Pointing out the real work of the Baltimore City Council

As the soon-to-be City Council President of Baltimore, Zeke Cohen returns to educate Nestor about the work of council members and how Question H is a crucial “no” vote for the realities of serving our community responsibly. Lots here on crime, schools, Harborplace and lifting our city.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore City Council, election season, Question H, city services, violent crime reduction, public schools, crab cake tour, community engagement, city representation, economic renaissance, juvenile justice, accountability, city council president, local issues, voter registration

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

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Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, AF, 1570 we are Baltimore. Positive for everybody out there. You know, the stick to sports crowd. You know, I stretch out sometimes, and usually I try to get together with folks like my next guest at crab cake tours, which we’ll be doing this week in Essex. Yeah. Dundalks going to Essex. Will be a pizza John’s. They do have a crab cake. It is my birthday. It is Luke’s birthday. It is Leonard raskins birthday. Might even be pizza John’s birthday. I’m not sure we’re going to be there on Friday the 11th. We’ll have the Raven scratch, also in the Maryland lottery, also our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care, powering us up. And 26 oysters in 26 days coming this month for the oyster recovery partnership that I’m educating folks about. All of that. Brought to you by our friends at Liberty, pure solutions, as well as our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter. I was down in the city last weekend. Beautiful night. We were maritime magic. Saw lots of folks. I think one of the last times I saw this. Next guest was a maritime magic he’s busy city council, running for office, being in office, trying to make things happen, knocking doors, not just on his own behalf, but on this question H that I’m going to bring up, he is one of our defending champions around here. I don’t have them on often enough, dude, I chase you around all the time, and you’re going to give me a hurry we were getting a crab cake. There’ll be times I’ve invited you to fade Lee, so you got to come get a crab cake with me. But I know you’re busy, man. You’re trying to make things happen in the city, it’s good to have you on zeco and joins us yet again. How are you? Man, busy, busy. Time, your election season, right?

01:27

Man, I’m doing great, Nestor, and it’s so good to be with you. I will say I was there when we cut the ribbon to open the new fade leaves. Oh,

Nestor Aparicio  01:34

I did see you that night. I saw you. Okay, indeed. But

01:38

Love that place, and they seem to be booming in their new space, in the new Lexington market. And so everyone should come down and before or after a game, come get a good crab cake.

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Nestor Aparicio  01:50

I would 100% concur with that. Let’s get right to it. Maybe got an election, and you’re there the ballot. I live now in the county, and obviously my radio station’s always been in Baltimore County. I brag about that to Johnny Oh, and now he’s moving along. We’re gonna have all sorts of things happening, because that’s the political cycle in all of this at the top, telling people to vote and to make sure they’re registered and all of that. And clearly the insurrection, and we can go through that at the top of the ballot, but there are things happening here locally, and this h issue has come my way, and it wasn’t like the reason I invited you on. I’ve had six months of trying to chase you around, but where we are right now, in this very tender spot, including Washington at Baltimore for football this week. But this is a serious thing, and I lived in the city, and I invested in the city, as I wrote in my dear David Rubenstein letter last week, I’m still very, very vested in the city, and this is a disturbing sort of thing to think about less representation at a time when more people need more representation. Zeke,

02:51

no less. Nestor, 1000 doors plus for my primary campaign and really proud to be the Democratic nominee to be the next Baltimore City Council president. And what I would do when I knocked on someone’s door is just try to listen and understand, what are their issues? What are they feeling good about? What are their concerns? And you know what we’d hear? We’d hear issues around trash pickup. We’d hear problems with lack of quality schools. We’d hear safety, we’d hear city services. I’ll tell you what I did not hear even a single time when I knocked doors, not one person said to me, I want you to cut the City Council in half. And so question H which was paid for by Mr. David Smith, who now owns the Baltimore Sun and Sinclair Broadcasting, would effectively cut the Baltimore City Council in half. It would shrink representation from 14 plus a city council president to eight. To me, this is really disturbing, because I think we’re at a time, and you said it where folks want more representation, and one of the things people love, and I know you’ve picked up on this dynamic, is the closeness, the proximity that we have here in Baltimore to your city councilman. Look, when I walk around the streets, people will yell at me. They’ll be like, Zeke, come here. I gotta tell you about this problem I got with the sanitation workers. Or we

Nestor Aparicio  04:26

still are community, man, people still live here. You know what? I mean, it’s real people and and we and we’re not all shut in like we were in 2020 we mix and mingle, we get out, we shop, we mark. My wife drives into the city for every Sunday morning. My wife drives into the city for the farmers market straight up. I mean, I’m talking five weekends in July, five weekends she’s down there. So I mean the city’s important even to the people that aren’t voting in the city, the people that are voting with their legs going the Orioles games. Cfg, CD, wonder this week for my birthday. You know, like I. I, I, and I would agree with you. I know you. I was, I’m in the city three, four days a week, abdomin Fells Point broadcasting, if a Coopers, I’m eating oysters everywhere. I’ve been in Hamden five times this month eating oysters. So like, you know the thought that I just want, because you’re talking points on h I’m with you and all that. What’s the upshot of buying the Baltimore Sun and having Fox 45 what? What’s the end game for the messaging I I mean, I’m just trying to get to all right, I’ll see it your way. Um, Fox 45 Sinclair, the family, whatever it is. Well, what is the end game? What? What do they want by? What’s the benefit of cutting the city what happens when that happens? Zeke,

05:43

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so what I think happens when you cut the City Council in half is chaos and confusion, right? I think it creates a dynamic where we go from I represent currently in district one, about 48,000 people. That would double, and so people are going to get worse city services. And so I do not understand the philosophy behind it. I’ve heard cost savings, but the reality Nestor is that cutting the council in half would save a fraction of a penny of a percent, less than a percent of the city’s total budget to give people half the representation. I really cannot understand it. And as far as sort of the narrative, again, you know, there’s, if you turn on Fox 45 you hear that we’re a city in crisis. It’s constant doom and gloom. Here’s the reality is that we are seeing historic reductions in violent crime in the city of Baltimore. Are we perfect, absolutely not. That’s why I ran for city council. Prison. We have a long way to go in reducing homicides and carjackings, but we are on pace, God willing, to go under 200 homicides in the city of Baltimore for the first time in a very, very long time, we have seen a historic reduction in non fatal shootings. And so this idea that we are perpetually in crisis, that everything is the sky is constantly falling, is inaccurate, and it scares good people from coming and going to great places like Bailey’s or the farmer’s market like your wife does, or coming to Fells Point, like I know you do, this is a city that is on the rise. Baltimore is in many ways, booming. We need to continue to have an economic renaissance in our city, and so cutting the council in half just is not the way to get there. And I just think it would create absolute chaos in the city.

Nestor Aparicio  07:38

I just think it’s a Towson guy who loves Baltimore, and I, you know, I didn’t even shave for you today. Got Todd run it’s you and Todd rungren today. Okay, you know, so, and I’m not sticking we’ve had a lot of Washington commanders. We’re doing all that. I’m having crab cakes this week. We’re talking Orioles. But like, this is so important, and I haven’t um Angela also, Brooks and Larry Hogan have been invited on. Haven’t had them on Westmore. Have invited him on Brandon. You know, I find him over Coco’s. At some point, I’ve invited Ryan Dorsey on I missed him at Coco’s a couple weeks ago. But the elections coming up and people hearing these messaging points, whether it’s pick your channel to 1113 the Internet, whether you’re Baltimore brewing, your Baltimore sunning, your paywalling at the banner you’re just hearing it on the block that you’re on. I’m trying to figure out, if I were wealthy, white, black, young, old, rich, poor, why I would be a city resident and vote the other way, like, I’m trying to get my mind around like, alright, we get it your way. There’s eight rep how does that help anyone who wants anything done? I mean, as a guy who lived in a tower in the city, paid a lot to live there, lost a lot of money living there, I’m trying to figure out, like, even the people I knew in my building who were all the above there. You know, I had a wide variety of people in my neighborhood, a wide variety of people when I walked to Lexington market, I’m trying to think of who would vote for this, other than someone who’s been, quite frankly, duped. I mean, I I’m trying to get the talking point on the other side, to completely have it make have it make sense to me. You know what? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. Look, you

09:18

have to really stretch the logic. Again, we’re talking about less than point zero. 1% of the city’s budget would be saved on a cost saving basis, and that’s a

Nestor Aparicio  09:30

guy in that chair and knowing okay, we do it that way, would be you said, chaos, right? Tell me what it’s like to be a city council member at this point, because we’re talking about cutting these jobs in half. I know all of you. No, you know no one’s having a second career somewhere else. I mean, all of you were vested, all of you on the streets. I mean, I, I was on the bar stool in Highland town with my buddy Brian eater over Chaucer two weeks ago, lamenting all this, watching the Orioles play the Yankees and Evans. Oysters, some fried oysters. I, you know, I move around the city a lot, and I feel like you all are a little undercompensated, over hyped. You there’s things you can fix and things you can’t fix, and things every day you’re trying to fix. I mean, I don’t feel like this smells like corruption and all this crap that I hear. I feel like it feels like really hard working people that get out of bed against all odds, like we all do and try to make it better look.

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10:28

Let me first say I have the best job in the world getting to serve in the city that I love. I’m raising two kids here. They’re both gonna go to public schools. My daughter’s at our local neighborhood school. My wife’s a physician down in Cherry Hill. We are in this community, of this community, we absolutely love it. But being a city council person, it’s a lot. It’s you are constantly on. People want to see you. They want to smell you. They want to know what you’re about. It is complex. You are dealing with everything from sanitation and making sure the trash gets picked up to streets and sidewalks and making sure our roads are safe to public safety to schools, it is all encompassing. And look, here’s the reality. Nestor is that we just had an election in the city of Baltimore, and some folks won, some folks lost. I’m glad to say I won, so I’m going to, in all likelihood, be the next city council president. That, to me, is how democracy is supposed to work artificially, cutting the council in half just to do it is not how democracy is supposed to work. And I’ll say there were three incumbents, three folks who had the job, who lost the job. That, to me, is how accountability shows up in the work if you’re not doing what your constituents believe you should be doing. Guess what? That’s the how this thing should work. And so I am just fundamentally opposed to question H, and would encourage your listeners who live in the city to vote against it. I think that we as a city are on the rise right now, and so to stagnate or hurt that momentum, I just think puts us in the wrong direction.

Nestor Aparicio  12:18

Z Cohen is here. He is running for city council president. We know how the Democrat, Republican thing works on the ballot. I’m not going to my time with you is short. We’ll get a crab cake together soon, hopefully after the election, and we restore democracy to our country full time and have some sanity. Harbor place. I just as where you are on it. And I don’t really No, I mean, I followed all of this. I’ve invited a lot of people on. I’m a big accountability guys, a journalist around here, and I’m getting cranky, but I haven’t heard enough about it, and I know there’s been a lot of conjecture, and you mentioned voting people in and out. I knew Eric Costello well. I lived in his district. I was astonished at how hard his job was right, like just in a general sense, spending time with Him, knowing him, and not agreeing with him all the time, but just seeing how hard that job was. I want to say that, but harbor place which sort of fell underneath in my building. It was my back door. It’s what I invested in, what I bought, and I loved it. Love it, and will always love it, but I don’t know what it’s going to be when it grows up. And I I have concern, but I have no vote,

13:25

yeah. So look, I think here’s the reality is that we know that harbor place needs needs love, it needs investment, it needs a facelift. It has sort of stagnated, and the quality of merchants that were in there kind of was allowed to deteriorate to the point where it was just a bunch of chains. So Dave Bramble brought bought the pavilions. He introduced a plan that would significantly increase the value of the property. He wants to build very high. He wants to put apartments above retail. And I’ll tell you, I support it. And here’s why, when I go to places like the wharf in DC and I see the mix of really good restaurants on the ground floor, interesting things happening on the street, music venues and then apartments. People want to live there. I’m all for it. The reality Nestor is that downtown Baltimore is our fastest growing neighborhood. People want to live downtown. This is true in a lot of cities right now. I

Nestor Aparicio  14:38

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miss it. Can I say that as someone that left it. I I miss it. I do. I’m enjoying sort of my time, but like Arnold, I’ll be back, you know, and you know, I’m counting on all of you to fix it. That’s why, that’s why I hold you and Brandon, all of you on here, hold you accountable. Have a crab cake and a beer. I’m good with that, and I know how hard you’re working, but at the end of the day, I want to come back just. You know, build it now come 100%

15:01

and so Dave put this plan together. Dave is a known commodity in Baltimore. He’s a developer. He’s done some really good work in my district and yard 56 which is this development he built across from Bayview hospital. Again, his plan involved neighborhood,

Nestor Aparicio  15:18

by the way, that’s East Baltimore. Yeah,

15:21

love babe. You look he’s been involved. I still

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Nestor Aparicio  15:24

call it city hospital, but you out of town, or, you know, I’m sure you, you’ve heard that on a few stoops, right? City Hospital,

15:31

Believe, believe it strong history there. So

Nestor Aparicio  15:34

call it that,

15:36

8

all right? City Hospital, my wife worked there for a little while. So my

Nestor Aparicio  15:42

son was born there. My parents died there. Love it, right? You know, yeah,

15:46

yeah, in any case. So, you know, Dave asked to increase his capacity to build up. And that is the ballot question that has become really controversial. Some people feel really strongly that we should not put high rise apartments anywhere near that area. I’ll tell you. My personal opinion is, I’m for the density I believe in having. If people want to live there, they should live there. I think we keep the ground retail to some really nice restaurants, local businesses, and what his plan does, and this has kind of been missed in a lot of the coverage. It actually increases the access to green space, and it increases the footprint by which the public can walk along the promenade in the park, etc. So I want to be really clear about that. What ended up happening is that a judge in Anne Arundel County said that this is not an appropriate ballot question. We the city and the state and Mr. Bramble have challenged that ruling. It is now being heard in the state Supreme Court, so we will see folks may or may not have an opportunity to vote on whether they want Mr. Bramble to get air rights. But again, important to note that in order to finance this project, in order to make it work, there has to be some residential component. There has to be some people living there. So I understand folks have a lot of nostalgia about the rouse era. But I think cities, of all cities, move and again. When you look at the wharf in Washington, DC, when you look at there’s some places in Montreal, to me, this is an exciting opportunity, and it’s really the gateway, as you know, Nestor, a lot of people see when they come to Baltimore. We have amazing attractions. We have the aquarium, which is doing incredible things with their wetlands exhibit. We have, of course, the stadiums not too far. There’s a lot of exciting momentum for downtown Baltimore. But I think fixing, renovating, sprucing up the Inner Harbor is really important because a lot of the momentum has gone toward Harbor, East Harbor Point, and we want to make sure that downtown, the central business district continues to get the love and investment and growth that it deserves.

Nestor Aparicio  18:20

I went to Hong Kong 20 years ago, and I always knew we were going to move in that direction with water specifically. And to your point, the DC worth I would have liked have seen a, b and c. And I am fully of the mindset that there has to be residential, you know, in and around that area in some way for it to be financially supported. So I’ve invited Mr. Bramble on many, many times. So please, if you’re listening out there, we’d like to I’d like to hear more about it, instead of having other people argue about it, I like to go to the source. I’m with the source right now, Zeke Cohen. He will be city council president. I’ve known him a long time. We’re gonna get a crab cake. I just want to get through crime and schools and young people in the city and perceptions of that and what you see and feel in, you know, relatively more wealthy area of the city versus what maybe some of your other council members see, and that you’ll be as president, being a part of, you know, stranger to the city and its problems, But the problem and the perception of the problem, then there’s the reality of, there’s been a carjacking, there’s been a murder, the video of the thing that happened and awful thing that happened to butcher hill a couple of weeks ago. And just, just what people see on television or see on their phone.

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19:35

No, that’s, you know, I think you actually framed it really well Nestor, which is that there is, there is reality and there is also perception, and sometimes those things align and sometimes they don’t. Here’s the real story, from my perspective as a father who’s raising two kids here, sending them to public schools as a former City Schools teacher, is that we have seen. Some real improvement in the quality of some of our schools, and I’ll say that as someone who taught in a school with no heat, no air conditioning, no drinkable potable water, a school that looked more like a jail than a school, I’m proud that we are on the path to rebuilding 80 of our oldest school buildings in the city of Baltimore, including four that we’ve rebuilt in southeast Baltimore. They’re beautiful. They’re 21st century schools. They’re green schools with like these solar roofs. I mean, it’s the kind of place I feel proud to send my kids and would want everyone else’s kids to be living in as well. I’ve said this Nestor as City Council President, I am going to be leaning in on accountability for Baltimore City public schools, as well as support, because I know, having been a teacher, and I know as a dad who’s invested in this school system that we can and must do better. There is a lot of money coming in right now from the blueprint from the Kerwin funding. It is critically important that that money is well spent, and that every school in Baltimore, it becomes an excellent school. Right now we have a several that are doing really well, and then we have several that are middling, mediocre or not doing well, and so there needs to be overall improvement. I’ve said I want to see universal pre kindergarten. We need to start our babies earlier. We know there’s a childcare crisis in this country. Having pre K for everybody starting at age three would be a huge game changer for Baltimore. On the other end, I want to see more advancement on career pathways. Not every kid needs to go to college, but every kid needs either a career or college plan, and we need to make sure we are creating the pathway for our young people to grow up and thrive. I want to talk about crime because you mentioned it. So there’s sort of two stories. One is we are seeing historic declines in violent crime, both in homicides and in non fatal shootings. As I said, before, God willing, we may go under 200 homicides this year, the first time in a very long time. And I give mayor Scott a ton of credit. I give Ivan Bates, Eric Barron, Wes Moore, there’s a real team of adults that have been working together in collaboration to hit this issue, and we continue to struggle with a small but really difficult group of young people that have been causing chaos and confusion within our city, and you mentioned the incident over on Madeira street where a group of young people robbed and violently assaulted a 66 year old man that that was just brutal and vicious, and the video went viral. And what was really disappointing Nestor is the police made an arrest. They got two of the young people that were involved in it, and within less than two hours, the Department of Juvenile Services let one of those young people who was under 18 out, and so he was back on the street. And I think it has just created enormous frustration within the community that I represent, and within, really the state of Maryland that we continue to see violent repeat offenders just cycle through this churn.

Nestor Aparicio  23:33

Well, we’re all outraged by it, so we wonder, then what? What then happens to make this better and hard line, you know, this is where the fox 45 reports, and all that, what’s being done, you know, like, what’s being done about this? Because recidivism is the issue, right? I mean, that’s been the issue when we had a Republican governor or Democratic governors were and no matter who the mayor is, we’re letting criminals back on our streets. That the system is failing.

24:01

And look, you know, I am really proud of the work that Governor Westmore has done. He has clearly been a champion for Baltimore City, Baltimore County, just our entire region. Look, I think there are difficult conversations happening right now about some of the patterns and practices within the Department of Juvenile Services, and we no one wants to lock away our kids and throw away the key, but I’m a big believer that when you commit an extremely violent act, there needs to be accountability, and that accountability should be paired with services we need to address mental health and trauma and all of the things that fuel violence, but the message to our communities cannot be that you can go out at night or in the daytime and commit a heinous, vicious, violent crime and not be held accountable for it. That’s been the message that I. Evan Bates, our state’s attorney has been trying to send and I will say that he charged both of those young people with attempted murder, which is a really serious charge. That’s been the message from me, from mayor Scott and I know from Wes Moore as well. And so we want to make sure that it’s really lifted up by the Department of Juvenile Services as well. I gotta say, I’m seeing some real improvements within the Baltimore Police Department. In a lot of these cases, they are catching the criminals, which is a change, quite frankly. I mean, we’ve not seen this level of energy. And I give Rich Worley, our police commissioner and mayor Scott a lot of credit for that, but it’s really dispiriting Nestor for police officers when they go out make an arrest and it’s a good arrest, and then a couple hours later, that same young person is back on the street, continuing to cause terror in our community. So I agree with you. I think there is a breakdown in the system, and really at the level of DJs, we need the secretary. We need his entire team to step up. And no again, no one is saying that. We don’t want to provide all the wraparound supports and services. But there also needs to give you accountability, which we just have not seen. See Cohen is our guest.

Nestor Aparicio  26:21

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I’m going to let you let you slide out here. Get a crab cake, just throwing your credibility. What did you teach?

26:27

Yeah, so I taught middle school social studies. So,

26:30

yeah,

26:31

man, those babies will give you a run.

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Nestor Aparicio  26:33

I gotta get back for Schoolhouse Rock. And we’ll do declaration of in we’re gonna do it all, Bill of Rights are, you know, we’ll do it all articles, you know the whole deal. Um, he is seek Cohen. He is he’ll be our city council president here in a couple of weeks, we’ll have you back. Crab cake. Fade leads you and me sometime soon. And I agree wholeheartedly with your first statement, which is, yeah, been elected and marketing, get down. There’s a lot going on. It’s great. It’s great place to be.

26:56

It is. I mean, I just want to say to your listeners, look, there’s been this huge rehab of Lexington market. It looks really good right now. There’s still some issues outside, but when you get in that market, it feels like you are back in the day. It’s bustling. It’s hustling. Fadelies is killing it. Um, you know, I’m not going to get into the crab cake wars. That’s your job. You know? I know. I know where my mayor are no wars, it’s love you eat them all in terms of Cocos and Councilman Dorsey and all that. But you know, for me, I look, I feel like fade leads is kind of the original. And for my money, that is a very, very, very good crab cake that they produce.

Nestor Aparicio  27:40

You know what I would say is, when I invite people for a crab cake, whether it’s fatley’s, Costas Coco’s, Pablo wherever, wherever it is over state fair, people are always glad to have a crab cake. They’re like, I wonder if it’s good, is it? They’ll say to me, is it any good? I’m like, eat it yourself. You eat it you tell me. And then there we go. We get the oysters out of the bay too. See Cohen City Council President joining us here. Makes a little politics in I’m having Todd rund on this week. We got a lot of Washington commander stuff with Tom lavero, Dave Preston from WTO P going into the Wayback Machine on all hail and all of that stuff, as well as Jaden Daniels Lucas and Owings Mills. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. It’s my birthday. I’m working hard. Need pizza. Pizza John’s on Friday. We’ll hope to see you over there. You.