Let’s talk about some improvements in Baltimore City government

Crime is down and spirits are up in Baltimore City. What comes next? We reconnected with Baltimore City Comptroller Bill Henry at Koco’s Pub on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to discuss transparency, real economics and what makes our town more livable.

Bill Henry, Baltimore City Comptroller, discussed the city’s financial transparency and improvements, highlighting the impact of ARPA funds on crime reduction and youth development programs like Youth Works. He emphasized the need for better budgeting to accommodate all applicants and criticized the current emergency procurement process. Henry praised the city council’s independence and the mayor’s investments in recreation and libraries. He also mentioned the importance of addressing the root causes of crime through better opportunities for youth. The conversation also touched on the city’s overall cleanliness and safety improvements.

• [ ] Follow up on the list of emergency procurements that the Comptroller’s office has been requesting.
• [ ] Advocate for budgeting the full demand for the Youth Works summer jobs program, rather than relying on outside funding.

Coco’s Pub and Maryland Lottery Promotion

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Maryland lottery and the Maryland crab cake tour.
• Bill Henry joins the show, discussing the Maryland crab cake tour and the Maryland lottery.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about their experiences at Coco’s pub and the Maryland crab cake tour.
• Nestor Aparicio mentions the Maryland lottery promotion and the Lucky Seven stubs.

Introduction of Bill Henry and His Role

• Nestor Aparicio introduces Bill Henry as the controller of the city of Baltimore.
• Bill Henry talks about his role and responsibilities as the controller of the city of Baltimore.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss the challenges and perceptions of Baltimore City.
• Bill Henry mentions his encyclopedic knowledge in various areas like transportation, housing, and redlining.

Discussion on Baltimore’s Reputation and Crime

• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss the negative perception of Baltimore due to violent crime.
• Bill Henry mentions the impact of television shows like “The Wire” on Baltimore’s reputation.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about the need for positive portrayals of Baltimore in media.
• Bill Henry shares his frustration with the lack of investment in the library system and the need for more permanent residents.

Emergency Procurements and City Spending Transparency

• Bill Henry discusses the issue of emergency procurements and the lack of transparency in city spending.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about the challenges of making city spending more open and transparent.
• Bill Henry mentions the need for better checks and balances in the emergency procurement process.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss the importance of having a more transparent and accountable city government.

Impact of ARPA Funds on Crime Reduction

• Bill Henry credits the ARPA funds for the reduction in crime and violence in Baltimore City.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss the effectiveness of violence interruption strategies.
• Bill Henry mentions the importance of addressing the root causes of crime, such as lack of opportunities and better lives.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about the need for more investment in youth development and recreation programs.

Youth Works Program and Summer Employment

• Bill Henry discusses the Youth Works program and its importance in providing summer employment for city kids.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about the challenges of funding and expanding the Youth Works program.
• Bill Henry mentions the need for better budgeting to ensure that all eligible kids can participate in the program.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss the importance of providing economic opportunities for city youth.

City Council and City Government

• Bill Henry praises the current city council for being the most independent and proactive in addressing larger issues.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss the challenges of single-member districts and the pressure on council members.
• Bill Henry mentions the importance of having a balanced city council that can address both district-specific and city-wide issues.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about the need for better collaboration and communication between the city council and the mayor’s office.

Crab Cake Tour and Baltimore’s Culinary Scene

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland crab cake tour and the various stops on the tour.
• Bill Henry and Nestor Aparicio talk about their favorite Baltimore restaurants and dishes.
• Nestor Aparicio mentions the importance of promoting local businesses and culinary experiences.
• Bill Henry shares his experiences and recommendations for places to eat in Baltimore.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry discuss their future plans and projects.
• Bill Henry mentions his desire to continue working on making the city government more transparent and accountable.
• Nestor Aparicio and Bill Henry talk about the importance of community engagement and involvement in city government.
• Nestor Aparicio thanks Bill Henry for his participation and contributions to the show.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore City, crime reduction, youth development, ARPA funds, emergency procurements, city council, recreation centers, youth works, violence interruption, library investment, community engagement, economic opportunity, public safety, city government, transparency.

SPEAKERS

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Nestor Aparicio, Bill Henry

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. 27 years into this we’re celebrating with our tastiness and our 27 favorite things to eat. We are down to number five. We’re here at Coco’s pub. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Have the Lucky Seven stubborn I actually found an extra stack of the pressure luck. So a lot of people pressing their luck here today, my

Bill Henry  00:24

whammies, no whammies, no Whammy, whammy.

Nestor Aparicio  00:29

We’re Cocos on the Maryland crab cake tour, having some fun. Bill Henry’s here. He is the controller of the city of Baltimore. We happen to be in the lovely third district in the city of Baltimore. I had never met Ryan Dorsey before, 48 hours ago. You know it’s, it’s Coco’s 40th anniversary. Oh, so they had their huge family and friends celebration on Sunday. So Ryan lives here around the corner Mayfield. I’ve got my six friends are coming up here later on. So I was here. I never met him. He said, Hey, you want to have me on a show? I’m like, yeah, he said we stood 58 minutes here. He’s a little bit of encyclopedic knowledge in regard to historical data, in regard to transportation, housing, redlining, money, all of that only

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Bill Henry  01:13

the best for our Baltimore City Council. I’m trying. He liked you, too.

Nestor Aparicio  01:17

How are you? How’s the city I Donald Trump says it’s falling apart. Shitler, I have a new nickname for him. You’ve seen it on

Bill Henry  01:26

Facebook. No, tell me, Dick, hater, that’s not new. That’s not new. Dick, yeah, no, I got hater. I that that there were people calling Trump on that. We called himself one, and he hadn’t even done some of the crazy stuff he’s been doing this term yet.

Nestor Aparicio  01:47

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Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s 50,000 feet. Let’s just keep it down. Let’s talk about what’s really happening in Baltimore, not the fiction of what’s happening in America at this point, which isn’t fiction, sadly, it’s nonfiction. Crime down, perception, mayor’s running around, governors running for president, like I can’t keep up with all of it. I’m just gonna say this with full conviction and heart to you. I had many of you on. I didn’t think I’d ever meet Ryan Dorsey, let alone have on for an hour. Just did. Felicia was gonna come today, but couldn’t come. I had never met Mark Conway before. A week and a half ago, he sent in an hour with me, Zach Blanchard, I’ve met, had him on when he ran. I lived in that district. I was Eric Costello’s district. Had him on. I’ve had Zeke on. Saw the mayor. Haven’t had him on since all of this. And I’ve driven into the city. I was at fade leaves last week, where you and I misconnected. I was at peach Johns and Essex. Saturday, I was in the city. Monday, I was in the city. It’s Wednesday, I’m in I’m in city every other day driving through. I was in the city last Wednesday night. Dear friend of mine works at Hopkins. My wife was out of town. I owed her dinner because she took care of my cat when I was at Mako, and I drove her over to Clavel. So I drove down Harford Road, no part of Perry Parkway, to Harford, through here, down, not through here, but through Montebello and Lake Clifton, North Avenue down, and then I went over to Clavel up North Avenue, and then went back East Baltimore, and then I took sort of a weird way home that wasn’t the beltway, just to look around, less trash, less threat, more cleaned up, less homeless. I didn’t even see a Baltimore lean. You know, my vibe of driving around is that, like even driving it here today, like it feels and it’s not because of what I see on the news. It’s just you look around and it’s just cleaner and nicer. And whatever we’ve done, it’s neighborhood to neighborhood, place to place, that it just looks better. Now. That doesn’t belie the shootings and whatever is going on in the murders and all that, but just vibe of walking around and feeling it. I know we’re on the uptick. I don’t think it. I know it because I see it and feel it. And I’m not your PR guy, you know what I mean? I’m just somebody that loves the city, drives the city, and I’m happy to point at its warts, despite my name at Baltimore

Bill Henry  04:17

policy, Baltimore has, Baltimore has had challenges. I’m not, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna pretend that’s not the case. But Baltimore has never been as bad as a lot of its press. You know, we have, we have suffered over the decades that working.

Nestor Aparicio  04:37

Yeah, I’m a direct mic guy, Bill, I do this professionally, if

Bill Henry  04:43

over the years, over the years, we’ve suffered a little bit from the fact that what Baltimore is best known for is violent crime, and that’s not just a statistical thing. That’s because we’ve had some a. A really good television that looked at the that issue and did a really good job of looking at it and telling people the stories around it, and they took place here homicide a life a year in the streets, the wire these I’ve run into sensationalized crime in Baltimore. They they sensationalized crime in America, but they showed it in Baltimore. So that’s what people in other places saw of us. I

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Nestor Aparicio  05:35

have even asked Ryan about David Simon, but assignment would have put that show in Atlanta or Charlotte or

Bill Henry  05:41

Detroit or Philadelphia or anywhere. I have said for years that in New York City, law and order has been killing people weekly for years, but they’ll stick to but nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody thinks of New York as nothing but homicide, because they also have friends and Sex in the City. And you know, all these other, you know, upbeat sitcom ish kind of shows that show just ordinary people having fun and living their lives, which

Nestor Aparicio  06:19

we need to write It’s Always Sunny in laurelville. Is what we need to do,

Bill Henry  06:24

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bad that actually would but you joke. But if there was a way to get a friends a hit sitcom based in Baltimore, I think that would do more for our national reputation than trying to get each individual newspaper editor across the country to see Cleveland Exactly. That is exactly what the office did for Scranton. Well, well, yeah, Henry’s here.

Nestor Aparicio  06:57

He is in the office of comptroller the money of the city and the tax base of the city and the housing and and look, I’ll pitch at you like I did with Ryan. I drive Perry Parkway. Fix the potholes on Perry Parkway, if the mayor’s here, I tell me, I tell the county that on the county side of it, right? But just in a general sense, things like that, things like Fox 45 news, things that go wrong, a shooting, the drug overdose that I had, the I had Emily Keller on from West Moore’s office, talking about, they called it a mass casualty event. Nobody died. I didn’t know nobody died. They called it a mass casualty event. I just thought, a lot of people died. And Emily’s like, nobody died. They had no they had naloxone.

Bill Henry  07:44

You take a bunch of people to the hospital, that’s a mass casualty event,

Nestor Aparicio  07:50

okay? But that word to me, mass casualty, yeah, meant like we’re death.

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Bill Henry  07:54

We were, we were very fortunate that in this in this case, we there were a lot of casual but no one

Nestor Aparicio  08:01

needs a new it’s not even in my mind, death, destruction, you know, and then with dictators doing what aren’t, shitlers doing what the felon King is doing,

Bill Henry  08:13

you really have a whole, a whole list of names for

Nestor Aparicio  08:17

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peace shit my private life, but having that sit out in front of the news and having a young black mayor, a young black Governor out F, U, F, you come to my town. He ain’t here. You don’t want him anyway, so, but, but all the posturing and Wes is running for president, God, God bless you. Wes, maybe one day he’ll show up. But for me, this black, white city, right, left, and having Trump specifically single us out and try to send the military, I know what the military looks like in this city, so do you I mean, yeah, I remember Freddie Gray and I lived on the 23rd floor and saw tanks circling my buildings. I can’t imagine what the people in DC are going through right now, but this does not help our reputation more by just having our governor and our mayor out fighting with the science fiction of the clown that’s sitting down in DC getting having North Korean state meetings that I saw. Yeah, that was just

Bill Henry  09:16

yesterday in 2015 during the uprising, when we had National Guard troops in Baltimore City. Now, people talk about what it’s like to have the National Guard in your city. For me, it was to walk into City Hall where my office was as a council person, I had to walk past two gentlemen in with with automatic with automatic

Nestor Aparicio  09:48

right to do that, to get into Reggie’s, I had to do that to go to Maria D’s to get a slice of pizza. And right, literally, and I live in

Bill Henry  09:55

Can I tell you what reassured me at the time? Him. I recognized one of them. Okay, one of the guys who was posted to the front door of City Hall was Jake day, who has gone on to be the mayor of says he was, he was the mayor, Jake well, and yeah, and I had known, I had known Jake from some environmental work, and, yeah, and he’s a good man, super guy, good. Gonna make a great Congressman someday. And, and and

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Nestor Aparicio  10:31

Andy seat right, pardon, Andy seat right. Okay,

Bill Henry  10:35

yeah, so. But seeing, seeing Jake there, that helped me remember that all of these, you know, strangers showing up in my town were not all strangers. Some of them were our neighbors, just fine.

Nestor Aparicio  10:53

Really are here. We’re here to protect you, not to intimidate you. Yeah, I do worry an intimidation ploy against people that, quite frankly, don’t even look like you. I look like

Bill Henry  11:03

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me. I worry a lot about the fact that they’re bringing in National Guardsmen from states far away to

Nestor Aparicio  11:10

I’m worried that they’re profiling everyone that looks Latin and shaking them down.

Bill Henry  11:14

Well, yes, although Did you see I saw a thing on the on the on the internet the other day that there is so little actual crime for the National Guard to deal with. They’re cleaning up trash. They’re cleaning up trash. Like, good. I like, I’m astonished at the amount of money we’re spending to bring in people from Iowa,

Nestor Aparicio  11:41

yeah, I don’t think Brandon’s gonna have a press conference. They say, come on up and do us next. Oh, yeah, you

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Bill Henry  11:46

know, no, Brandon is gonna have a press conference today. Like, I when you said earlier, you haven’t seen the mayor. It’s like, I can tell you where to see the mayor. The mayor is going to be giving her having a press conference later this afternoon, up in Park Heights, because we’re doing the groundbreaking for the first ever Enoch Pratt library branch in Park Heights along where is that possible? Along with making some additions to the park up

Nestor Aparicio  12:10

there, Park Heights on heaven. Enoch Pratt, well, I mean, it’s

Bill Henry  12:15

historic disinvestment, and this is an example of actually doing something equitably for the people of park height.

Nestor Aparicio  12:23

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All right? Bill Henry’s here. He’s controller Baltimore, former councilman, so here’s where I hold you accountable. All right, this is my this is where I go. I had a tough question. You take a drink. You came home with me as Councilman, Henry. Nice guy down at fatley. I think I met you about 678, years ago, whenever it was I live in, in a city Joan Pratt was a bit of a four letter word. And, you know, just in a general sense of as a citizen, you’re one of the few politicians I ever endorsed, ever I didn’t give you any money, because I haven’t given any money to anybody since Tom Harkin.

Bill Henry  12:58

Oh, I was, I ran as a Tom Harkin delegate,

Nestor Aparicio  13:02

yeah, 92 I bought some stamps and worked out of the office right there Water Street back in the day. No offense, Bill Clinton, but you know, Monica wouldn’t have been heard from had Tom Harkin come in from Iowa. But nonetheless, it probably speaks to my bleeding left heart of Bernie Sanders. But you ran on at a time when I think you came and sat in on the show right after Jack Young left, and he was the mayor. Brandon was the city council president. Young guy didn’t have a chance to win. Here we are, 78, years later, the money of the city, the taxes, the mismanagement, whatever, malfeasance, mail, what at Mal, whatever. And then we had malware. We had, we had a software so we had all sorts of things, right, where, what did you find? And where are you now? And if I were to bring, if I were some auditor, whatever came in and a journalist with, you know, my, my, my notepad, what could you show me in your office to say, this is what I inherited. This is where we are, and all fixed. I don’t create the money. I just dispense it. There was a faction with the mayor and you, and Ivan Bates and his predecessor, and the way things were voted upon, right and budgeting in regard to all sorts of things that a lot of people are that live in the city are not aware of. So every time I bring one of the electeds on, I I kind of have to school house, rock this from the beginning and say, All right, you know what is a control? You know what I mean? Let’s begin with that. But you began with that seven or eight years ago, but you were you clearly ran as the pissed off Councilman about feeling like the city was getting ripped off. And when you sat with me, you made no bones about that. I think you’re an honorable man of integrity, even though I put the integrity thing up the other day on my Facebook that I think you like. But where are we? Are we making more money, spending more money? Because I do see improvements, and you’re bragging on things that we’re clearly spending money to have better libraries. All of that stand on your

Bill Henry  15:02

principles. So. So let me start with, you know, six, seven years later, I’m still pissed off. Oh, good. I I don’t even have a good feel for how old that movie is now. But the the original, the first Avengers movie. I don’t see movies, but okay, there, there’s a, there’s a scene where Captain America tells Bruce Banner, you know, he needs to turn into the Hulk to get to do this fight that they’re about to have this. Dr banner, it’s time to get angry. And he goes, That’s my secret cap. I’m always angry. And he just turns around and instantly transforms into the hawk. I try to be very low key, and I try to be upbeat when possible. I do want to be a cheerleader for the city, but I am always frustrated at what we’re not doing, even when I’m happy and proud and celebrating the good things that we are doing, I am extraordinarily happy that we are going to have a new library branch in in Park Heights. I am still frustrated with the relative lack of investment we are making in the library system as a whole.

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Nestor Aparicio  16:24

I am, you know, I talked to Megan a lot about that when she was running. Now she’s doing, live Baltimore.

Bill Henry  16:29

Yeah, yeah, live Baltimore. You know, we live Baltimore. Is an organization that exists to have more people choose

Nestor Aparicio  16:39

to live. It’s a marketing organization,

Bill Henry  16:42

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literally in Baltimore City. We as a as city government, we support having more permanent residents by supporting live Baltimore at a fraction of the level that we support having more people visit here, and that, to me, is a questionable order of priorities, but in terms of what we’ve been doing as as a comptroller’s office, and we’ve talked a little bit about this, you know, since I took over as Comptroller, I think we have been successful At making city spending more open, more transparent. Six years ago, if you wanted to know what we were spending on a contract with anybody to do anything to dredge Lake Montebello or to resurface city streets, you would physically have to go down to City Hall, find a place to park, pay for it, and then go in and sit in the lobby of the comptroller’s office and ask to see a paper file like, that’s that’s what you would have had to do. Now,

Nestor Aparicio  17:53

reporter, work. Reporter, reporter, work, right, not even easy. Reporter,

Bill Henry  17:57

now for reporters, for business people, for just interested. You know, residents, you can sit in the comfort of your own home, go online, pull up the Comptroller’s website, and you can see all the spending that the Board of estimates approves every month, all year long. You know, as a

Nestor Aparicio  18:18

guy that gives lottery tickets away, I always say that I had John Martin on today from the Maryland lottery Executive Director, I say it’s on the up and up, right? It’s on the up and up

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Bill Henry  18:27

well, so that’s where I can talk to you about what I’m frustrated by and why I’m still pissed off. Every year we do hundreds of millions of dollars of spending. We approve that in public, you know, at the Board of estimates meetings, but there is a process that the city can use to do Emergency procurements. Okay, you know, if, if, there’s if, if something happens and we have to respond quickly and address it, and we don’t have time for a six to nine month long, open, transparent, we can, we can do an emergency procurement. And the way emergency procurement works, and this is in the charter, the way emergency procurement works is an agency head writes to the director of finance and says, here’s the situation. We have this emergency. We need to do X. And the director of finance pipes broken or whatever like that, okay? And the Director of Finance says, okay, and approves it, and they can just spend what they need to spend, sign whatever contract they need to sign, and they can just do it. And the charter says you have to notify the board of estimates promptly. So you have to come back and tell the public that you did that promptly. We, we’ve, we’ve. Started to notice about two and a half, three years ago that we were hearing about work being done, but nothing had ever come to the board of estimates about that work,

Nestor Aparicio  20:12

and we’re getting the bill, but not getting the estimate. We

Bill Henry  20:17

and we found out. That’s how we found out that the emergency procurement process was being used a lot for things, and they were waiting months and sometimes years, to do the formal notification of it. So we had a big public fight about it, and they agreed that going forward, they would at least notify the council president and the comptroller. What is prompt? What is That’s it? Yeah, that’s it. Like, what is prompt? They said, we’ll notify you when we do it, and we’ll send something within 30 days. And after literally years of asking, we just got a list of all the Emergency procurements that they have done over the last five years, hundreds, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Emergency procurements, and we’re still working with them to get and the buyer would

Nestor Aparicio  21:20

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know about this? Oh no. Well now the individually, I’m talking about one by one, this is going on, theoretically filling a hole in the bottom of

Bill Henry  21:28

the boat. But you got to remember that both the agency head, who’s asking, and the director of finance, they both work for the mayor, the same mayor, right? So did the mayor know? Who knows? You know? I would like to think the city administrator would know, you know, but you get the bill. The controller gets. We all get the bill, because this is all being done with our our money, our money, right? So,

Nestor Aparicio  21:58

what can be done? That’s your complaint.

Bill Henry  22:01

Where’s your solution? Well, there’s a councilman, there’s, there’s a couple solutions. You always counsel. Want your counsel right? There’s, there’s a couple solutions. One is that we could have them actually follow the rules, and that’s 30 days and and get everything to us within 38 that would be a that’s that would be a good start. Money would already be spent, though, but if you really want to fix the problem, if you really want to fix the problem, you have to go back to how things used to work, and you have to move finance under the Comptroller, so it’s not one elected official making this decision on our money, on our money in isolation, because, because, at the end of the day right now, the director of finance is the one who determines whether it’s really an emergency. But since define emerge, Right exactly. But since the tough time today, but since the director of finance works for the same person that the agency head works for, it’s very plausible that the mayor is in a position to say, well, this needs to happen, so I need you to say it’s an emergency, but if the director of finance worked for a different elected official, then that means the mayor would have to tell someone else and convince another citywide elected official that this is a legitimate thing that needs to be done as an emergency procurement All right, yeah, that’s caught. That’s what we that’s what we in political science call a check and balance on power. We

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Nestor Aparicio  23:56

don’t need those in America. Bill Emory is here. He is the controller of the city of Baltimore. So saw you down to Mako two weeks ago. I’ve had people explain what Mako is in various forms. I think you’ve even been a guest of mine there over the years. Everybody gets together, gets down there. You’ve now been elected a long time in different roles. And going down there, I’ve gotten the vibe of it out, but I get hope when I’m there in regard to black and white and right and left and Baltimore, Washington and Eastern Shore and western shore, and Republican and Democrat. I mean, just we are a divided society in so many ways. And having gotten to know so many of the people in city government, I feel like maybe you could. I don’t want you to indict Sheila or Kathy or any of the rest of the people who are already indicted at various points, but we have a better city government than we’ve had in a long time, and maybe that’s chipping the cap to you a little bit, but I’ve gotten this meet and get to know the current council people. There’s a serious people involved in this. You know what I mean? You would, you would. Dorsey year, I didn’t know if you liked each other agent. I mean, it’s warm, it’s fuzzy. It’s this side of town and that side of town and getting along. And I’m sure he said some things you think are wacky, and you sense a thing like whatever. But there is a point of when I am at Mako or when I’m amongst city officials. I don’t know about the county right now. I’ve been with a bunch of the county guys. I think the county’s a little bit more weird right now, because they’re all running for I’m gonna pat young on a couple weeks. I’ve had three of the other candidates on elections make strange bedfellows. I mean, at one point, you know, Brandon was a city council president, look with you, and now he’s here and you’re here and there the Father Son and Holy Ghost. How all this stuff works with people. But it really does come down to people respecting each other. And really, you keep saying we and our and our money, it’s not Brandon city. It’s, it’s everybody’s city, right?

Bill Henry  25:49

That’s why I’m going to take the executive branch out of the equation for a minute and just talk about the city council with, you know, with Z Cohen as the president, all 14 members. I’ve, I’ve I’ve said this publicly. I will continue to say it. I have been someone who has paid attention to the city council for a long time. I was staffed to the city council back in the 90s, working for Mary Pat and Lawrence bell when they were council president, and then in the 2000s and the 20 teams I was on the council, and now I work with them in the controller.

Nestor Aparicio  26:26

Around this with Freddie Gray, you’re around this with Sheila, all the bad things,

Bill Henry  26:29

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I will say. The current city council that we have is the most independent city council I have ever worked with. And what I mean by that was, you know, if you go back a generation or more, it would especially go back to the era of when there were six districts and three members from each mayor, Schaefer to era, okay, yeah. Well, that, I mean, that went O’Malley. Yeah, that came up through O’Malley. Sure when you when you had those multi member districts, it was very common to have at least one, sometimes as many as two, council people in a district who their real purpose for being there was they just wanted to help their constituents, and they like they focused on constituent work, constituent service, not a bigger picture. Not they weren’t. They weren’t there to try to deal with much larger issues. They weren’t. They certainly weren’t there to expand the idea of what we should be worrying about

Nestor Aparicio  27:39

as a city to connectivity, transportation, housing, crime, they

Bill Henry  27:44

were there to take care of the people of their district. And the most effective way to take care of the people of your district was to be a reliable vote for the mayor. And if you were a reliable mayor’s vote, it was easier for you to get the mayor’s agencies to do the things that you needed them to do, pick up trash, plow streets in the in the winter, repair repair streets in the in the rest of the year. And so there was usually a fairly good factionalization of people on the council. Of these people over here, they weren’t worrying about the big issues. They just wanted to take care of their districts, and they were going to do whatever the mayor wanted them to vote for so that they could take

Nestor Aparicio  28:41

the mayor is worried about the city. I’m worried about my district. Exactly got it?

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Bill Henry  28:46

What I’ve watched over the last 30 years has been an increase in the number of council people who are really concerned about the larger issues. It doesn’t mean they stop being concerned about their district, but it does mean that they have to work harder to balance the two, and that got even harder when we moved to single member districts, because like Martin O’Malley, back when he was one of three council people in The third in this district, here in the third district, like Martin, knew that he could focus on issues. He could focus on public safety. He could go to war with Kurt Schmoke on the issue of were the police, you know, being as effective as they could be. He could do that knowing that other council people from the third district could still be taking care of, making sure, making sure the potholes were filled, making sure that rec centers were, you know, taken care of and upgraded. Now. No, I mean, and I you said you had Mark Conway like now with single member districts, a council person has to make a choice. They can stand up to the mayor on issues, but that means there’s nobody else who’s going to be in a position to help their constituents, and that’s really, to me, the most dangerous thing about the single member districts is it puts a very different kind of pressure on the council people. You can stand up for an issue, but if you do so, you run the risk of marginalizing yourself to the mayor, and that will have negative effects on now your 14th of the city Bill

Nestor Aparicio  30:56

Henry, is here. He knows a lot about city politics, city government. He is the controller of the city of Baltimore. What is that? What do you

Bill Henry  31:02

do? I run department of audits, the Department of accounts payable, which makes sure that people get their checks, not payroll. That’s a whole different problem. Real Estate. We act as the real estate agents for city agencies that are trying to buy, sell or lease property, and also the municipal postal operations. We do the mail for the city. And department of telecommunications. We handle the phones.

Nestor Aparicio  31:28

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What? What has made the crime think better in your mind? I mean, you ran a district for a period of time and trying to get policing and murders in your district. We had, you know, it’s it’s been that kind of city for a long time. These numbers that are out, and we all, all the politicians, want to crow and say it’s good. I think citizens want to feel good about it. Feel good about what I have felt good about lately, which is just it’s getting cleaner, it feels safer, it feels brighter, it feels like I’m not going to get carjacked. It doesn’t feel like I’m in a bad neighborhood. It feels like I’m in a neighborhood that’s getting better. And I go neighborhood to neighborhood, and I know how bad some of the neighborhoods were, and certainly during covid and all that I go through, and I’m like, I consider living here, you know what I mean, or whatever that would be, whatever I

Bill Henry  32:11

got two words for you for for crime going down and violence being dealt with in Baltimore City, two words, Joe Biden, and the connection is Joe Biden got us ARPA and the ARPA money. Arpa. What is arpa? ARPA money, the American Recovery and Protection Act. Yeah, it was $600 million of stimulus money that came to Baltimore City early in the pandemic, and that it edited. I’m not going to say it didn’t have any strings attached, but it was fairly flexible if you were using it for the right things. And what that

Nestor Aparicio  32:53

I was on the air at that time, and molar was amazing. Hey, you’re getting all this money. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste it. Don’t, yeah, don’t. Don’t piss it away on something that’s a one time expense, right? Like

Bill Henry  33:03

literally, and that’s a whole separate concern that we we did. We did not use very much of it for long term capital improvements in the scheme of things. But one of the things that ARPA let the mayor do is it let the mayor invest money into violence interruption without having to take that money away from the police department or something else,

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Nestor Aparicio  33:32

schools or wherever, right? And so. So it was bonus money that was put toward crime

Bill Henry  33:37

for years. For years, people had been saying we can have a better like a more effective impact on the crime rate and on violent crime by doing this kind of work. But no mayor ever was willing to take money away from something else to experiment well.

Nestor Aparicio  33:59

And again, I’m at this sense, before the plague, back when you were running for controller, we didn’t have any money in the city, right? Probably, probably still don’t talk to the guy who handles the money, but the notion that tough on crime to fight crime, we needed more police. We needed more cops. We needed more cars, we needed more badges. We needed more guns. We needed more like all of that you urinated upon that idea Brandon did, and a lot of you got together with me, and electeds got together, and even some clinical people got together. And even Sarah Heminger thread and different people doing things on the street. I never made it to the Safe Streets fellow before he was tragically died. Dante, correct, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, but the idea, when I talked to Brandon Scott, young, black city council guy running for mayor, no money, no pedigree, to do this, said we need to talk to our young people. We need. We and I’m and to some people in the suburbs are like the people who call the people, you know, uneducated animals headed for prison, life of crime, all of that, you can’t fix them. They’re incorrigible. Whatever. We’re gonna sit and talk to them. We’re gonna we’re gonna talk to them. Bill, like, I don’t know, didn’t play. It made some sense to me to say at some point you need to philosophically change their countenance. But between gangs, drug violence, jobs, education, access to guns, last time I had marijuana, we were talking about these guns that you were ordering on the internet, right? I mean, like phantom guns and all these things that were happening, the notion that sitting and talking and offering a pathway that’s a better pathway, that it’s working, and that a lot of people, I had a guy out of Boston that wrote books on this former cop, that had written books on this years and years ago, and was to try and explain it to me long form on the radio, as I was figuring out what Baltimore positive was going to positive was going to be. It was a it was a crime reduction strategy. Was a violence reduction strategy that began with and correct me, if I’m wrong, you’re hard and criminal. You’re in a gang. You’re 15. You know you’re going to get put away. You’re going to be dead. Here’s what we can do for you, monitor you, get you into school, make sure that you got a job, make sure that you’re checking in, and you can avoid jail that way. And somehow it’s catching on, right? Am I? Am I wrong in that? Or

Bill Henry  36:32

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you sum it up, you know, you’ve, you’ve actually summed it up. I will say, you know, the mayor and I don’t agree on everything. We have our disagreements on a variety of policy things. There are things that I wish the city was doing that it’s not. There are things I I wish the city wasn’t doing that we are but I will give props where they’re due. And we are both on the same page with the idea that this kind of violence interruption strategy, where you treat the individual, people involved in violence instead of incarcerating. Well, not just incarcerating, but a lot of, a lot of the money that we spent, like we Baltimore City. Baltimore City does not spend a lot of money incarcerating people. Baltimore city spends a lot of money trying to show the flag of the police department in enough places that the people of Baltimore city feel comfortable that there are police around, believing that the police will keep the crime from happening in the first place. And that is not a good public policy approach if you want to deal with and one of the things we used to talk about is, if you want to prevent crime, you got to think about it the same way that you think about solving a crime. You know, we all watch procedurals. What are the three elements of crime? Means motive and opportunity. Baltimore City can’t address means we’re not in a like we at the city level cannot make a substantive impact on how available guns are or aren’t. That is a problem for our country and at some level for the state. A lot of guns that kill people come from other places, but most of they all, they, they all come from somewhere other than Baltimore City, like we’re not sitting here making guns, right, right? So we can’t deal with the means. Opportunity is what we is what the police department focuses on. The point like that is the point of the police I put stuff in the trunk and don’t leave in the backseat. Yeah. And as individuals, we can do our best not to make ourselves easier victims by not leaving a tablet on the seat of your car. But the real way that Baltimore City has the opportunity to affect and reduce crime is motive. We’re in a position give them a better life, give people lives where they don’t need to or feel the desire to commit the crime in the first place. That’s what we could be doing. That’s why I have had every police commissioner since I’ve been elected agree with me, privately that youth development is more bang for the buck than the police department is when it comes to improving

Nestor Aparicio  39:41

public safety. Take a kid from 12 to 17, change their life and then never want to, but they’ll want an opportunity,

Bill Henry  39:48

but none of them are going to, none of them are going to voluntarily give up money that we appropriate them to use it to give kids something to do that is. And putting them in a bad space.

Nestor Aparicio  40:03

So what are we doing? Right? I mean, you said you agree with the mayor on certain things. Give me a couple things you agree, and then we’ll talk about things you disagree,

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Bill Henry  40:10

things you think you could be better. Well, we, we, for example, this is one of the things that the mayor has done that I applaud. He has put more money into recreation. Baltimore City in the last four years has built new rec centers and fixed up the rec

Nestor Aparicio  40:26

centers. People have something to do other than idle time. One of the

Bill Henry  40:30

things we disagree with, not every kid plays in rec centers. That’s why I’m really glad to see that we’re building a new library in Park Heights. Because, I mean, I enjoyed playing in the Dewey rec center when I was a kid, but I lived in the govans library.

Nestor Aparicio  40:48

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Well, the stem part of what you’re trying to do. And, you know, I have the teacher from mervo of Adam on and young people that have a college trajectory not being a victim to a kid that’s on the wrong side of the path, right like finding safe split places and no idle time, and I guess more than that, a focus on something other than gangs, crime, street all of that. We got it. We have to focus good parents and good schools and all of that.

Bill Henry  41:19

One of the things that I was frustrated about. And I don’t know if, if Mark Conway talked about this in his time, I know he made a issue about it during the budget season. Is the the Children and Youth Fund paid for most of the cost of Youth Works. This summer, they paid $7 million out of the money that goes to them to support community based children and youth efforts throughout the city, they turned around and gave 7 million back to the city to pay for Youth Works this summer. I think that that was a mistake that it was not, it not, it wasn’t a mistake to pay for Youth Works. I think Youth Works is a great program, and frankly, I want to see it expanded so that year round, there are after school jobs available for kids who need them. What is Youth Works? Youth Oh, I’m sorry, squeegee boys, no, no, no. Youth Works. Youth Works is the program we run for summer employment every every year we have like 8000

Nestor Aparicio  42:33

kids. If you live in the city, you can work in the city, we’ll get you a job. If

Bill Henry  42:37

you’re a kid, you come to the city, you apply to youth works. If you’re

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Nestor Aparicio  42:40

committed, instead of going to school, you go to a job in a summer, right? Make a few bucks.

Bill Henry  42:44

You make a few bucks. The one of the, at least one of the programs. I don’t know if this is system wide, but my daughter used to do this when she was in high school. She worked with an organization called art, art with a heart arbor. And they did pumpkins group. They did they did a mural, community mural. And so part of the work that they did was going out and talking to community members and gathering information to figure out what the mural was going to actually be like. Then they worked with the artist to actually physically paint the mural, but in and around the work, part of what they did, there was a component each week for financial literacy, where somebody came in making money. Now, what do you do? And taught the kids, okay, how to better manage it like this is, this is a great program. 100% behind. This wasn’t happening before. Oh, this has been going on for years. Okay, we’ve been doing but here’s, here’s what I have always been frustrated with, which is for for the first span of time when I was on the city council and was being briefed on this. We knew that we had several, like 10 to 12,000 kids applying for this each year, but we were only budgeting for seven or 8000

Nestor Aparicio  44:19

so there’s 4000 more. You just said the job for you, right? Yeah,

Bill Henry  44:23

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right, right, exactly. Or, or worse, we would budget a certain amount of money, but then we would try to shame the business community and the philanthropic community stepping up into stepping up and doing it. And whenever I would hear those kinds of efforts, I would be reminded, remember those bumper stickers that used to say, you know, wouldn’t it be great if schools and libraries and rec centers had all the money that they needed and the Air Force had to throw a bake sale to buy a bomber? Summer, right? Like that was the same kind of concept is, what’s your priority here, if you’re relying on the kindness of strangers to make sure your kids are being taken care of and treated well in the summer, but you’re going to pay for whatever else, right? So, my thing was, we should always be budgeting to provide youth works on demand. If we know that there’s going to be 10,000 kids applying, we should budget. We should be prepared to pay out of general funds for 10,000 youth work slots. But

Nestor Aparicio  45:46

this year, how much can a kid make in summer like that? What are you budgeting? I’m trying

Bill Henry  45:50

to remember, I think it’s 1500 bucks. I think the kids get a stipend of about $1,500 for the total length of the program, 200

Nestor Aparicio  46:00

bucks a week, seven weeks, something like that, something like that. Okay, yeah, well, I mean, I had a paper route, right? You know what? I mean, like, we all

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Bill Henry  46:08

hard, hard to get those now, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  46:10

they don’t have those now, well, that’s when screeching boys come in. People say, Where’s the economic opportunity? You know, anywhere I can make it, if I’m a kid from the streets in city, right? Bill Emory’s here. Our time is short. Um, any, anything else you want to see fixed or brag about, or

Bill Henry  46:23

lots of re elected whatever. You gonna do lots of things, but I’m gonna just hold on to them and wait to get invited back, because, you know, I love coming out and doing the show. All right.

Nestor Aparicio  46:32

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Well, we’re Cocos. It’s all brought to you by the mayor of the lottery. I do have some pressure locks. Have a handful of Lucky sevens left as well. Raven scratch offs come next week. This is our final crab cake tour stop until September. The bills game is happening. Luke is doing all things football as well as baseball. We had Kyle Bradish back out on the hill. Rasig is going to be here to talk about the bills, about Africa. It is Coco’s 40th anniversary. We celebrated on Sunday. So I’m going to have the delicious coconut shrimp, which is number five on my 27 tastiness countdown. Today’s day five in the Catholic

Bill Henry  47:07

where does the parrot head? Chicken ring? For that? It’s not in. No, you don’t. You

Nestor Aparicio  47:11

don’t. You know. I know. You know. I think you like to eat. So let me tell you how this whole thing happened. I did 25 crab cakes in 25 days two years ago. You participate? I remember that. And then I did 26 and I did oysters last year. This year, I was gonna do cream of crab and Maryland crab, and they have phenomenal cream of crab soup here. Like, if I was gonna pick anything, everybody knows about the crab cakes, and I tell Mars, I’m making it. It’s a crab cake Emporium. People buy them, ship them. They’re delicious. They’re unbelievable. Are they the best in the world? I don’t know. Come and find out for yourself. I was at Faith these last week. I was a cop. I go to all of them, and they’re all different, and they’re all lovely. What I’m trying to do with my clients and friends and family members here is feature something else they do besides crab cakes. They don’t need the help. Promote the crab cakes, right? Everybody knows how good they are, and if you don’t come get one, you’ll find out. But when I go to these special places, cost, this is an example, they have the best cream of spinach. There is spinach dip that they do. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is cream spinach. It’s phenomenal. Okay? And you could get it that way. You get it on the oyster Rockefeller with the cheese, which I love and and they also do unbelievable. They do great fried shrimp there, but they have great Maryland crab soup. But I wanted to feature one thing, like fades. I featured fried oysters. Never had the shrimp salad at families. I’ve had the shrimp salad. Phenomenal, wonderful. They do a thing here, she hand bred Z shrimp. Here, coconut shrimp. Oh, you

Bill Henry  48:45

don’t have to sell me on the coconut shrimp I have. That was the last thing I had.

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Nestor Aparicio  48:50

Well, there’s a reason this is number five on the list, right. And I saved this one, and I knew she had her anniversary going on this week, but this is how highly I think of the coconut shrimp. Here is that it’s number five on the list. So I’m featuring that today here at Coco’s. But what I want to say to you, because this isn’t going to run for a couple weeks, in regard to what is number 432, and one, my top four are not sponsors. One, I am very I’m not going to tell you what they are. Is my, this is my who shot Jr moment. Frees my cliffhanger. So number 432, and one are not sponsors, so they’re not Cocos, faithless, Costas, pizza, John’s, any of the places that I you hear ads for

Bill Henry  49:31

places in the city, and I’m only asking. I’m only asking that because it increases the likelihood that I know

Nestor Aparicio  49:38

them. How about this? Number four is in Highland town, okay. Number three, if I tell you there it is, you didn’t know what it is, okay. So Little Italy, okay. So number three, number two has several locations. All three are in the city. Number one. It. I don’t know if it’s an academy. It’s right on the line, okay, literally right on the line, okay.

Bill Henry  50:05

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You don’t have to say literally. You don’t just say anything. Your expression will be sufficient. Is one of them deepest qualities?

Nestor Aparicio  50:11

No,

50:12

oh, okay,

Nestor Aparicio  50:15

all right. Did my show deepest qualities eight weeks ago? Truth About deepest qualities is I haven’t eaten enough there. And I admitted that when I was with Joe and dominico, I haven’t eaten enough. I’ve taken things out, sandwiches, whatever, but I don’t frequent it and have it enough to establish exactly what my favorite thing on there. You know, I found out how good the coconut shrimp here. I ate the chicken. I ate the Greeks, which is great. I had the crab soup. I had the cream of crab soup. So I try them all, and then I find like, if you don’t like spinach, you’re never gonna find the cream spinach on the Costa’s menu. If you don’t like oysters, you gotta go way down ballad at fadely to think of ordering a fried oyster, to know how freaking good

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Bill Henry  50:58

it is. I just want to ask you

Nestor Aparicio  50:59

have to go down ballot here to get the shrimp. You’re already doing the chicken. Everybody knows how good the soup is. Have you everybody cook? Everybody here has a crab cake. Everybody orders the crab cake.

Bill Henry  51:08

Have you ever had the butcher’s Hill cheesesteak from deepest waters? No, but I’m about to your life isn’t complete yet. Cheesesteak, butcher’s Hill Cheesesteak.

Nestor Aparicio  51:17

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I had the cheesesteak at Pizza John’s as part of my feature for day eight or nine, whatever last week was, I don’t know what week. I mean, yeah, if it pizza Johnson pizza, Johnson pizza is great, but their cheese steak

Bill Henry  51:32

is gone. Essex, okay, that’s not the one I’m thinking of. Okay, all right, pizza Johnson Essex, that did this show there Friday, there’s, there’s a cheesesteak out Bel Air Road, oh, that’s Frank. Frank’s, yeah, like, that’s a good, that’s

Nestor Aparicio  51:43

a good that tambourinos up in Harford County. I’ve heard good things about that too. Okay, so JB, Jennings told me about that.

Bill Henry  51:50

Part of me wants to go out to tambourinos, just because they used to own tambor in Charles village. Oh, they opened Tambor, and then a couple years after they get the car, they sold it. They sold it to the family that has it now to leave the city for food from time to time. Yeah, but it’s been funny for like, I literally they opened that while I was in college, and so I ate their joint. Yeah, that was my joint. And did you

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Nestor Aparicio  52:19

get a cheesesteak at tambor? Now, I heard the cheesesteaks good. Yeah, I would. That’s what next year’s for Nestor is 28

Bill Henry  52:26

this is, this is what I’m saying, is that that timbers, over the years, has evolved their menu, and more of it is now focused on the Indian food, and less of it is focused on the diner food. Like they, they tamper. The tambourino family opened tambor as timbers, nifty 50s dining, and you could get, like, a cream cheese and olive sandwich, which I don’t think you can get anywhere else in the state of Maryland. They make the sodas, yeah, yeah. Like it was, it was very, it was very, like, happy days, okay, almost okay. And that part has kind of eased away over the decade. And I was wondering if that their place out in Harford County was more like it used to be at tambor. Next

Nestor Aparicio  53:13

year, I’m gonna do the 28 things I didn’t eat this year. So next year I’ll do the chicken here. Okay, for you. Okay, my wife loves

Bill Henry  53:22

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that, by the way. In that case, I’ll have the coconut shrimp today. Let

Nestor Aparicio  53:27

me tell you one other thing that I get. It cooks. Ryan Dorsey got a burger. My wife will only eat burgers here in a Cooper’s at home. She won’t eat burgers anywhere else.

Bill Henry  53:37

Has she tried Clark burger?

Nestor Aparicio  53:39

We’ve had one Clark burger. Had the poutine there? I get the poutine.

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Bill Henry  53:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She didn’t, she didn’t buy into Clark burger. Look, listen, okay, all right,

Nestor Aparicio  53:49

for being skinny, I eat a lot. Bill, yeah. I mean, people wonder where it all goes. I have a lot of desserts list. I’m actually leaving here today, and I’m picking up two different items in Baltimore City for the tour. I’m today’s day five. I’m featuring number four. I’m picking up number fours. Some of my things are carry out. This isn’t a Bougie thing. This isn’t Ruth’s Chrissy or anything.

Bill Henry  54:15

So these are so these are all slightly different things. It’s not like you’re getting the coconut shrimp at 27 different

Nestor Aparicio  54:20

8

let me give you the countdown so I can get current with you. All right, because I text my wife with this yesterday. Actually took a screenshot. So, so, because she, she, my wife’s been in Florida for a couple, or, excuse me, the answer for a couple weeks, and she didn’t know what was up. This is the real list, if I, if I go to show it to you. All right, so this is what I have so far. You ready? Okay, number 27 Philly pretzel factory, Philly pretzel Harford County, North of Bel Air, just north of John Carroll.

Bill Henry  54:50

Philly, Philly pretzel, Bel Air, a pretzel with, with, with a cheese steak on top.

Nestor Aparicio  54:54

No, it’s just a pretzel, okay. Number 20. Six Towson, Maryland, jerk hot eatery, the brown stew chicken. It’s Jamaican, unbelievable. Get the rice. Get the peas, get the plantains. All right. Number 25 city for you, okay, patisa and I get the the galette there. It’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a Breton. It’s a giant cookie. It’s, it’s a giant, okay, butter cookie, it’s like pound cake, or like wedding cake, but in a cookie, oh, okay, it’s a Breton,

Bill Henry  55:36

sure. Okay, sure. Like a Madeleine, but wider,

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Nestor Aparicio  55:40

big ass cookie is where it is, yeah. All right. Number 24 Catonsville, the Beaumont, they do a fried lobster tail. That’s my bougie moment, right there, when you get the $25 lobster tail. All right, so some of these are dollar pretzels, $1 and a half. Oh, sure. Okay. Number 23 Fiesta, Mexicana fiesta. Americana is mexicana. This is in Rosedale, route seven, golden ring, tres leches. That’s not one milk, that’s not two milks, three milks. They also do a pombazo there, which is a sandwich, but I’m for the trace Lake, Chase cake, okay? Homemade number 22 Owings, Mills, clean cuisine, the award winning Aaron’s butternut squash lasagna. So they take, they take the squash, they take turkey sausage, Turkey fennel and mozzarella and sweet roasted red pepper. Okay, probably too low on my list, number 21 old salties, hoopers Island. I featured their crab cake because it’s hoopers Island and you have to drive through Blackwater refuge. It’s the loveliest drive in the state. It’s the most beautiful place in the state. Okay, go to hoopers Island. Number 21 number 20 old ugly pie in Salisbury. It’s right off of 50 next year to go to Mako. Don’t take that damn bypass road. Go right through Jake day Salisbury, right. Go right on through there. And on the right hand side of the roads, it’s from here to Harford road away from route 50. Ugly pie. The name of the restaurant, the it’s not a restaurant, it’s a bakery, okay, the ugly pie. Get the death by coconut. Death by coconut. It won’t kill you. Number 19 cockies Ville Fuji song. Now it sounds Japanese, and they do Japanese stuff, but they’re really a tie joint. Oh, you want to get the Drunken Noodles, you want to get the pad thai, okay? Fuji song. Fuji. You have to write this down. It’s all about positive, okay, just tastiness, T, A, S, T, Y, NES. That’s the hashtag. It comes right up. And that’s in Cockeysville, York and Cranbrook, right next to what used to be the I op, right next to the the Cold Stone Creamery,

Bill Henry  58:04

number 18. Nothing says Baltimore, like describing where something is by what used

Nestor Aparicio  58:11

to be there? Yeah, used to be Burke’s. Now it’s rofe. Blue Moon two is number 18. Oh, yeah, okay. What did I have there? You know what I had there? The Captain Crunch French, I know, right. I mean, come

Bill Henry  58:22

8

on. Come on. Right. Yeah, okay.

Nestor Aparicio  58:25

How am I doing so far? You make you hungry, yeah. Number 17, this. These are all county, East County. You like snowballs, egg custard. Oh, icy delight. We’re going. Icy delight. Number 16. This is where I’m going to stop, because where I am in the thing tomorrow we will be featuring a place I think you’ve been, but it wasn’t in your district, but close enough the tacos at Clavel. Oh yeah, that’s wonderful. Okay, yeah. Am I doing all right, I only gave you 10 places here. I got 15 more to go.

Bill Henry  58:58

I’m looking forward to Fujisan. So how many more

Nestor Aparicio  59:01

in the city? I am doing my Indian tonight in the city. I’m not telling you where it is, but it’s in the city. Number 12 is in the city. Number 11, it’s in the county. It’s a donut. Number 10, we’ve already done number 10, we did the fade leaves. I did the fried oysters and shrimp salad faithies. Number nine, we did the cheesesteak at Pizza John’s. Okay, don’t skip the pizza there. But when you get the pizza there, you want to get the pineapple, the ham and the pepperoni. Never go to Pizza John’s and not get the pepperoni. Okay, all right. Number eight is here in the city, and I’m going there when I leave too. Okay, it involves chocolate chip cookies. Hey, I’m on all this stuff here. Number seven was Costas. We did that the other day. We’re doing the oysters, Rockefeller, crab Imperial, little known secret don’t tell Marcella. I like crab Imperial better than I like any crab cake, and I love crab cakes, but I crack because I want to be king. You know that crab.

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Bill Henry  1:00:00

Hero’s royalty, right? I feel like I had crab Imperial once at bow Brooks, and I feel like it ruined it for no,

Nestor Aparicio  1:00:08

you’re going to cost us. You’re gonna get the crab beer next time you add to the county. Number six is in the city as well. We featured that last night. That is the delicious legend. It’s number six on my list. And we’re getting we’re getting real here the gumbo at cilantro. Oh, okay, and Cooper’s, yeah, and then we number five. I’m here. I’m at Coco’s. It’s coconut trip. I’m in the city, a lot of the city, dude, I’m just,

Bill Henry  1:00:33

it wasn’t city

Nestor Aparicio  1:00:34

8

controller. It wasn’t a

Bill Henry  1:00:35

complaint. It was I just was saying that if they’re in the city, I have a better chance of knowing them, because I’m more likely to eat in the city. All right,

Nestor Aparicio  1:00:48

you’ll find your way to chicken. Rico zamicha, alright? Bill Henry, you see, I just gave away the plot. Nestor. He is Bill Henry. We are doing the Maryland crab cake tour, presented by the Maryland lottery. We’re also doing our 27 favorite things to eat, and that’s brought to you by GBMC, as well as our friends at curio wellness for being our guest. I’ll give you a lottery ticket. I think you’re allowed to have one pressure. Lucky, lucky sevens. Thanks for keeping the money square. Thanks for always being a humble, good guest and a fun guy, and thanks for being a public servant. You’re trying to lift the city. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Looking forward to coming back. Former councilman, once councilman, always councilman. Once a mayor, always a mayor. We’ll get Brandon Scott out here at some point too, and have a crab cake at Coco’s. We’re sick is about to join us. Hey, we’re seeing if I made you wait, it’s because it’s Bill’s week. Philly on you. Philly on you’re not a real Raven fan. I’m kidding. I’m going to give you your chance to come in here and Josh Allen it all up and do all of that is perfect. We’re sick. Lives here in beautiful Laravel. He is my original Laravel guest. He is my co host with a K here at Cocos. And we’re going to talk about Africa. We’re going to talk about Buffalo, and we’re going to talk about fixing the Orioles. I’m Nestor. We’re W, N, S T, live at cocoa. Stay with us, Nestor.