From bringing your own bag to the grocery store to overcrowding in Baltimore County schools and two key seats coming for proper modern representation, Councilman Izzy Patoka tells Nestor about triumphs and challenges of his 2nd District from Reter’s Crab House & Grille in Reistestown on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour.
Councilman Izzy Patoka discussed his seven-year tenure and civic service, emphasizing his background in city planning and capital budgeting. He highlighted his legislative achievements, including the Bring Your Own Bag Act to reduce plastic pollution and the Adequate Public Facilities Act to address school overcrowding. Patoka also mentioned the addition of two council seats to better reflect Baltimore County’s demographics and the introduction of public finance to aid candidates. He stressed the importance of investing in inner beltway neighborhoods and combating federal instability post-Trump. Patoka also praised the proactive community engagement in Reisterstown.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Baltimore County, councilman Izzy Patoka, community engagement, capital budgeting, plastic bag ban, adequate public facilities, mixed-use Overlay District, inner beltway neighborhoods, county executive, public finance, community development, infrastructure, zoning, local government, community sentiment.
SPEAKERS
Izzy Patoka, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 task, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. We’re positively in Reisterstown, beautiful Reisterstown, Maryland, Baltimore County, USA. We’re at readers crab house, at the Maryland lottery scratch. Also Back to the Future. We’re giving these away here today. Hopefully get some lucky winners. We will be on the eighth at deep squales in Canton in the morning, and then on the 10th at Costas in in Timonium, not the cost is in Dundalk. And then we’re at 1623, in Eldersburg. We’re going to be all over the place before it’s all over. We had a great show last week at the Y in Randallstown. I’m trying to visit with all the councilman. I can’t get Crandall out. I mean, even though i i got the heritage fair coming to Dundalk next to Crandall, you’re ducking me, man, you’re doing good things over there. We got the heritage fair. So I’ll find him in a beer and crush garden this year. But I know most of the councilmen in the county, I’ve had David Marks on a whole bunch in the northeast side. I was out in White Marsh. He couldn’t because he’s making babies, but Izzy has been, we’ve been like, shifts in tonight. I see you at Mako. You didn’t have the opportunity to do it last year. And I’m like, I’m gonna get out in your district, gonna get out in your area, and I’m here, and we’re gonna talk about the whole county. But you come in with an expos hat, man, and I’m thinking, I love the expos. I love the concept. I like them better when they were Montreal than in Washington. But you come at it honestly, like you got like a kid in Montreal,
Izzy Patoka 01:25
right? Yes. So thankless. Thank you Lester Nestor for inviting me on. My son just graduated from Concordia University. He’s a baller up there. He played for their baseball team position. He plays second short and catcher. All right. Funny story, my son is 135 pounds. Coach says, Mr. Patoka, I can’t have my catcher be 135 pounds. It’s embarrassing. So I have to put some weight on
Nestor Aparicio 01:50
that. Bring the readers. Yeah, exactly. We’re in the right place here. All right, so second district for you, define that for the audience, and define we talked a little bit in the last segment, just about seven years and running, and you doing other, you know, a civic service. I don’t want to call, you know, the work you do, right? I mean, you’ve, you, you have been a civil servant, but also you have a vocation. It’s in planning, right?
Izzy Patoka 02:15
Sure, yes, Nestor, I’ve been doing this kind of work my whole life. In fact, when I do have two degrees in planning and both a bachelor’s and a master’s, I work for city planning, coming right out of school, worked my way up to be chief of capital budgeting
Nestor Aparicio 02:32
for the city planning. City give me the Schoolhouse Rock.
Izzy Patoka 02:36
So it’s a pretty wide field. You can specialize in certain areas, but it’s really defining what belongs where and when, and so my expertise was budgeting. So I drafted the capital budget for Baltimore City. It’s a $3 billion plus budget. What parks were getting renovated, what schools, what roads were going to be resurfaced? Would we put money in the landfill? What government buildings. So I did that for a good while, and then I got recruited to by Baltimore County to be chief of capital budgeting for the county. And similarly, as my role in my as my role in the city was, I drafted the 3.3 plus 3 billion plus capital budget for Baltimore County. Did that for about five years, and then Martin O’Malley won the mayor’s race in Baltimore City in 2001 and he called me down to join his office as the first director of the Mayor’s Office of neighborhoods. Didn’t know that would be a 14 year relationship, because I went with him into the governor’s office at a senior level. There was when the new governor came on, it was time for me to leave. Went to life bridge health as their first director of community development. So I’ve been doing this kind of work my whole life. Nestor, and I thought I can do it in a different way as an elected official. And that’s when I thought I’d run for office in 2018 won by a hefty margin of 18 points, and just trying to make sure that we can make a difference here with the quality of life in Baltimore County. I
Nestor Aparicio 04:07
don’t wanna be flippant say, why did you win? But, like, what? What’s important here? Yeah, I mean, what’s important that allows you to win?
Izzy Patoka 04:15
Well, I think what’s important is to engage the community. Because one of the things that we can do as elected officials, we can either just be here, bide our time, make a modest salary, then run for re election, or we can choose to make a difference while we’re here. And for me, I’ve gotten involved in some pretty complicated pieces of legislation because I think that we shouldn’t just be here and collect a paycheck that we should try to impact change in a positive way for Baltimore County. Baltimore County has been the same way for a long, long time. We’re very resistant to change, but we have to become a 21st Century County and not get stuck in the last century as I believe we have been. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 04:58
talked to Nick Stewart at length about. At this couple weeks ago. I talked to Julian last week, and I reached the David Marks. I’ve reached the Todd and some other people. I just, I met Kathy klossmeyer, and just the role that you all took on in regard to who the county executive would be in recent times, I don’t, I don’t have any scuttlebutt. I haven’t spoken to Don Mueller. I haven’t spoken to haven’t spoken to Johnny. Oh, I don’t know anything about the other side of that other I did speak to Julian on the air about it last week. But unique, sort of strange, as a citizen, to look at it and say what codicils in 1956 allowed a couple of people to come together and anoint someone from the outside. I had Barry Williams on the show last week as well. Didn’t really talk too much about the process or any of that, but just the process. I mean, when you got into this, were you aware that that might fall to your desk? And obviously the Kevin cabinet situation was tragic, and Don became the caddy executive for a very short period of time. But this is not normal, is it that people get together and appoint people from the outside to be the top person. That’s a strange so it is
Izzy Patoka 06:04
strange, and it happens. It rarely happens, and so each situation is a little different than a previous situation with county executive cabinets. And that was a real shocker for all of us, and for me, it was a particular shocker, because I don’t know if you know this Nestor, but Kevin and I grew up one block away from each other. We’re the same age, so we knew each other as lifers, yeah, since we were very, very young, and there was always that link with people that you know at an early age, especially as you grow older. And so it was a real shocker. And so don molar was appointed, and I thought that was a good appointment at the time. Now, Kathy Klaus Meyer has been appointed in different circumstances, but I think she’s a good appointment as well, but it is unusual and in terms of like what happened in 1956 and the growing the county council, and I think that’s what you’re alluding to in my first term, that wasn’t something that was on my radar. In my second term, I campaigned on trying to modernize the county structure, our governmental infrastructure to be more reflective of the the demographics of Baltimore County. So right now, we have seven council members, all men, six are white, and it’s not a performance evaluation on any of the council members. Everybody won their election, fair and square. But moving forward, how do we create more opportunity for women and people of color so that we can better reflect the demographics of Baltimore County. Well, we had a structure work group. They said, let’s add two seats. The voters approved that. So we’re it’s about opportunity. And so in the 2026 election, I believe there’ll be the perfect storm of opportunity for women and people of color to gain elective gain elected office in Baltimore County, because there’s two additional seats. And for the first time in Baltimore County history, public finance will be in effect, meaning that you can have assistance for every $1 you raise, you can get that multiplied by three. And so it doesn’t take an enormous amount of money to run for office. Those two things happening at the same time, that convergence, I think, creates this opportunity that never existed in Baltimore County’s history.
Nestor Aparicio 08:36
Well, I’ll tell you something If you’ve watched my documentary, The reason I’m here is I was going to run for mayor in 18 and into 20, and those two years of putting Baltimore positive together, in doing that, was wanting to make a difference and wanting to say, I don’t like my mayor’s, you know, going to jail. I don’t like my mayor’s getting indicted. I don’t like looking out my window and seeing my city on fire. I don’t like coming out to the county and hearing people poop on the city. You know what I mean, I don’t, and I didn’t like any of that. And that got me involved. It’s so funny. You said something right at the beginning. You’re like, I wanted to make a difference, so I ran. And when I got with Ted, venetula said something to me end of his life, I remember that’s another tragedy. He lived next door. Who’s my neighbor downtown. We had done the show out where you live, yeah, I lived in harbor court, yes. And he was at 414, and we were over at State Fair doing the show. I think Mueller was with us, and, you know, yeah, I was talking to him just about like, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. And he said to me, he said, you’ll make more of a difference with your radio and your personality than you would if you got elected. He told me, you’ll get more done not being elected. I mean, literally anyone saying that to me to discourage me from running. Not a guy that was a Baltimore County Executive tried to run for governor, made political mistakes that he talked about, but the notion that. It hope is you’re owning a business, doing her part, employing young people, serving the community, feeding them tax base, all that. I mean, we’re all contributing in some way, right? But the notion that you can get more dumb when you’re in that seat you subscribe to. That’s why you’re in the seat I do so getting things done is, you know, you see it as a you gotta be sitting in the seat in order to enact change to some degree, right? It’s helpful.
Izzy Patoka 10:25
Well, what I find to be rewarding is that I get to work with people who believe in their community, and they believe in their community so much so that they’re willing to donate their time to act on that belief to make their community stronger. And in my district, and the Liberty Road corridor, Reisterstown Road corridor, here in Reisterstown, you see that all the time, people that are willing to act on the belief that they can improve their community. And to me, when I see that, it makes me work harder. It’s inspiring to my team. And I think when Don was talking about that, you’re making a difference because you’re good at what you do. If you’re good at what you do and you have a passion for it, you will make a difference. I think we saw that. We see that in hope, in her discussion, where this restaurant is hopping, and it smells great in here, and the food is great.
Nestor Aparicio 11:13
We got crab cakes coming. Yes, it is the barely crab
Izzy Patoka 11:16
cake. And she, she’s she’s good at what she does, and she believes in it. And so I think in any profession, whether it’s in front of a microphone, whether it’s at a community meeting, or whether it’s at a restaurant, if you believe in this, and you’re going to work, you’re going to put all you have into it, you will make a
Nestor Aparicio 11:32
difference. Well, where’s the difference for you? Seven years? Give me a top five of things. When you go home and the people you love, you say to them, this is what I’m the proudest of. I die tomorrow. Talk about these things. I’ve got a bunch of things I’m sure you do, but I mean, you’re still actively running. We got a Baltimore County situation where there’s going to be an election, and lots of people are sort of circling to say, Hey, I you know, I’d like to wear that hat. Johnny O’s not coming back. He’s the congressman.
Izzy Patoka 11:59
Well, let me go down the list, Nestor So number one, I would say, in January of 2023, I sponsored a bill that passed. It was a dog fight, but it did pass. It was to rid the county of plastic bag pollution. And so it was the bring your own bag act. When I go to the grocery store now I go to the market, I see people bringing their own bag. My wife changed behavior.
Nestor Aparicio 12:22
My car is right there. It’s a white one right there. I have a dozen of those bags in the trunk. And you know, every time I go in the store, I forget to take it in. Every time I forget to take you go back and get them. No, I carry the damn ice cream out my arms. I don’t buy the bag,
Izzy Patoka 12:37
though, because that’s a win in itself. I don’t buy that all the time where people are carrying stuff out.
Nestor Aparicio 12:42
Can I tell you? I will tell you tragedy. And I’ve told this story maybe a handful of times on the air, 2019 before the plague, my wife and I finally made it to Hawaii. Now, I’ve been around the world. I mean, I’ve been to Tahiti, I’ve been, you know, South Pacific, all that. But I was in Hawaii, and I landed in Maui, and it was sort of not a bucket list thing, because I’d have been there a long time before. Long time before, when I was 50, if it had been a bucket list. But it was expensive to fly. There was a long flight. Gonna go that far. I’ll go to Australia or Japan, you know, but went to Hawaii, and my wife and I went out onto the very first beach we landed in Maui, and we had been in Honolulu a couple days when we landed in Maui, went right to the beach, and we got out on this beach was the most and there’s nobody in Maui. Maui’s like paradise. You know, the beach is a mile and a half long. I see one guy taking a nap, one other person over here out on the beach. Nobody on the beach. Just just us, 82 degrees and sunny, and we turn the corner, look down. There’s a giant turtle. John, turtles, big as you and me, giant, giant turtle, go down the beach. And turtles kind of napping. We thought it was dead. We don’t you know, he’s just napping, just chilling out, just chilling out, taking a nap. I went down onto the beach, and as I got down there, I saw stuff glistening, glistening on the beach, colors. And I went down, and I picked up the sand, and I looked in the sand, in the sand. You can see the plastic. You can see it looks like the top little tubies on the top of the bread, the little plastic things that would get the top of the bread broken into the smallest little green, orange, blue, pink. And it was that day that I’m standing out in the middle of the Pacific in Maui, and I see this turtle and this beach and Maui, and I look down and the water is the sand is polluted beyond anything you could comprehend. Ocean City doesn’t look that way. I had never been anywhere in my life where I could pick up the sand and see plastic in it was bizarre.
Izzy Patoka 14:44
It’s a real problem. We do lots and lots of stream cleanups, and we used to pick up an enormous amount of plastic bags out of the stream. Now, when we do stream cleanups, very few plastic bags. Our winter tree canopy used to be plastic bags. It. Longer is plastic bags. So I feel like you asked me, What is, what are some of the things where we’ve made a real difference? Well, you’re proud of that? Yeah, that’s one of them. Another, well,
Nestor Aparicio 15:09
when I asked O’Malley what he was proud of, he said, cleaning up the bay. Yeah, you that? That’s, that was his number one thing four or five years after he was out of office. So, you know, that’s, that is important,
Izzy Patoka 15:19
yeah, absolutely, another thing that I’m particularly proud of is the adequate public facilities act. Do you know, in in Baltimore County, and we’re a first world nation, right? We’re we can shove 115 students into 100 seats in a school, first world country. We’re trying to provide quality education. But in Baltimore County, before my legislation, you could put 115 students in 100 seats in the area where you grew up. In Dundalk, we have some of the high schools over there are at 150% capacity. So through my adequate public facilities ordinance, legislation, you can now, you can only go up to, I wanted to get down to 100 but through compromise, it’s 105 which is still not right, but we’re moving the needle in the right direction. Now, in this day and age, compromise seems to be a four letter word. However, I think compromise does move the needle in the right direction. So really proud of that one. I’m proud that we’re going to grow the that we’re going to change the charter to to have nine council members rather than seven so that we can move out of being parked in front of 1956 for 70 years. It’s a heavy lift.
Nestor Aparicio 16:47
What’s this gonna what? How’s that gonna work? Explain that to people that are not familiar with that. So
Izzy Patoka 16:53
I’m gonna start at the very beginning. Sure. In 1956 Baltimore County became a charter County, meaning we have a county executive, and we have a legislative branch, seven council members. Our population was 250,000 at that time. Fast forward almost 70 years to current times. We have seven council members, but we now have 850,000 people. So I
Nestor Aparicio 17:18
saw stat that we were one of the 100 most populated counties in the country. I saw a stat group that we’re bigger than a lot, a lot, a lot of cities we’re bigger than Wyoming, well, states too. Yes, Mueller would always give me those kind of weird stats. But I saw something the other day that was more along the lines of like me thinking about if there were 100 cities in the country, not just Baltimore. Baltimore County is twice the size of Baltimore City. Now for population
Izzy Patoka 17:51
almost I think the city is around over half a million. We’re at 850,000
Nestor Aparicio 17:55
All right. Well, we’re there, yeah, almost twice, yeah.
Izzy Patoka 17:58
And so you know, by adding these two council members, it’s not the perfect solution, nor is there a perfect map, but we’re moving the needle in the right direction, and so
Nestor Aparicio 18:08
that map changes out here dramatically. Right?
Izzy Patoka 18:10
Don’t know yet. The process is still ongoing. The redistricting commission sent a recommendation to the council, and we’re going to be deliberating on that very
Nestor Aparicio 18:19
where is the population grown the most in that period of time where there would be a density of popular I mean, dundalks probably lost some population, maybe because of the point and the jobs and whatnot. I think there’s been a lot of houses
Izzy Patoka 18:33
down. A lot of growth in the on the east side, in White Marsh, Perry Hall, sure. Middle River,
Nestor Aparicio 18:39
any place they built malls, Owings Mills. Yeah, they built a light rail out I mean, you know, they built the subway out here. Yeah. And
Izzy Patoka 18:46
while we’re on the topic of malls, one of another piece of legislation that I’m particularly proud of is I created this mixed use Overlay District, which allows for vertical growth and vertical zoning, meaning if you have a shopping center that did well in, let’s say, the 80s and 90s, and with people that shop online now, like Amazon and other outlets, those shopping centers are not as viable as they once were, and so through my mixed use Overlay, you can mix in the same space retail, office, residential, and you the parking requirements would be less would be less restrictive, because parking demand is at different times for office, for residential, sure retail. So it creates an opportunity for development to occur at a shopping center that might have a big vacant grocery store or some other vacancies.
Nestor Aparicio 19:45
I had Mark renbaum on for an hour talking about the Lutherville Station
Izzy Patoka 19:49
project there. That’s a good project. We just need to figure out how to thread the needle of getting mark where he wants to be, the communities where where they want to be. And I think that there is that opportunity. We just need to kind of have more focus on that. Well, when
Nestor Aparicio 20:07
I had Nick Stewart on, we were over at red brick station. That’s me. I had Nick over at red brick station, you’re over there, and we were looking at at the mall just like we’re looking at it Reisterstown Road right now. And I looked over and saw Sears and the mall, and saw the big mall, and, you know, to a man, he Bill blocker, who owns red brick like, that’s gotta be residential, that mall has to turn into where people live, in order for the avenue to thrive, in order for other things to thrive. So I grew up as a mall right at East Point mall, right and there’s been rumors for 20, for all this century, that the hospital Hopkins is going to, you know, be, it’s Baltimore County as well, and saying, Well, what? What’s the next thing? It’s going to be, even though I think of it as penguins in the shopping center in the mall and and the poop plant and all the stuff. But that’s my side of town. We just mentioned four or five, we didn’t mention security, right? These incredible human projects that happened in the 70s and the 80s, that dominated our lives in the 80s, 90s and aughts, right? That now are these giant spaces, much like an old stadium, that Memorial Stadium. It’s a why now, right? So thinking about things differently, we’re at that point with these big open spaces. Are we not?
Izzy Patoka 21:21
Yes, absolutely. And just bother. By the way, my wife was the project architect back at Stadium place. Okay, yeah, so just plug in for Denise. She’s,
Nestor Aparicio 21:30
well, you’re proud of all that in the city too. So yeah, you got city
Izzy Patoka 21:34
roots, but some of the other council members used the mixed use Overlay district during the last zoning cycle to create those opportunities that we’re talking about, where we can mix the zoning in that same space. And like I said earlier, and like you said, And like Mark rembaum has been speaking about with Lutherville station, having that mixed use creates a lot of opportunity.
Nestor Aparicio 21:57
Well, it also gets residents in, right? That’s really that creates community where people come together, absolutely, absolutely. So you get a Reyes town fair here every Friday night, right? It’s a party. Oh,
Izzy Patoka 22:07
yeah, when people and it doesn’t happen, magically, there are people. And again, I’m going to go back to this thing. I keep saying there are people that believe in their community and willing to act on that
Nestor Aparicio 22:17
belief. Let’s stop at the county for a couple minutes here. And the election coming up, and what Kathy’s job is right now, and you all appointed her to do, and you said you were happy with that process. As a citizen, I can’t say I’m pleased with it. It’s what the rules were, and whatever I think it’s, it’s definitely a little bizarre, that’s all. And I saw Kathy last week, and you were a part of all of that, that job and this county and the growth. What are the important things that every citizen should be concerned about for the
Izzy Patoka 22:48
future? Well, one of the things that’s really important to me is doubling down on our investment, on our inner beltway neighborhoods. We’ve for decades allowed our inner beltway communities to now
Nestor Aparicio 23:00
that means inside the beltway, inside the beltway, but in the county, in the county, in the county inside the
Izzy Patoka 23:06
belt now, I’m biased, because my district runs from Charles Street to Windsor Mill Road, and I have everything inside the beltway in those neighborhoods, Robinson lanes in your district, yeah, we’ve got to get the trucks to stop parking on that, but when
Nestor Aparicio 23:22
I saw you doing that, but that is East Towson. That’s where I grew up, in Colgate, East Point East points inside the beltway, right? So I don’t this is the first time I’ve ever heard out loud when I think about the value of housing inside the beltway, but in the county versus outside the beltway. In the county, right? Or think about growth or schools or economics or median income, any of that, I guess it is different, right? Inside the beltway is different,
Izzy Patoka 23:55
yeah, and we don’t have enough rec centers inside the beltway. Our streets are crumbling inside the beltway. Or I pipes. So one of the improvements I had in my locker community, which is inside the beltway, was to have an additional sewer line to handle capacity north for areas north of locker. And so it’s just not fair that the only amenity that communities inside the beltway get our sewer lines to serve the sewage load for communities that are Brandon’s
Nestor Aparicio 24:26
bringing us crab cakes. Look at this crab cake. Brandon, you are the legit thing going on here. All right, so I’m gonna hold you two more minutes and we’re gonna eat this stuff. But this is I would break right now and just eat it. But we were in the middle of what we were discussing. We’re discussing inner beltway neighborhoods. I got to go back to inner beltway neighborhoods. I’m sorry. We’ll get to crab cakes in a minute. It’d be an outer beltway crab cake is what we’ll have. Appreciate you, brother.
Izzy Patoka 24:53
The other thing I think is important, just in terms of government overall, is you hear people talk about data driven. Of an information and what brought, what made me think about it is the county has automated its process for evaluating streets whether they need resurfacing or not. So Parkway, well, so there’s this data driven, there’s this machine. Perry Parkway, well, you’re exactly right, because you need to weave community sentiment into that data. And so when you say pairing Parkway, that’s community sentiment to me, because you’re driving
Nestor Aparicio 25:30
families can live in down there. Man, we gotta, we gotta work on that. Man, well, so, so for Baltimore County, for the executive job, what is that job, as you see it? And you know, I’ve asked Mueller about that. I’ve asked I haven’t had Kathy on Johnny Oh, and obviously Jim Smith and everybody before that, Kevin, before we lost him that job, and the significance of that job, and what you all charge Kathy with doing, well,
Izzy Patoka 25:53
I think today, post election of Donald Trump, is into the White House. That job is really significant in terms of adding a level of stability at the local level. We have to be as strong as we possibly can, because we wake up each morning to a new, unfair, unknown variable that’s occurring at the federal level. You know, Trump wakes up and has this new idea to promote himself. And sometimes that cause causes a lot of usually it’s unconstitutional, yeah, and it can be unconstitutional, but it really
Nestor Aparicio 26:23
impacts not just to mention lawless and insane, and yes, all the above. So we need
Izzy Patoka 26:28
to be strong at the local level, as strong as we possibly can. And so how do we get to the point
Nestor Aparicio 26:33
where this guy could get elected? It’s, it’s like, Damn this thing I’ve ever seen in my life, just on qualifications alone, just on, just all of our character, just honor, dignity, bone spurs I get down the list of all of it, but to see it in action for a second time, it was horrific the first time this time around being, you know, I never really thought of myself of color, But I’m the color of the people that they’re putting in. You know, guys are coming out of the street and throwing people look like me, abducting people on the I mean, this is
Izzy Patoka 27:10
outrageous. It’s it’s out. It’s outrageous. My parents were both Holocaust survivors, and so to me, when you start to come after people that are different, you’ve crossed the line. It’s unacceptable. And I would, you know, I don’t I’m not saying that we’re at that point of what my parents went through, but some of the stuff that happened as precursors of that are clearly occurring today. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 27:35
I want to say one thing. I’ve said this out loud, and I mean it with my heart. I said it on Mickey’s show in my old neighborhood. Yesterday, I brought Colgate East Point, right across from East Point Mall. Everybody knows where that is, on the east side, and my neighborhood was Archie Bunker’s white Dundalk in 1975 I see people of African American descent here. That wasn’t even allowed. You weren’t if you were black and you walked through my neighborhood in 1975 they would call the cops. I mean, like, literally. That’s how nutty my and I speak from truth, not from my heart, but from truth. This is the way it was, and I and now, when I go to that neighbor, I was the only Hispanic kid that anybody knew. When I was adopted. There was one Hispanic family my neighbor, the Flores family. They were Colombian. Father was Colombian, mother was Gringo, like my mother, but there were no Hispanic people. I mean, no no Lopez, no Rivera. There was Aparicio and Flores, and that’s in our whole elementary school for years. For a decade, that neighborhood is now 72% Hispanic. And I know the principal Colgate Elementary and I they had a fair. Was 100 year anniversary of my elementary school last year. Wow, it’s a little schoolhouse, but we replaced it. Johnny came out. Yeah, we finally the two couple years ago, Johnny o came out to earn a plate. We dedicated believes in 21 you know, 20 or 21 they had a fair last year. And I went out the police. And the community association wasn’t real well attended, but everybody there was Hispanic, for sure. And I said to one of the police officers that I knew who played for the blast a billion years ago, I said, Tell me about profile school now says Hispanic. We used to be 56% now we’re 72% now I’m like, in four years, you went from 56 Okay, so that’s the neighborhood. How many of these kids? Parents speak English? None. Well, I said none, like literally none. And I’m thinking to myself, that’s a challenge. And now I’m thinking to myself, I said to my son, after Trump got elected, we went out to Costas for KRAS back in February, March, and my son toured the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam two years ago. I toured it for the first time about three years ago, and it was most powerful couple hours that I can I can’t think of a couple hours more powerful than going to the Anne Frank House gets me emotional, gets me shitty talking about it. So my son said to me at the bar a cost he’s said, my neighborhood, everybody’s like Anne Frank dad, everybody’s got the window shades pulled down because they’re Hispanic. You. Wow, that took me a minute to think, like, I’m Hispanic, they’re Hispanic. What? What? In 2025 you’re afraid somebody’s gonna knock on the door and pull you into a van in Dundalk. To your point, Baltimore County Executive jobs an important job, because this is front level for this ice stuff that’s going on right now, and that’s another part of the job that, quite frankly, you know, Johnny oh and Don had to deal with the first time around, right? Literally, my
Izzy Patoka 30:27
office has been ahead of it. We have. We’re the only council office that has outreach to Hispanic communities. Carlos Gonzalez, who’s my special projects manager, is out active in the community. We go to Hispanic churches all the time. One in this neighborhood, iglesia, Iglesias de dias is one is our go to we try to work with the community, assure them that things that we are in there, these
Nestor Aparicio 30:51
are working and paying taxes and sending kids to school and have come here for a better life. And in the case of my people in Venezuela, they’ve left a oppression that is incomprehensible here, yeah, right. Here, I met a man, I want to say, your age, my older than us, literally older than us. Who’s my Uber driver? I did a one day trip to Epcot. I did a sneak away. I got a $49 flight. Want to get away, damn, right? I did. It was March. It was 82 degrees. 38 special was played that at Epcot. So I flew down. My brother lives in Kissimmee. He’s Venezuelan. Everybody that lives in Kissimmee is Venezuela. It is a Venezuelan town. And Kissimmee, Florida is all Venezuelan, everywhere. And my brother lives there, and he was born in Venezuela, is a citizen here, has a company. His kids are in school. His sons in college, my nephew, my niece, is 12 years old in school. They own businesses in the area, and I took an Uber when I landed, and the Uber driver was a mid 60s guy. English was good, and he found that I was Venezuelan. He’s Venezuelan. All three of my Uber drivers in Orlando were Venezuelan. Wow. It’s Venezuelan community. It is. And he looked at me. He’s looking at me in the rear view mirror because we’re driving and I’m in the back seat of his Uber. And he said we were talking about politics and Venezuelan and Chavez and all of those Trump, all of that. He said to me, my friend, I am not here. I am we are not migrant people. I didn’t come here. I was 57 years old when I came to America, my age, because I couldn’t there was nothing. I had no home, no land. Everything had been taken away from all of us. That’s why I’m driving an Uber in Kissimmee, and you’re in the back seat of my Uber going to Disney World because I can’t go home. There’s no home for me to go to. There is no home. And I think there’s a lot of people that voted for this criminal who just can’t comprehend that, and their church isn’t teaching them that their their their community. And I just I can’t get over it is I can’t you mentioned your Holocaust, your family. I just can’t get over what people don’t know about history and the ignorance that’s
Izzy Patoka 33:03
all they do not and for some reason, the behavior of Donald Trump and behavior that that would not be accepted if anyone else did what he did, they accepted for Donald Trump. You know what, the way he speaks about women and things he’s done, it’s just, it’s just, I don’t understand it. I don’t comprehend how people can cast a vote for someone who willing, says I can walk down a New York Street and do these horrendous things.
Nestor Aparicio 33:32
Well, it’s come to my home, to Colgate, to where my son is, where my parents bought a house who didn’t believe in any of that. Didn’t live their lives that way they were always it’s why I’m as integrated as I am. And some other people move to Harford County, and I go on their Facebook page, and everyone is of the same descent on their Facebook page that I went to high school with 40 years ago. And this is how we get a divide in the country. I know you’re trying to bring people to what brings people together in Reisterstown?
Izzy Patoka 34:00
Well, in Reisterstown, I think it’s different than a lot of other communities. People are just they have in their DNA that they’re going to they’re going to make their community better. I haven’t seen it anywhere else in the county where it’s every day. What can we do today to make our community better? And I think other communities are getting there. And what I do here, which is really interesting, is people say, Well, reisters Let’s try to do what Reisterstown is doing. And so if you become the county model, then you’re doing something, right, all right.
Nestor Aparicio 34:33
What did they do right here? What’s the what’s the thing that’s right? I think, communicate with each other. Maybe
Izzy Patoka 34:37
that. The thing that I notice about Reisterstown is that if someone has an idea on Monday, on Tuesday, everybody there’s a plan developed. On Wednesday, they’re ready to implement, and on Friday, the event is happening. There’s no circling around point A forever and ever and ever. Yeah, and sometimes you try to make perfection from the beginning. And perfection is a process. So Reisterstown, they they just move from point A to point B to point C to point complete. On every community activity that they engage in,
Nestor Aparicio 35:18
that’s a ringing endorsement. All right. Parting Shot. What do you got for me here? The State of the County you want to get after Trump?
Izzy Patoka 35:25
What do you want to do you get? Well, I think we’ve got, we’ve got the summer months ahead, and I just feel like everybody just focus on what’s going on. We’ve got issues with the Inspector General. I don’t know if you’ve been following that at it all, but we really have to,
Nestor Aparicio 35:41
really, I have followed that I don’t understand. Yeah, yes, there are certain things I’m
Izzy Patoka 35:46
not going to get into all that. I’ll just say, let’s stay focused and let’s try to work together as a community. And the one thing I will say that Donald Trump seems to have, and he seems to have enabled hatred to be the norm, and I think we can step away from that and have hatred be something that we don’t accept and not the norm.
Nestor Aparicio 36:09
I’ll speak to that. We’ll have a crab cake to that. How about that? Exactly here in the second district. All were brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. Have the Back to the Future scratch offs. I will see you at Mako in about seven or eight weeks. You will we’re gonna be down in Ocean City broadcasting yet again, our fourth year at Mako. We’re really looking forward to we have a good time down there when I’m not having beverages night before, I’ll slow things down, down. I slow my roll a little bit. It’s all star time around here. Luke and Allen stopped by for an hour. We had a great chat. I’m about to talk to my pal Richard from mache pest control at termites in my joints that time of the year, you know, the bugs are flying and all that. So I wanted to talk to him about, you know, coming in and making sure your home is safe and making sure your home value stays safe. They help me, so I want them to be able to help you. Also, I’ve got happy Eddie coming over. Eddie acefo from curio wellness and the cannabis space. Also, he is one of the cast members of The Real Housewives. He’s not the house wife. He’s a house husband of Potomac, but he’s also a Baltimore guy and a raven fan. So I’m looking forward to getting happy. Eddie back on the program. We are out here in beautiful Reisterstown Second District. It is. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery, curio, wellness in Liberty pure we are at readers crab house. I’ve got the menu out here. Luke is enjoying the crab and shrimp quesadilla. And I also have a delicious crab cake here from Brendan back in the kitchen, and hope they did it broiled for me. So it’s crab cake time here. So I’m gonna take a break. Izzy’s here. He’s gone. Rich is coming in. I am Nestor. We are wnsd. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, the Maryland crab cake toward Reyes. Standard readers, stay with us. You.
