Senate committee holds off vote on nominee to Maryland Stadium Authority – Maryland Matters

The Senate Govt Nominations Committee held the title of Gov. Wes Moore’s nominee to the highly effective and prestigious Maryland Stadium Authority board Monday night, after listening to testimony from the lady being thought-about for affirmation.

With restricted dialogue, the panel opted to carry off its vote on Yolanda Maria Martinez, a 60-year-old businesswoman from Ellicott Metropolis with a troubled 35-year monetary historical past that features a current $7.2 million private chapter and dozens of lawsuits for unpaid money owed.

The choice to not take motion on Martinez’s nomination got here after an article Monday morning in Maryland Issues detailed how she had hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in judgments filed towards her and different monetary difficulties. Each Martinez, who is named Maria, and the governor’s workers stated that she had instructed Moore of her previous historical past earlier than the he nominated her Feb. 17 to the Stadium Authority board.

The committee held her nomination hours after Moore instructed reporters he continued to again her.

Sen. Antonio L. Hayes (D-Baltimore Metropolis), the panel vice chair, made the movement to carry Martinez’s nomination.

“There are questions that members of the committee nonetheless have … and so they in all probability want extra time to digest it; so, it was requested that we maintain onto it,” Hayes stated. “On this case, I agree with that, given what we learn immediately, we must always maintain off on it.

“We could convey it again up; we could not,” Hayes stated. “It simply relies on how the session is transferring, and it’s transferring actually rapidly.”

It’s Senate custom that any member of the Govt Nominations Committee could delay a last vote on a gubernatorial appointment.

Being named to the distinguished Maryland Stadium Authority’s nine-member board is taken into account a plum appointment, due to the company’s high-profile work. The authority has wide-ranging tasks, together with the award of contracts, structuring of financing offers and negotiating of multiyear, multimillion-dollar leases with skilled sports activities groups and others.

Martinez instructed the committee that her monetary issues began years in the past, when she was caught up within the 1994 chapter of an organization owned by her abusive former husband — circumstances that she stated affected her for years.

She then defined how she overcame being a sufferer of home abuse and rose as much as discovered one other enterprise, Respira Inc., a medical gear firm, which loved success till a change in authorities reimbursement charges compelled her to shut the doorways in 2018.

“I simply wanted to make clear all that as a result of it’s very painful for me,” Martinez instructed the committee.

Distinguished within the state’s Hispanic group, she has been energetic in civic causes through the years.

Martinez instructed the committee how she had been a previous appointee to state boards and commissions, together with as chair of Governor’s Fee on Hispanic Affairs, the board of trustees of the Maryland Vehicle Insurance coverage Fund, the state’s insurer of final resort, and the Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene’s Board of Assessment.

She talked about her work with the United Method of Central Maryland on serving to to launch the Maryland 211 help hotline, and of serving to former Secretary of State Mary D. Kane (R) with laws establishing the state’s “Secure at Residence” program for victims of home violence.

“I’ve been earlier than this physique a number of instances in my profession and it’s at all times been nothing however help, and it simply may be very tough to be outlined via a lens that has simply info that has been obtained in public information” with out the advantage of feedback from her supporters.

Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Decrease Shore) instructed Martinez that members of the Senate should reply to their constituents, who’ve questions in regards to the nomination to the Stadium Authority board as a result of the company has such huge energy and monetary oversight.

“When our constituents increase issues a few challenged fiscal historical past and background that’s being utilized to an appointment to one of the essential and prestigious [boards] within the state, these are professional questions,” Carozza stated. “They usually ask the query, are there others who didn’t face these challenges which may have been higher nominees? They ask these questions. It is best to know that.

“So when questions are being requested, it’s to not personally problem you, it’s to place it within the context of this particular appointment and the truth that it’s not your regular board or fee. It’s at a distinct stage,” the senator stated.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve gone via personally [and] I’m sorry for what you’ve gone via financially, and I do know my colleagues share that,” she stated.

Carozza was the one member of the committee to talk earlier than Martinez completed and left the room along with her husband, Ricardo Martinez. Then, Hayes referred to as for the vote on different names the committee was contemplating.

By means of Tisha S. Edwards, Moore’s appointments secretary, Martinez declined to talk to a reporter after the listening to.

Earlier within the day, at a Baltimore occasion about electrical autos, Moore stated he was supportive of Martinez being on the Stadium Authority board.

“I’m excited for the truth that she’s now going to have an opportunity to have a good listening to,” he stated of her look earlier than the Senate committee.

“I do know on the subject of Maria, we all know that for many people, our paths haven’t been even. And I do know that giving her a chance to have the ability to meet with the Senate, giving her a chance to have the ability to make her case and to see why I used to be so excited, and am so excited, to see her as a part of the Maryland Stadium Authority,” Moore stated.

“I feel individuals will see that she brings distinctive perspective, that she brings a singular view, and that the journey she has had, the life journey that she has had, not solely does it mirror many Marylanders’, nevertheless it brings a singular additive to what we have to see on the Maryland Stadium Authority,” he stated.

Josh Kurtz contributed to this report.

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