Frederick Mayor Michael O’Connor allows Nestor to praise his community and the transformation of his his rural and conservative area with a vibrant and eclectic downtown, highlighting its unique small businesses, restaurants, breweries, and distilleries. Plenty here on the city’s revitalization efforts, charm and diversity.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
downtown, frederick, people, mayor, place, crab cake, city, baltimore, maryland, mako, pasta, goodyear blimp, funky, town, wife, downtown, years, municipal governments, breweries, spend
SPEAKERS
Michael O’Connor, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore positive trying to tell off down here. Mako ultimate, brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery, at the Gold Rush sevens doublers. We will have these next Friday as well, at fadelies in Lexington market, when the cheatstroes come in to take on the I’m actually drinking my royal farms coffee out of my Marilyn lottery gold mug, the cornbread. The elected official the Eastern Shore said he’s gonna steal the mayor of Frederick will not do that to me. Liberty. Pure solutions, putting us out on the road. If you do, I had to get a drink in. I’ve been trying to get Michael O’Connor on the program for two Makos now. And listen, you’re the I don’t know how you become the mayor of Frederick. I don’t even think of you mayors of municipalities are before I started doing Baltimore positive but when I did the crab cake to a couple years ago, I had befriended Emily Keller on the internet, of all things. I think she like kicked Trump on the internet when he was saying stupid stuff. And I got to know her a little bit. And then I did this crab cake tour. And I called people all over the state that I knew, and I said, I’m having a crab cake here and here and here and here. Where should I go? And everybody told me, you need to get a crab cake at two places in Frederick. And I’ve been up to big corks right outside of your place there. So I, you know, I know some people up there. And I got recommendations at Dutch daughter, right? Always on the list. And I got a recommendation in downtown. Give me the name of the place on the corner. Hold on. I gotta pull up my little because I don’t want to get it wrong, and you definitely don’t want to get it wrong. But I went to downtown Frederick on a Friday night in the middle of the tour, and I thought, we’ll get a room. It’ll be sleepy, it’ll be quiet. We’ll grab a crab cake, and the next thing I know, like downtown Frederick becomes, like, this awesome place that we have fallen in love with. And I gotta find the name of the place we went to, because I don’t want to get it wrong, tasting room. There you go. Tasting Room. So well, the tasting room is in the middle of the middle of downtown Frederick, right? And we’re there. We’re looking around, and I’m thinking to myself, I like this place, you know, and I had never really thought about going out there and having a beer in downtown Frederick, or get in a room. I know you have shows out there and all that. So it’s good to have you on because I want you to give me 15 minutes of why people in Baltimore need to come out to Frederick more often. I
Michael O’Connor 02:18
think Frederick had a reputation for many years, because it was that gateway to the western part of the state that was seen as rural and conservative, and I
Nestor Aparicio 02:29
like the keys games 30 years ago, so Right. But Lord, be there. But
02:33
over the last 30 years, things like bringing the keys to town, the rehabilitation, revitalization of our downtown, post 1970s flooding, the reinvestment in our historic core, all of that has brought these funky small businesses, the great restaurant scene, the breweries, the distilleries,
Nestor Aparicio 02:51
the events called it funky. I love that. It is funky, hip
02:55
and historic is what we talk about a lot. Well, hip.
Nestor Aparicio 02:59
Why hip give me? Where did he hip come in? How did Frederick become? How did Frederick have this bake house that I wake up and I want to drive to get to, and they’re always sold out of the donuts and the croissants when I get there. Yeah,
03:11
you better get up early in the morning if you want to get something from I know this. And you got that pasta
Nestor Aparicio 03:15
joint. Wait till I start promoting this pasta joint in a minute. Go ahead. Keep going. So you
03:20
you put all of these entrepreneurs in one place, people have got these interesting concept for stores and shops, restaurants, restaurants, all of it, and what you get is this really eclectic, kind of cool downtown that is a little different every time you visit. So it’s great for the people like me who live there, because I can go to a different restaurant every night and not double back for weeks.
Nestor Aparicio 03:44
Baltimore, think like Annapolis is pretty and cute, and it has that cobblestone. And I’m gonna go spend that Saturday in Annapolis. I’m gonna go eat drinks and water, see some boats, do some do some shopping, shopping, right? Frederick is that place too.
04:00
We’ve got our Weinberg Center for the Arts. We have our Maryland Ensemble Theater, our new spire arts. So there’s the larger
Nestor Aparicio 04:08
things. Been getting some good shows, absolutely rock shows and stuff that my friends have been going out there. And when I find Hey, you know, Facebook where I’m planning and attending an event, I’ll say, Hey, man, get out there early. You know, like, go have a beer, go sit down and eat something. It’s a great Toad to what sprocket coming in the fall. See, that’s what I’m talking about, right? That sort of thing shows up on my timeline when that happens. So
04:30
you take all of those things together. The amenities The museum is the fact that it’s a preserved historic downtown, very walkable, very accessible. The only thing that we don’t have, and we’re working on it is structured downtown lodging. You can’t get a hotel room in down you can get a hotel room in Frederick. You can’t get a hotel room in downtown Frederick. But that’s about to change, and you’re going to change it. Well, we’ve got a hotel, a 67 room Marriott tribute collection property opening up in in a few months, and then we’ve got a larger. Scale, 200 room hotel with conference facilities, meeting spaces that we’ve been working on for about a decade along our creek. So one more thing to get people to come and stay in downtown Frederick, spend the weekend along your Creek. It’s a creek. We call it Carroll Creek,
Nestor Aparicio 05:14
yeah. So the water that goes through your city, I call it a moat, but that’s okay, whatever.
05:21
People call it a canal. Some people call it the river canal.
Nestor Aparicio 05:23
Can it’s a canal. Okay, that there’s a brewery that backs up to it down. There’s four breweries that are within stone’s throw of I went to one of them, and idiom, Steinhardt, idio, and I went to idiom. I went to idiom, and I also went to the one Monocacy is that sound right or not? That’s a little far. That’s a little further more. And there’s a pizza shop right there that Napa Tala
05:47
ka Gina forno,
Nestor Aparicio 05:50
I’m telling you, I’ve been to Frederick.
05:52
I It’s obvious I
Nestor Aparicio 05:53
like Frederick, and I want to come back, and that’s why I wanted to have you on. But the other day, I’m driving to Cleveland to hang out with Thomas Dolby and to see Sammy Hagar, because my hair is long and I’m out, like, just getting the Frederick Linda nori kinda out that way. And I pulled over for a minute because I’m like, It’s Sunday morning and I’m driving to Cleveland, and I had to pick up this pasta. There’s a pasta shop in downtown Frederick. I want to promote this place, because I like promoting local places, but this place is the most unique place because we stumbled in, because we’re shoppers, and it’s funky. I’ll give you all that. They have 200 different kinds of specialty pastas, garlic, pepper, lemon, all shapes, gluten free. And my wife is diabetic, so she needs, like, low carb, so like low carb egg noodles, that sort of thing. This place is two doors up from the tasting shop, and I think it’s called the pasta palette. Pasta palette. Pasta palette is that right? There it is a noodle store. And more. There it is, right there, 121, North Market Street. And I went in there, and my wife did some surprise for my wife, because I looked and they were closed on Tuesday when I was coming back, because I was going to get it on the way home. So I pulled in, hustling and bustling, maybe like noon on a Sunday brunch. Every hard to park. You know, I got into downtown. Don’t
07:19
say that we got we got, we got great parking. And I pulled right in park. Wow,
Nestor Aparicio 07:23
you have garages there, we do. I buy a parked in their garage. I didn’t want to do that. I was just trying to get in and out. I get it, so I want to park on this. And I had to pee too. So I like, Stop, run in. And the poor girl there, I’m like, eight ounces of that, eight ounces of that eight ounces, that eight ounces. So next thing I know, I’m like, walking out like, like, a brick of pasta under my arm.
07:46
That’s what we love. We love it. When people come downtown, they discover something they didn’t know existed, and they spend more time there than they thought they were going to I’m about
Nestor Aparicio 07:55
to pay you the highest compliment. I snuck in and out. I had to pee. I went to the outskirts of town. I wound up going to McDonald’s right on the way out of town. And I thought, I wish I had more time here. That’s the That’s the highest compliment I could pay you. Well, we also want it to
08:09
be a place that you’re going to come back to, because you know that you may only be spending a little time towed the wet sprock. And now you have an opportunity to say, You know what? I just found this other thing that’s happened in Frederick. I got to go back tell me about
Nestor Aparicio 08:19
economic development, all that cool stuff. Another cool thing I did in Frederick five years ago. Friend of mine that owns Brooks Huff tire, not a sponsor, but I’m promoting you. Hi. Jay called me and said, Goodyear is doing a blimp ride, and we can get people to ride in the blimp. And I said to my wife, of course, I’m gonna want to ride the Goodyear blimp, right? I mean, that’s what everybody’s bucket list. And Jay writes me back and says, hey, it’s in Frederick. You have to go to the Frederick air right near key stadium, you know, right? Aery Grove stadium to use east side of the city airport. Yeah. So I pull in on, like, a Tuesday, at 11 in the morning. My ride, I had an hour long ride in the Goodyear blimp, and I pulled in, and there’s the Goodyear Blimp sitting in the middle of Frederick. And I went up in the blimp, and what we really saw was Frederick. We went down toward big cork. We went out toward the mountains there, sort of a little bit toward anchorstown, and then circled back. But my ride in the Goodyear Blimp was over, beautiful Frederick, Maryland. I love that. So people want to be over big sir, like they when they shot the commercials, I was over the mountains, the Katahdin mountains, that what they are
09:29
the Catoctin mountains, little foothills of the Appalachians. You see,
Nestor Aparicio 09:32
I’ve looked at a lot of Google Maps. Mayor we,
09:35
we with the blimp. Is often in Frederick after the there’s been a national event telecast, like ravens game, like a Monday night province game, or whatever. Frederick is a good place for it to sequester while gets ready to go to whatever the next place, or an in between, stop between something in Washington or Cleveland or Pittsburgh.
09:53
So it’s there frequently. Yeah, we, we’re, we’re,
09:57
we see it regularly. Yeah, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 09:59
a free. Plug for Goodyear there. But you know, that’s pretty cool when you they’re
10:02
not the only blimp company, though there, there’s other other blimp companies use their other blimp advertising.
Nestor Aparicio 10:09
So here’s your plug for classic rock. So you’re saying you’re a zeppelin town. I like your Zeppelin. I like Mayor Michael O’Connor’s here from Frederick, Maryland. What other people need to know about it? I mean, other than your chamber of commerce, good turn. I mean economics running the town. People move in their bedroom community for DC, perceived to be up to 70 well, but
10:29
trying to really change that mentality with the growth of Life Sciences and biosciences companies in Frederick, the presence of Fort Detrick in the Frederick National Lab, we really are developing our own ecosystem for a scientific mindset. And I think a lot of the growth that we’re seeing in Frederick right now is because people have more flexibility in how they work. And so when you can choose to live almost anywhere and work in Washington or Baltimore, a place with a high quality of life, that’s got low crime, that’s got good schools, that’s got a funky, hip, historic downtown, great event DC, a Baltimore an hour, and you’re in and you’re an hour and you’re three hours from Pittsburgh and two hours from Philadelphia and Richmond, and jump on a train at BWI and be in New York City by lunchtime.
Nestor Aparicio 11:13
That’s why I wanted to have you on. I mean, what was your real line of work? What did you do in
11:17
the real world? I did what you did. I was a radio broadcaster and television for 20 years, I was in journalism in Frederick County, Washington County.
Nestor Aparicio 11:25
I liked a man who loved facts, you know? I mean, you know what made you want to be the
11:30
mayor? I had been covering local government for a long time, and changed careers. Went to nonprofit management and saw some decisions that were being made in my city, the city I grew up in, that I wasn’t a huge fan of and like most people, you run because you think you can make a difference. And I’ve been in office now since 2009 mayor, since 2017 I think we’re making a difference. Well, I’ll
Nestor Aparicio 11:52
tell you what. I love coming to your town. I’m really appreciative you spend a little bit of time with me. I walked up, I saw your badge last year, and it’s a Frederick. I’m like, Mayor Fred you. I think you I think he might have been wearing a shirt like this. And I’m like, Hey, man, I like your town. And next thing I know, it’s amazing, the people you meet after 10pm in Ocean City at Mako is I didn’t go out
12:10
something I’m going to talk about, because I’m in bed by 10 o’clock every night. I went
Nestor Aparicio 12:15
to bed last the official story, well, I went to bed at 915 last night. And the party I actually met you at later than 9pm last year, I did not attend. Last Did I miss anything? I mean, like, I lost my voice, and I’m like, I’m done. I couldn’t
12:28
tell you what you missed because I wasn’t there. It looks the official story. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 12:33
where’s me? Out down here? That’s all I’m gonna say. You do get I’m gonna let you go back to Frederick and keep your keep your job after all these years as an elected official. But thanks for coming by and anything else I need to know about Give me some more reasons to come to Frederick. Can my wife a paddle board in Frederick?
12:49
You can’t paddle board in Frederick. We don’t know lakes, right? The boats that we put on Carroll Creek, we put them in in the wintertime, and they’re lighted with Christmas lights. It’s a whole holiday, okay, non profit fundraising opportunity, the sailing through the winter solstice. Yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 13:05
I mean, my wife would move to Frederick tomorrow, but a little
13:08
bit outside of Frederick, you can do things in Lake Linganore. You get the Monocacy river. We are close to, you know, a lot of things that are really great. Well, the
Nestor Aparicio 13:16
one thing I use Frederick for is a big corks. I know Randy down at Big corks. And, you know, I would go down there for he had concerts down there and tribute bands and that sort of thing. There’s just a lot going on out there, and it’s just so close. You know,
13:29
we’re really happy with where we are. We’ve got more work to do in a number of areas. We have some transportation needs we want to address. The cost of housing is not where we’d like it to be for most people. So still work to do all right? Well, that’s why we’re not we’re not perfect, but we’re striving.
Nestor Aparicio 13:46
What do you do down here at Mako that helps your town? I mean, we’re seeing other people. So one
13:50
of the other hats that I wear, in addition to being the mayor of the City of Frederick, is, this year, I’m the president of the Maryland Municipal League. So I’m here. That means what? What is the Maryland municipal we are the association of 157 cities, towns and villages, three special taxing districts, 160 units of local government. And we’re here to advocate on behalf of the needs of municipal governments all over the state of Maryland. So Frederick, at 80,000 residents, is one kind of need. The town of Port tobacco in Charles County, with 21 residents, has very different, sure, needs, but we’re here to work on behalf of all of them, big and small, many of the challenges across our municipal governments are the same, and they are what, housing, transportation, child care, jobs, city, creating high quality of life in our communities every every town wants the Same thing. They want to create a place that their residents can be proud of, a place that they can raise their family, where their kids can play with safety. And we’re all in the same boat together trying to lift what we’re doing in municipal governments all across the state. 2 million plus residents of the state of Maryland live inside Municipal Corporation. Populations, and so the work that gets done by mayors and council people in collaboration, in the best instances, with our county parks, 85 state is is about a third of the state’s population. So it matters what happens inside our cities. That’s true in Baltimore, it’s true in Frederick, it’s true in Hagerstown, Salisbury,
Nestor Aparicio 15:19
everywhere, potholes, constituent services, we
15:22
are in the service delivery business at the municipal government level. It is, it’s streets, it’s street lights, it’s parks, it’s park maintenance. It’s plowing snow, it’s picking up trash. It’s the stuff that people when you get it wrong, you hear about it very quickly.
Nestor Aparicio 15:36
I would make you laugh, because I didn’t have Mayor Meehan was not on but my wife and I were walking down, I believe it might be 48th Street or 45th Street, and we’re on the coastal highway. We looked over and the street line, the lining, was completely crooked, like a like a golf course that, you know, the bee was chasing the guy.
15:58
Somebody was at Secrets the night before.
Nestor Aparicio 16:01
So I looked at it and I thought, you know, somebody’s gonna yell at the mayor about that. MAYOR MICHAEL O’Connor, here from Frederick, all they’re brought to you by the mayor. I’ve been giving you my Maryland lottery. You get a I feel like Oprah, you get a lottery ticket. You get a lottery gold rush at seven doublers. We’re gonna have the Raven scratch offs to give away after they get done with the Falcons this week, John Martin joined us. We’re gonna have senators Ben card, Chris Van Allen going to be joining us, and lots of elected officials, including my new friend and Frederick. Can’t get me discount on that pasta, but I buy bulk. Man, when I go in there, I buy bulk, but I’ll be back to have a beer and some cheer and some tote the wet sprocket and this new hotel you’re gonna have opening online down there. We’ll grab a beverage. I like that. I There are a few restaurants I still haven’t been to that I’ve identified. And the part of you having such an incredible bake house there in the morning is you need to spend the night to be up early enough to go get the get line exactly. I realize this. I understand this. We’re gonna find a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sort of combination, and we’re gonna make Frederick our our point of call for one night. I
17:09
like it. I like it. I
Nestor Aparicio 17:10
gotta get back to idiom. Have a beer, all right. I feel young when I’m in Frederick. I feel your word funky, funky, Funky. I like that. Art shops. We’re gonna come back from Mako and Ocean City, all the brought to you by Liberty, pure solutions, keeping our water crystal clear, as well as Jiffy Lube, powering up Luke, getting him out to Owings Mills and down to Camden Yards as the Orioles and the Ravens make hay here later in the week, they’re going to be on the West Coast next week as well. We’re going to be at fade Lee’s giving out the gold rush, seven stoplers Next Friday, as the cheatstros come into Baltimore take over Camden Yards on Nestor back for more on wnst. Am 1570 from Mako in Ocean City. Right after this you.
