spent her earliest childhood in Brooklyn, grew up near the Jersey Shore and was an undergraduate biology major in Baltimore, Maryland, when she decided to pursue a master’s degree in molecular genetics.

She was doing bench research as a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City when she had her first lifework "aha! moment." “We were working on gene therapy for sickle cell disease, and because of that I was interacting with a lot of the hematologists,” Dr. Bruckner recalls. “Those interactions were key because I came to realize that while I loved the science, I thought a better fit for myself was being a doctor and working directly with patients.”

Moving from the laboratory bench to the bedside

She re-calibrated her professional course, took the MCAT, and applied to medical schools. After acceptance in the MD/PhD program at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, she spent eight years mounting HIV-related research in molecular biology and immunology, with a specialty in pediatrics. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology focused on bone marrow transplant and infections in immunocompromised hosts.

But about four years later, as a junior faculty member, she had another career revelation: while she really loved the “thinking” part of research – the theoretical analysis and experimentation – she realized she hated writing.

“I cannot underscore how much I hated writing,” Dr. Bruckner laughs. “What I realized was that, as a researcher, that’s your lifeline! And I thought, this is way too competitive a field to so dislike a key requirement for success. What am I doing?”

Taking a leadership role

While again trying to figure out how to redirect her career course to accommodate that revelation, as often happens in life, another door opened. A colleague recommended her to fill in for him as inpatient medical director for a children’s hospital in Rochester, NY, while he was on sabbatical.

“Who goes to medical school and then says I really want to go into hospital administration?” she quips. “But two things happened there. One, when he came back, they decided he would split his duties, so I got to continue being the inpatient medical director. And two, because in 2008, 2009, we were just undergoing our transition to electronic medical records, I wound up being the clinical informatics person overseeing oncology care, care of children and the patient portal, which got me involved in patient engagement.” Clinical informatics is an emerging science that uses data and information technology to improve health and healthcare delivery. For example, the use of electronic health records (EHR), which allows your physicians to access up-to-date medical records, helps to improve your care by avoiding redundant testing or imaging, unsafe prescription interactions, or gaps in care.

Dr. Bruckner remained in that capacity for another five years before another "aha! moment" led to an appointment as medical director of patient engagement. The pinnacle of that role, she remembers, was organizing a community-wide launch of Open Notes, an initiative that offers patients access to their clinical notes from the physician providing their care.

“I thought, we keep making changes when new features come out or new issues come up rather than having an actual structure for what we want to attain with this whole new field of patient engagement and all the potential that exists. We should be proactive in developing a strategic plan for patient engagement, not just going along passively and reactively.”

By this time, she had shifted away from basic science and focused on what she refers to as “the science of patient engagement." She credits the CEO of the Medical Faculty Group as her key mentor and for encouraging her to pursue leadership capacities. “He challenged me often by being blunt when he thought I was not thinking through my plans thoroughly. He really helped me hone my leadership skills.”

Finding her place at Roswell Park

In 2020, Dr. Bruckner became board certified in clinical informatics and, in September 2021, she joined “Team Roswell” as its Chief Medical Information Officer.

“It’s an excellent fit. I’m a practicing oncologist and my passion is patient engagement and clinical informatics,” she says. “So much of clinical informatics is about organizational culture and managing change. What will the future of cancer care look like and what is Roswell Park’s role going to be in that new vision for the future around digital health? These are the questions Roswell Park was just beginning to ask. I wanted to help that discussion and help shape that strategic plan and vision.

"The advent of digital health has opened up whole new ways to engage patients, educate them, understand the barriers for them and engage them more in their healthcare journey," Dr. Bruckner continues. “It’s no longer only about once a person becomes sick. It’s about their whole healthcare journey and how to keep themselves healthy,” she says, crediting Roswell Park’s smoking cessation program for just that.

Digital health encompasses model health apps and software, wearable medical devices, telemedicine, and health information technology (IT) that support and integrate doctors’ clinical decisions and enhance patient engagement from assessment and diagnosis to treatment and recovery and billing.

With just 10% of her time now devoted to the clinical practice of pediatric hematology and oncology – she still sees patients and participates in clinical discussions – Dr. Bruckner views her role as a “translationist” who interprets needs on the clinical side of cancer care to make it real on the technology side.

“I think it’s important that, as CMIO, I understand the ‘pain points’ of clinicians firsthand. I have to use the tools I am implementing, so I’m an end-user as well,” she says. “I think that helps in interacting with and relating to other clinicians and puts me in a good position for understanding the impact it has on clinical practice when I say, ‘let’s make this change.’”

She adds that Roswell Park’s custom-built patient portal provides a lot of flexibility for patient engagement around risk assessment, early detection, preventive self-care and helping healthcare consumers through every facet of the cancer care journey. One challenge, however, is to establish an enterprise-wide prioritization and strategy for optimizing IT-related clinical applications and workflows. To address this need, Dr. Bruckner has established an IT clinical governance committee and a Provider Informatics Leadership Team to align the institutional needs with its available resources and vision for optimizing the future of cancer care.

Over the years of her stellar career, Dr. Bruckner says she has seen a major change, for the better, in the perception and reception and acceptance of women in science and leadership – but feels there is still a way to go.

“Encouraging girls to go into science, and not being the ‘odd girl out’ for liking science, that’s changing, luckily,” she says. “Some of my greatest alliances and successes in leadership have been because I’ve made alliances with other women in leadership and talked about a lot of challenges that exist for us that are not always the same as for some of our colleagues who are men.”

Baltimore, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Philip Abramowitz, age 50, of Pikesville, Maryland, Maryland to one year in federal prison and one year of home detention, followed by three years of supervised release, for a wire fraud conspiracy for fraudulently obtaining federally insured home loans. Judge Bennett also ordered Abramowitz to pay $373,684 in restitution and forfeit $493,037.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron and Acting Special Agent in Charge Jerome A. Winkle of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General.

“Abramowitz blatantly lied to federal entities and abused a federal loan program intended to ease the financial stress of purchasing a home. Our office will continue to prosecute those who abuse federal programs.” said U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Erek L. Barron.

“Abramowitz’s conduct is unacceptable and undermines the goals of FHA loan program,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jerome A. Winkle. “HUD OIG is committed to working with our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to hold individuals like Mr. Abramowitz accountable and recover funds fraudulently obtained from HUD programs.”

According to his guilty plea, from May 2016 to April 2017, Abramowitz and others conspired to defraud two financial institutions by fraudulently obtaining Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans and property under false pretenses. The FHA is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and provides mortgage insurance on loans made by FHA-approved lenders. To qualify for the FHA-insured loans, the buyer must use the residence as their primary residence, disclose any familial or business relationship between the seller and buyer, and disclose the source of the money the buyer intends to use for the down payment and closing costs.

Philip Abramowitz admitted that he used his company, 163 N. Potomac St., LLC, to facilitate the sales of his Potomac Street, Baltimore, Maryland properties using FHA-insured loans. For example, in May 2016, Abramowitz sold one of his Potomac Street properties (Property 1) to his brother, Calvin Abramowitz, and entered into an agreement with Calvin Abramowitz to purchase the property using an FHA-insured loan.

According to court documents, Calvin Abramowitz applied for and received a $294,566 FHA-insured loan with a mortgage company (Mortgage Company 1) by falsely representing Philip Abramowitz’s bank account records as his own. Calvin and Philip Abramowitz also: concealed their family relationship from Mortgage Company 1 by submitting false company filings during the loan application process; had Philip Abramowitz’s property manager (Property Manager 1) pose as the sole seller and manager of 163 N. Potomac St., LLC; and arranged for Property Manager 1 to sign the FHA-loan contact as the official seller of the property. Philip Abramowitz’s ownership of 163 N, Potomac St., LLC or involvement in the sale was never disclosed.

To meet the requirements of the loan procurement process, Philip Abramowitz gave Calvin Abramowitz $10,500 to pay for the closing costs for Property 1, as Calvin did not have the financial means to make the purchase. Based on the fraudulent financial information presented during the loan application process, Mortgage Company 1 loaned Calvin Abramowitz $294,566 for the purchase of Property 1. Most of the loan proceeds were subsequently deposited into Philip Abramowitz’s bank account. Ultimately, Calvin Abramowitz never used Property 1 as a primary residence and rented the property to tenants for a year before ceasing mortgage payments and allowing the property to fall into foreclosure.

As detailed in his plea agreement, Philip Abramowitz arranged the sale of his second Potomac Street property (Property 2) in March 2017 to another family member (Relative 1) using an FHA-insured loan. To facilitate the sale of Property 2, Relative 1 applied for an FHA-insured loan with another mortgage company (Mortgage Company 2). Using the same manner to defraud Mortgage Company 1, Philip Abramowitz concealed his familial relation to Relative 1, falsely listed his property manager as the sole seller and owner of Property 2 and submitted multiple fraudulent documents to Mortgage Company 2, including an LLC affidavit of title asserting that no other person or entity had ownership in Property 2.

As he did in the sale of Property 1, Philip Abramowitz violated FHA-loan requirements by: providing Relative 1 $8,750 for the closing costs of the sale; misrepresenting his own bank account information as Relative 1’s in the FHA-loan procurement process; and having the majority of the loan proceeds deposited to his personal bank account. Relative 1 never used Property 2 as a primary residence or paid monthly mortgage payments to Mortgage Company 2, which caused the property to fall into foreclosure.

Calvin Abramowitz, age 48, of Lakewood, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty to bank fraud in connection with his role in the scheme and faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison. Judge Bennett has scheduled sentencing for Calvin Abramowitz on December 6, 2022, at 2:30 p.m.

United States Attorney Erek L. Barron commended HUD-OIG for their work in the investigation. Mr. Barron thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin J. Clarke, who prosecuted the federal case.

For more information on the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, its priorities, and resources available to help the community, please visit www.justice.gov/usao-md and https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/community-outreach.

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When I heard Center Stage was going to put a Baltimore spin on “Our Town,” I wasn’t sure what to expect but this production definitely has a Baltimore influence. The result is a play written nearly 100 years ago with a modern spin. The script from Wilder’s original is the same, but the characters make a play written in 1938 seem fresh and current.

…fresh and current…This is an “Our Town” filled with big personalities and the spirit of Baltimore…

Lance Coadie Williams plays a Stage Manager with a big personality, speaking directly to the audience to draw us into the action. Although the play is set in 1901, Williams wears a jumpsuit and durag, bringing in a bit of Baltimore and letting us know that this play is not your run-of-the-mill “Our Town.” Continuing with this contemporary twist, Howie Newsome (O’Malley Steuerman) delivers the milk on a bike he calls “Bessie” and Joe Crowell (Dagan Brown) brings the newspaper on his scooter.

Director Stevie Walker-Webb draws us into the play by having the cast walk onstage from the aisles in the audience rather than backstage. When the Stage Manager calls for Professor Willard (Nancy Linden) to give us a bit of history about Grover’s Corners, an older lady pops up from her seat in the audience and walks onto the stage. Walker-Webb does a great job of keeping the play current and the action moving. Linden comes onstage to a round of applause, wearing a mask and dropping all the papers she’s holding. When Editor Charles Webb (Derek Garza) tells us more about Grover’s Corners, questions come from actors in the audience (regarding the culture of the town and social justice).

Scenic Designer Anton Volovsek, Costume Designer kindall houston almond and Lighting Designer Josh Martinez-Davis capture the flavor and texture of Baltimore. Sound Designer Nina Field also contributes to the success of the performance. The Grover’s Corners choir sings gospel while the actors continue to speak. Simon Stimson (Michael David Axtell) plays the piano and even brings in a bit of Stevie Wonder at the end of Act I. We hear the train whistling, the rain falling, and a clap of thunder at different parts of the show, enhancing the setting with sound.

Parts of the play are also quite funny. When Emily (Kimberly Dodson) and George (Avon Haugton) are about to get married, Editor Webb comments that his dad advised him to always show his wife who’s boss and never let her know how much money you have…but George should do the opposite. When Myrtle Webb (Rebecca L. Hargrove) comments how a bridegroom shouldn’t see the bride on the day of his wedding, Editor Webb comments that no bridegroom should see his father-in-law on the day of the wedding either. In addition to his role as Stage Manager, Williams adds humor playing the man running the ice cream soda shop, the minister performing the wedding, and a neighbor.

Although the language is all Thornton Wilder, this is an “Our Town” filled with big personalities and the spirit of Baltimore—with the sights, sounds, and audience interaction. If a “hey, hon” was thrown in, the transition would be complete.

Running Time: Approximately two hours and 15 minutes including one 15-minute intermission.

Advisory: This production contains the use of strobe/pulsing lights, discussions of death and dying, and depictions of alcohol abuse.

“Our Town” runs through October 9, 2022 at Baltimore Center Stage, 700 North Calvert StreetBaltimore, Maryland 21202. For information and tickets, call the box office at 410.332.0033 or go online. Masks are required, and ID and proof of vaccination need to be shown prior to entry.