Leading her campaign with transparency and more fairness in Baltimore City government, former District 13 councilwoman Shannon Sneed tells Nestor the importance of the City Council President seat and the goals of her campaign for citizens.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
baltimore city, city, talking, running, city council president, community, mayor, people, bills, business, school, listen, baltimore, maryland, years, election, district, coming, shannon, live
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Shannon Sneed
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home we are wn s t a 1570, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively here at beautiful failings it is the new failures in the new Lexington market. I have PacMan scratch offs in the Maryland lottery giving these away. Here all afternoon our friends at Liberty pure solutions keeping our water clean as well as Jiffy Lube, multi care put us on the road. We are going to be at Greenmount station agreement bowl on the 24th talking about horse racing in the horse racing industry. And on the 26th back here in this spot, I think through vignarajah is going to be here Sheila Dixon is gonna be joining us a little later on. But we have City Council we have councilmanic districts. I had Zach Blanchard on last week. I’m chasing Eric Costello around the fleece Porter bunch of people. But there is a big election. And Shannon Sneed is your shader. When is that big election? Let’s do election duty here. First, May
Shannon Sneed 00:51
14 is the actual election day early voting is May 2 through May 9. So early voting, you know, the polls stay open from 7am to 8pm.
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:03
I mail in or I? Well, I’m old, and my mother my mother was my mother was in 98 when she died. So I always voted with my mother because I had to take her to vote. Right? So I always voted in person because she voted in person. She died in 17. And then by the time we got to 20 and we had played going on and we moved the election. I came this close to running for mayor in that election. And I just decided Moeller talked me into it. He’s like, fill out the form, get the thing. And I had pictures of me mailing the ballot at the last election, so now I’m out in the county. Oh, I can’t I cannot vote for you. Oh, so glad
Shannon Sneed 01:43
to know that you could have voted for me.
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:46
This is your chance to convince Is he a candidate for city council president she’s run before I kid you about when the TV thing was on here. I’m like, you’ve been on television before. And I like no of you from the television industry. But you were never no reporter. Now, you were the writer,
Shannon Sneed 02:05
first producer person, I was a writer, started my career off on the assignment desk, and work my way up to producing that. I started my career Fox 35 was the first television station to hire me right out of college. And then I went to WJC for the rest of my television career, what was there over 10 years,
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:26
I’ve had you on a couple times, and I know you’ve run before, and like through keeps running. And when he comes a couple weeks, and like I wasn’t going to be that guy from like, I was gonna sign up and say, it’s a military assignment for four years for me because I have a gig, I have a life, right. And I didn’t want to be a politician. I don’t think you went into television thinking you This was where you were gonna go. And I certainly had 51 considering running, not winning, I probably wouldn’t have won. But that’s one of the reasons why they run. But there’s an ambition about all of you who run and a deep respect I have for any of you who are sitting yourself out here to do this and to try to make our city better. I’m you’re doing this right now trying to make the city better. You’re in a different place. And so that’s
Shannon Sneed 03:10
but I started because I wanted to get into broadcast because I wanted to tell the stories of people I was like I want to write I want to let people know what’s going on. And so the good, the bad and the ugly. My dream job was going to be a news director. That’s what I was working my way up to listen, went to the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, minor in Broadcast Communications, they didn’t have it. There was English. That’s why you had to have a concentration
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:35
ever wanted to be on air
Shannon Sneed 03:36
I never wanted to be. But I want it once I found out, you know, behind the scenes, absolutely. I was like the power is in being the news director that is like to really decide on because I’ve seen the news director say not not not that story, or general manager said, no, no, no. What about this? And so I early I found that like, that’s what I want to do. I want to be the news director. I want to be able to hire people. I want to make sure that we hire diverse leadership, people leadership. Yes. And so I was just doing my thing and working in my community. I was in East Baltimore cleaning up planting trees. I tell the story all the time. How when I moved on my block, and he’s Baltimore there was one
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:16
tree. Where do you live and he’s bald. Well, so no, I
Shannon Sneed 04:19
moved. I’ve since moved. I live in reservoir hill now. And so but I lived in East Baltimore, not too far from Patterson Park, right on Fayette street between El Woodman Potomac.
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:30
So I’m sort of no more
Shannon Sneed 04:32
out of the park. Yeah, well, Park Yeah. Closer to mccoughtry park at what Park is where we live. So no, I was just working in my community minding my business and you know, volunteering and Banner neighborhoods, being on a green team and a community so we planting trees and we weren’t going to say just don’t everything my community said do go to school, get a good education, come back to community and give back and so I was doing all those things. And then some ladies in the community said You’re showing up your stuff. You are amazing. We want you to run for city council president. I mean, we want you to run for city council. I was like absolutely not. Who was not a politician right? WJC has not been laid on a paycheck. No, thank you. We’ll just keep you know, doing what we’re doing
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:16
when you’re resist that you this was a 2000
Shannon Sneed 05:17
and probably 10 When they
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:22
before Trump came along, like, okay. Oh, gosh, yeah, yeah.
Shannon Sneed 05:24
And 2011 I think we had the election and I was complaining about the councilman at the time in our district. And so they were like, seriously, think about this and said No, before delegate Robin Lewis became delegate Robin Lewis, she sat me down, had a conversation with me and said, Shana, you really need to seriously think about this. And I’m still like, no, but then my husband I was complaining one day, my husband got tired of me complaining, and I guess, because he said, Are you gonna keep complaining about are you gonna do something? Now, you don’t know what hot has gone down. I am going to do something about that.
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:59
I thought it was kind of crazy when I was going to run for mayor, but she saw the problems in the city. I lived in harbor court for 19 years, right. So I lived in the 23rd floor. And you know, when you go downstairs in any direction, you’d walk was ballparks out Baltimore, up north toward the world farms through the harbor over to the East River. I looked at 1019 year so I saw changes, you know what I mean? And in seeing the changes, I wanted to act that’s what this is mean. Your guys like, Hey, you’re a sports guy. Yes, sort of was until like the baseball team suck for 25 years and get out downtown. And then I had to fight with the billionaires and own the team. Right to Try to work. You’ve been here a long time. You know what vibrant? Yep, downtown looked like a vibrant sports community. And it’s coming back a little bit. And I think a lot of things in our city are coming back. Would you agree with that?
Shannon Sneed 06:50
Oh, my goodness, I’m happy about what this sports team what we did, listen, don’t put me on the field, I will not be the guy to get you down. I’m not the sports person. But I love cheering the teams on and
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:03
so on the $1.2 billion and listen. But
Shannon Sneed 07:07
can we win, we just need to win. I would like to have a Super Bowl here. Like we were so close.
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:13
But I think the bigger picture is what it does for the community for business and supporting local business. That’s the reason we gave all this money was to make sure we have 30,000 people down here tonight instead of 10. Yes.
Shannon Sneed 07:24
And that’s the thing. I’m like, people kept saying, oh, people are not going to come into the city. And that prove Yes, people will come into the streets, people will eat in our city. Yes, people will book hotels, hotel rooms in our city. And I’m like, so stop talking bad about Baltimore City, because people are going to come and we want them to come and we’re going to encourage them to come. It’s good to see when we see our policemen and women out to help direct traffic and to move it along. Like those are all good signs that definitely Baltimore is coming back.
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:59
Alright, so Shannon Sneed for Baltimore City Council President running because she’s fed up good reason and wants to build a better Baltimore another great reason. Your first thing is honesty. When I look here, and this is a I have a 25th anniversary documentary coming out two weeks from now. And one of the issues I’ve had with the sports teams is transparency when they’re taking $600 million of public money as a private entity, but then being honest, right? In honesty in Baltimore politics, it’s like a punch line, right? And I’m going to Sheila here in a little while she’s running, we’re going to talk to her about past, present, future all of that, but you use the honesty as like a first word, I think, obviously, on purpose, what do you cut off about?
Shannon Sneed 08:43
So here’s the thing, public safety I was fed up about, but I’m glad the numbers are going down. We saw that. But the bottom line is people still don’t feel safe. People feel people are still moving in our communities. Like I need to get home before dark. Oh, I’m not going down there. And I’m like, No, we want you to go to that neighborhood. You should be okay. Staying out after dark, you should be able to sit on your porch. bed up about that education. We hear it, we see it. My daughter is in Baltimore city public school. It is personal to me, I want our schools to thrive, I want us to be successful. And people are not going to be willing to move into our communities. If they don’t feel safe. They’re not going to be willing to buy a house or rent something here. If the schools aren’t good, we’re not going to keep them. And then if you hear all this stuff going on in city government, the pay to play politicians not being honest, people just looking out for themselves. We will not gain the population that we need to gain here. And so one of the first things that I want people to know about me is that I’m someone that you can trust. I have a track record. I even go back and say listen, Tom Perez picked me as his lieutenant governor candidate. He had to go through so
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:55
much saw you Yeah, yes, Tom crabcake with us one day I had to get you on Drew? Yeah, because we were in that really weird spot. What did you learn running?
Shannon Sneed 10:04
Oh my goodness, that Tom is such a numbers guy. And so it would just be good to sit next to him and see him run the numbers in his brain and put it on paper, what I learned is that this the state is so much bigger than what we like imagine when we look at maps, right? I went to school at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. So of course, I was familiar with the Eastern Shore. But when you’re talking about going to Cabo or Maryland, when you’re talking about meeting with a Democratic Club that probably only has like five people, you really get to see how people are living, what’s going on and have those conversations. And what I’ve learned is, we’re not much different from the folks in Princeton, San and the folks in Baltimore City, we’re not much different from the folks in Baltimore County and the folks in Baltimore city that we all want good schools, we all want amenities in our communities. We all want our politicians to work for us. And so that’s another thing I’m going to segue. And that’s what made me do public financing. Because the same old folks running for office,
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:09
about when I went to run five, six years ago, everybody says you can’t win a I’m white, let’s they think I’m white. I’m actually Hispanic. But you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money. And I said, I asked people for money all I’ve sponsors, Maryland lottery, whatever. I’m going to go and ask businesses to give me money to give the Jay Z to run ads. Basically, if you’re asking for money to give to media companies, primarily primarily. And I thought when they said, Well, you can’t win cuz you don’t have any money. And I thought, well, that, that that that shouldn’t
Shannon Sneed 11:43
be the reason either reason. Exactly, exactly. And so I’m like, Listen, I am doing public financing. Because I’m sick. I’m sick of the pay to play that happens in Baltimore City, I was on the council. I was a fierce advocate to increase the minimum wage at the time. We got a lot of support from it. But then it was time for us to get elected, get into office and all the business people came across and said, No, no, no, this will be horrible for our Baltimore City and the other special interests like you can’t do this. And so we put money in your pockets. We helped you with your campaign. And the bill got vetoed. And we did so much work, we were like working hard for this build a net, let me see the firsthand, that’s pay to play just because you donate. So my campaign means that I shouldn’t sponsor good bills, I shouldn’t put in good policies, that just doesn’t make any sense. And so we’re public financing the most that one can give us $150. And you are not getting any money from any businesses, special interest unions. None of the above. It all comes from individual people. And so it’s just knocks out all this sense of I gave you $6,000 I gave my wife $6,000 to give to you and my son
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:58
32 years and I’ve had sponsors give me money and and my sales guy would say you’re not buying the editorial, your sponsorship will not decide what Nestor says about the Orioles or the ravens, or the city or Donald Trump or anyone else. So that’s sort of the first role of me doing that is you’re not going to buy my opinion. Yeah,
Shannon Sneed 13:19
we should not I mean, like you, What world are we living in? Where we don’t want people to have their own opinions? What world are we living in when we don’t want to put in good policies that will help out everyone? And that’s why I’m all my policy says policies have been good. I put in more policies than my opponents have. Listen, I’m the one who said the commissioner, the police commissioner has to live in Baltimore City. That was my bill that I put in that I got across the finish line. And so you’ve heard the police commissioner say, I don’t find a place in Baltimore City. Oh, yeah, I put it in that bill. Thank you, sir. I’m glad you’re looking for a place in Baltimore City. The other bills are put in to make sure that the mayor Cabinet members live in Baltimore City. I feel like y’all addressed that pothole that’s out there quicker if you are actually walking and living in our communities, versus coming in from 83. And coming in from the
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:04
winter. I did I had a really bad wall. And I’m like,
Shannon Sneed 14:09
yeah, it was a really bad one. It makes a difference when you are living here and you’re seeing it. It’s just not I’ll deal with them during the week. But when you have to send your kids to those public schools, when you have to walk our communities and listen and ride the bus in our community to do something about it. Having contract work was the city thought they were gonna save the dollars by having so many contract workers and security and janitorial services, we stopped that you each contract that came in, you’re firing people that doesn’t even make good business sense. And I’m not trying to tell a business what to do but what I am trying to do is make sure that we have good policies and good procedures to take care of the folks that are living here that are working here and so I’ll put in a bill to say give them 90 days most people find themselves try not coming to work try not doing a good job that’s gonna happen you won’t keep the job I don’t know of any job that you keep. If you’re not doing a good job.
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:53
Let’s track Shannon status here. She’s running for city council president were fatally doing Lexington market thing and the new market. I’m being fed up with things. So I left the city two years and two months ago, not because I was fed up at all. I mean, like literally, we lived in a building that didn’t have outdoor space. My wife wanted a garden right? One of them. And we looked everywhere to move. We wound up moving to the county, but we looked at Howard County, we looked at 20 places in the city. We weren’t. We were committed to a place we enjoyed not the city or the county and people like you left the city. I’m standing in the city right now. I’ll be here tomorrow. I’m going to the game Sunday. I’m going to city for five days a week. Well, that’s good. Well, in any way. abandon this. I’m sitting here talking to you about making the city better. I didn’t look at it as like a I got to stay in the city and put my I mean, I lost a quarter million dollars selling my place. I had a place 20 years. I sold it for less than I bought it for, like on the 23rd floor overlooking the city. Because it’s been it’s been tough. To your point do people want to live here? They want to send their kids to school here. The crime issues, the corruption issues, which we’ll always tackling for you in doing this changes that you want to make. You mentioned a couple bills you’ve smashed as City Council President where does that and I think a lot of people the county don’t understand this or the power of the mayor being pretty special in Baltimore from a vote standpoint, right, more powerful than a lot of mayors, especially
Shannon Sneed 16:19
for when you talk about the board of estimates like the city council president oversees the board of estimates. And so, and the mayor has all the power and the board of estimates. I’m like that was one of the changes that we voted for that we wanted to see. Does the mayor really need to have the DPW. And the city solicitor? We don’t need that.
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:42
Mayor Schaefer, right. These were powerplay set up years ago, that has made the mayor position extremely powerful. We’ve
Shannon Sneed 16:51
since voted for that and people were we don’t need it. We don’t need it. And how helpful is it? I feel like we should be going to the board of estimates. We want to help businesses here. Let’s go through the list and find out how many local businesses are we supporting that fix elevators? How many minority and business owned businesses? Do we have cleaning windows here? Like let’s pull let’s pull the list? How many people are we paying on time so they can stay open? You know, we know that’s a problem. Those are things that we can essentially make better as the next city council president that we know that we can do? I don’t think we need extra votes on our board of estimates. I’m just going to say that
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:28
for you with running for this decide to get in the race and a path to victory and public financing. What are what are the things you’re most upset about? What do you want to change? And how do we change crime? And how do we make schools education,
Shannon Sneed 17:39
education. So number one issue, I feel like it touches public safety on every aspect. You talk about students just being in the seats, if we can get our students to the classrooms, no matter what I don’t care, if you didn’t take a bath the night before, I don’t care if you’re dirt clerk, if your clothes are dirty, we can wash those, a lot of the schools have that. And so we need to make sure that our students get to school. That’s the number one thing because we have a lot of students that are absent, we also need to make sure that we increase our parental engagement, I’ve been saying over and over again. Let’s increase it by 20%. Let’s work on that and see how you want to do that. Well, one, we have to engage our parents, it’s not a them versus us when we can do this by disengagement. One by having parent teacher conferences between the hours of maybe three and I don’t know, seven o’clock versus three and five o’clock, most parents don’t get off of work until five o’clock, and most of our households are headed by just one person. And so that means they need to go to work and make as much money as they can that day. And then when I get off of work, have a conference or maybe we can talk on the phone shoot, we just said we’ve been meeting over zoom. And so we’re all gonna have conversations that was teachers and parents. That just doesn’t happen. And we should be thinking outside the box. We know all the students who are not going to school right now we know each and every one of them, hey, if their kids are not going to school, we need to work with parents because they immediately need to go to a some type of trade. That way we’re getting them off the streets early on, that means that you at least can at least you can take care of yourself because now you become a plumber and an electrician have that you can do something because we know who the students are. All I’m asking is that we think outside the box and we lose it as an education first piece, and then that will tackle the problem. My hope, as I told a police officer is that our kids never get to see you outside of being at a community meeting. Or maybe being at a fun thing where you attend. I don’t want your problem
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:35
in the city though.
Shannon Sneed 19:36
It is I that’s one of the bills that I passed. I was the one who worked on the trust the trust but I was the one that worked on making sure that victims of police brutality could speak out. The city solicitor at the time says Shannon that’s not a good bill. I said it’s a great bill because the more that we keep silent on this stuff, the more that stuff will keep happening. I lived in East Baltimore I seen the jump out boys we happen it happens in West Baltimore as well. And people didn’t know what we were talking about to jump out, boy, oh my God, when police officers used to jump out the car and tackle somebody, it happened all the time. They thought Freddie Gray was something new that No, no, no, no, no, this is not new. This is something that’s always happened in our community that people did not know about. But we know because we were
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:18
in the backseat of of a police vehicle tool, to we got it that victim right like rough rides, what the hell’s a rough ride? How’s where’s that the police code, you know, as I’ve tried to figure that part of it out, but I’ve been in the backseat of a cruiser lately. So
Shannon Sneed 20:31
me the but we all have in my community, we’ve heard the stories. And so it is not knowing. So that’s what I’m saying. We have to speak up about these things. Because if we don’t, they will continuously go on. And what we want to do is break the cycle of bad things happening in our communities, in our homes, at our jobs, we got to say something we got to speak out. And so that’s another part of the frustration, transparency and honesty on both ends. It’s not just something I’m saying it’s something that I live by. And so I’m like, we want to have hearings in Baltimore City, we don’t want things to come out through the media first. And that’s where a lot of our news comes out. It’s comes out in the media, it should be coming out during our hearings, we should know about certain things. Why don’t we know that? The reason we didn’t have recycling pickup is because we didn’t have GPS system on our truck. And we found out about it right before election time. Like that’s crazy. That’s something that we should be having a hearing about. Tell us what’s going on agency head telling us what you need. Why isn’t this happening? We I feel like I have more recycling than I have trash.
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:30
I left the city two years ago when all this was sort of like coming to a head. And Brandon was taken over and listen. When I whenever I branded I saw opening day, the murder number being down it that’s just such a huge number that when he got elected, I sat in the old families with all the mayoral candidates four years ago talking about that number. Is the city getting better? I mean, do you say something good about the city for me? What do you love about it? Right?
Shannon Sneed 21:56
I love that my daughter is in Baltimore City Public Schools that when I am late to pick her up, there’s a village of people who say I have her meet me at the house will be fine. It is community it’s so community everywhere. We need that. That’s that’s what’s good about the people that we trust somebody that we have a relationship with someone what’s good about the city. Another thing is that I love the fact that here in the city that we have businesses here like this, that you can come set up shop
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:27
here been here 100 years, still do your thing.
Shannon Sneed 22:30
Yeah, I mean that doors are open, and that we are ready to like work for the people, that we are ready to partner with the people. It’s just that we have some things to work on. And we need the right people and leadership. We don’t need this thing where people are just worrying about themselves and they’re not willing to work with the mayor, I say no matter who the Maryland the mayor is, as the next city council president, I’m rolling up my sleeves and working with whoever the people of Baltimore City pick. Because my priority is with the city residents and myself what we say it is, you know, and we already know we pulled a million people we pulled over and over again, with all these different polls going out. Public safety is a top concern. Trash in our city is a top concern. You know, education is a concern. pay to play is a concern. We know it, we can address it. And that was trash. For you do this. Yeah, that’s like we can hire people. But most of all, we should know as Baltimore City, like we want our city to be clean. So we just want people to do the right thing. Don’t throw it out your window, don’t throw it down around when you’re walking out. We can take care of some of this. We can like do ourselves. And then when people do the big part of dumping and a lot of that stuff, we know someone got their house dumped out we know some stuff that they dumped, don’t even it doesn’t even come from Baltimore City. It’s it comes from other areas. Those are issues that we can address. Those are but those are such low lying fruit, that if we just address those and tackle those right away, we can tackle the bigger things and the bigger issues about the environment, doing things raise the Chesapeake, those are things that we can address. But we first have to make sure that the quality of life for Baltimore City residents, that they feel protected, that they feel safe, that they’re willing to stay here that they’re willing to invest here that they’re willing to send their school students to school here, and I’m sending my precious jewel here. I’m stepping out how’s your child? She’s 770.
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:17
Man, you’re gonna get on this good seven year old you gotta be you know, you’re ambitious lady Shannon’s need Janice needs here. She’s running for Baltimore City Council President, why plan for you with being on the council and seeing for a number of years now how business is conducted here, whether it’s the council was the City Council President, the mayor, public works, I mean, all these things that prime police, our fire chief who I saw on television at 530 in the morning, I was down in Florida when the bridge went down. I mean, this last month is really and I wrote to Wes and I talked to Brandon public services like full time all night three The morning yes, your bridge collapsed. What I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. All this has happened in the last since I invited you on the show last couple weeks, you know, literally. And I city council president for you Why do you feel like that’s a spot where you can make a difference
Shannon Sneed 25:14
because it’s still dealing with policy and the things that we can change. I don’t I wouldn’t be running enough. If I thought that we had the right leadership, I wouldn’t be running. If we were doing everything that we had to do to make Baltimore city better. What I’ve seen is a lot of bickering back and forth, a lot of grandstanding. And that’s not what we need. That’s when I seen
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:32
on TV. And now that I live in a city. I see it as not dysfunctional, but certainly not cohesive.
Shannon Sneed 25:37
So when you know, you saw them on the second floor, when you saw at the hearing the housing hearing, and then they stormed the second floor and no one stood up and said not here other than Councilwoman Odette Ramos. And then they like just banging on the door. And second on the second floor. Where are you? Over a housing era? I didn’t see the council president brigands. It’s not here. We can’t do this. And when we asked Who was this, who encouraged you to go to the second floor? We we know our history. We know that folks have died in City Hall before why would you do that? That’s not leadership. That totally, that is chaos chaos. When I see that we’re not coming together, there’s no leaders to ship there to say, this is something that will divide us more than keep us together. We need that person there. We have to have that person there. And I haven’t seen I haven’t seen it. And that’s why I say I’m running for city council president. And if people are tired of the pay to play, please go to Shannon Sneed, the number for baltimore.com. And read more about me donate the most, you can donate as $150. But you can donate $5 and absolutely as a full time job. But when I was a council member, I was a full time councilman. Because I didn’t have another job. I could have many of them do. But I did not because I knew that my district needed my full attention. And I wanted to be there for every hearing. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t there in the morning heaven business meetings, I wanted to make sure that in the evening, I was in my community meeting with residents, like those things make a difference, I wanted to make sure that I was meeting with my colleagues and having relationships with them. So they understand what bills that I was working on and bringing them into the fold. And even for the ones who did not agree on the bills that we’re putting in, that we still had the relationship that we can still talk and hammer this out and come up with a good balance. Because that’s what that’s what really makes a difference. Making sure that all hands are on deck making sure that we’re having a true conversation. And making sure that everyone is involved. I don’t want people on my team who think exactly like me, who are just going to be yes, people I want to experts in the field, I want someone that’s going to be affected by the bill. I want to know all sides. And so to me, as a full time Councilwoman, I actually got to fill it, see it live in it a little bit. And that’s what we need. We need someone that’s focused again, on being the city council president and not looking to move up to Mayor, but willing to make Baltimore city better. What’s first thing you do if you get elected to make sure that the team knows that one, we’re going to work together. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not here to like stop your bills from being passed, I want to make sure that all the bills, at least have a hearing. Instead of my bills got thrown in a drawer, if I made the council president mad or he didn’t like that bill, I got thrown the new joy. That’s not a democratic society. I want to make sure that they know that we’re all on one team and when they thrive when they get the bills in and when we get all the bills in that we all look good. It’s not just one
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:26
person enough money to run the city the right way in your mind. I mean from a tax base standpoint. So
Shannon Sneed 28:31
that’s why we have hearings. And that’s why we can ask those questions to say is this program working? Does this make sense to
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:38
put money into money? I mean, literally the money’s not all right. Listen,
Shannon Sneed 28:43
we all live on a fixed budget. But can we keep the city clean? Can we do the bare basics? Yes, we do have the money to do the bare basics. We do picking up trash. We have the bare basics to pick up trash. We have the bare basics and get our recycling. We have the bare basics to make sure our kids get to school. Absolutely. We absolutely do. Do we want more? And do we want to do more? Well, yes, well, that’s going to take us growing our population.
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:04
Well, and that needs to be more attractive if people didn’t leave because I was afraid of anything here. I didn’t leave because of the time I left just because the place I’m living in just
Shannon Sneed 29:18
I wish we would have found your place. Price right. That’s what people at listen to my community as again, I was a full time Councilwoman. I did as much as I could in my district. District 13 Like Beller Edison Johns Hopkins footprint of the hospital Orangeville we were headed a little bit right on the other side of you. So I will say Beller s and but
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:45
yeah, traffic hires about that right. But
Shannon Sneed 29:49
I’m like you see your constituents when you are meeting them when they are. I went to the supermarket in my district because I knew I would see people who would never go to community meetings in my supermarket. I went to church because I knew I will be able to see I would visit different churches in my community, because I knew that I would see people who I wouldn’t see, normally they’re not coming to City Hall, sometimes some folks don’t even know to call and reach out to their council members. And so I tried to like go to where I thought people were to strike up conversations to be relaxed to have what are you seeing? What are you doing? What do we need to do better? And those things made a difference, like, Oh, she was at my church, oh, I just saw her in a supermarket, I want you to ask me questions, I want you to stop me. And that’s why I’m doing it here. Because I want it to be better. But I know that it takes all of us and it takes engage in us. And sometimes you’re not want to send me an email, you’re not gonna send me a phone call. I’m gonna go up to you and have a conversation with you and say, Hey, out, man. And what else can we do? What’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 30:41
your number one complaint you got as a council person was a crime? Was it? What was it? The
Shannon Sneed 30:45
number one probably complaint that we got all the time was more so probably trash and our community trash? Okay. That was that was the number one that the trash cans, service constituent service, right period and always know if I was doing a good job on constituent services. When we didn’t hear from the neighboring districts, if I didn’t hear from District Two, or if we didn’t hear from, I don’t know, district one. Because those were like some of my neighbors or borders, that I knew that we were doing a good job, because when we got in black, oh my gosh, the other council districts would say we take so many of your calls. I’m so glad that you do that you’re here. So that’s how we measured it. How many calls did you get zero? How many calls did you get there?
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:28
Measure by complaints
Shannon Sneed 31:29
measure by complaints and know that we’re on the right track.
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:32
Last thing for you. Youth Violence. I you know, if I had Ivan Bates here, and I’ve had them I’ve had all of you on at one point or another night. This is fun for me. I’ve enjoyed this leading up to the election. You’re one of the first conversations I’ve had, I’m getting into it a little bit because I had a little respite. I did a couple of Super Bowl, we had a football team that did pretty well that made us you know that. So but I’m tackling this over the next month, you violence and how to deal with it and what to do with a 14 year old kid that’s carjack and somebody what we do to their parents, if they if there is such a thing, my thing
Shannon Sneed 32:08
is that I don’t want it to happen at all. So that’s why I say education to me is tied into
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:12
reality. Take off. But for me it
Shannon Sneed 32:16
is because I know that it stops. I’m not the I am not the mayor, and I’m not running to be the mayor. And I’m not the state’s attorney. So for me, that is my that is education, is it because I don’t want to change in effect. That’s what I can affect. And that’s what I can change. And so I do and I’ve already told you, the more the more involved parents are in their child’s life or guardians life, certain things just don’t happen. Certain things
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:40
happen. What do we do with that child? And what do we do with that family? That’s really the issue for me. It’s saying,
Shannon Sneed 32:46
so what are you asking? Attorney and we already have? We already have? So what are you asking me? When a child commits a crime, then you have to you have to be held accountable? Perfect. Okay. Like you can’t you can’t go around knocking people in their head and thinking though, you’re going to get? Yeah, no, no, no. And so there are things that we can do. I want to work with your parents, I think the police officers in the state’s attorney should be having a conversation like right away, listen, I don’t want you to end up back here. So what do we need to permit it? What’s going on in your life is a boarding school? Do we need to look into other resources, because ultimately, I want these young people to grow up into young adults, because you don’t get the picture right now. Maybe at 13, you can’t see yourself at 25 You can’t see yourself raising a family. But we’re adults. And we know that that time we’ll get there. And if you’ve been to Joe, you’re not going to get be able to get a school loan, you won’t be able to get housing help if you happen to fall on hard times. So I want to prevent all that. So how do we do that? I think it’s one
Nestor J. Aparicio 33:47
of the punishment though. It’s more like how do we fix fix a broken soul, you know, at that age or fix a broken really, it’s, it’s broken up you and
Shannon Sneed 33:56
you and I can do it. And that’s why I say it makes a difference when parents are involved in their children’s lives. If I’m not the first role models are in your home, and then the village plays a role in it. And so that’s why it takes everybody but that’s why I’m saying from we have got we’ve tried it other ways, but we we need parents, we need the Guardians because those
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:18
parents are doing this documentary and I’m telling the story of my life and I you know, I’ve broken home and my parents were older took me in there my grandparents best friend. I I’ve never thought of a life without them. But the minute I started thinking about a life without them I think I wouldn’t have seen
Shannon Sneed 34:34
my mom was I was raised by single parent mother. My father died in a car crash. My mother still had three daughters to raise. Then my sister died. She had a hole in her heart. My mother didn’t miss a day of work. We didn’t miss a day of school, but my mother was dealing with so much grief and that’s where I get my strength from like this lady did not play and so no way the world will I was going to and I was considered like the bad one. The one who talked back the one who would have been in there like the most struggle but I just have spoken I was so clearly um, yeah, it was definitely the pushing it to the limit and so I am thankful. Oh, dad. Oh, I didn’t know what it said. Yeah, so I can
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:15
talk to you. Oh, we saw the ank in there. I don’t know.
Shannon Sneed 35:19
I’m thankful for all of my experience, but I am thankful that my mother never gave up on me. I’m thankful that the village never gave up on me. I grew up in Philadelphia, okay, I left at 17 and went to University of Maryland Eastern Shore and never came back home. I had been a Marylander since I was 17 years old. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:35
you don’t need their sports appear because it’s Philadelphia. You know? Chad states here she’s running for city council president to the website so they can find Shannon need
Shannon Sneed 35:43
the number for baltimore.com s
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:47
n e d just so you know. Like need like,
Shannon Sneed 35:51
yep, we need sneeze.
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:54
I knew you would have a slug. My first name is Nestor. My friends call me Ness. So my campaign was going to be together nests. Yeah, yes. Yes. There you go. Give give her give her a look. And yeah, it’s a pleasure to have you on. Yes. media background person. Yep. Why did you leave the media get sick of it?
Shannon Sneed 36:14
Because the general manager at the time said, Shana, you can’t do both. You got to do one or the other. And so I said she
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:21
didn’t like me either. Oh, my goodness, you knew the name the call.
Shannon Sneed 36:25
She really couldn’t stay here. Just don’t I just won’t recover any 13. District news
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:29
today really didn’t like me to last for a conference at Morgan State because he saw me. So he didn’t like that much. But that’s okay. I could tell that on the air off the air or whatever. But you know, I had a dying wife. It was a long story. But yeah, not a fan of Jay. So So yeah, he told me I had to pick one. And I was like, You know what? Got it. Good producer, boss. Well, congratulations for stepping up and trying to lead. You know, I mean, it’s up to the people. Yeah. The people you know, you’re there. You either win or you lose, but you’re
Shannon Sneed 37:05
doing it the right way and a tight race. So you know, we need for your race. Yeah, that’s a good article. And we’re in a tight race. So we need everyone to really you know, donate when Baltimore City residents donate, it does match nine to one because we’re not doing the pay to play. The other my other opponents are getting all their money from developers and opponents, I’m spending my time talking to residents and asking them to donate between $5 and $150. I respect that. Respect. Yeah, I’m not talking to and not this. anything’s wrong with business or development. It’s just that I’m spending my time talking to residents.
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:39
I think the problem with from businesses is it comes with an expectation that compromises integrity. Yeah, at the heart. The the implication that the money will buy something is a it’s a dereliction of, of the freedom in a country, right? I believe that firmly this
Shannon Sneed 37:57
is I’m hoping that more people will use public financing. We have shown that as worked. I say I made history because I was the first candidate to be a public finance candidate. And so when people the naysayers thought that it couldn’t work I have showed that it can work. We’ve raised over $300,000. That’s more than I raised in the last race. So we’ve exceeded the goal. And so I’m so happy and proud that it’s because of Baltimore City residents. 85% of our donations have come right here from individual people.
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:28
All right. Well, good luck to you. Shannon sneetches. Well, listen, if this weren’t important to me, and to people I wouldn’t have you on so I want to have everybody on. I want everybody get a fair. I believe in democracy. Yeah. Well, thank fashion. Yeah, Democrat, Republican, black, white, Hispanic, wherever you happen to be. I believe in the future of the city is going to be by people voting for the right people doing the right thing. Yeah. More I need your support. Good luck. Shanna Sneed joining us here. We’re fatally stole brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ve got your 18 years of age or older Pac Man ticket for her she can win $10,000 and have a little bit of fun second chances there. play an M D lottery.com. Download the app. Make sure you’re scanning the little scan barcode here. I’m giving these out here at Faith these will be back in two weeks. We’re going to be at Green mount station in Hampstead in Greenville bowl on the 24th we talked at the racetrack also in the city and biblic go so that’s all coming up as well. Delicious crab cakes down here and trips Alex up down before each and every Orioles game. We’ll be back here on the 26th Sheila Dixon running for mayor. She’s going to join us. I have also been joined by Luke here talking football and baseball John Allen from Charm City devils and stone horses as well as Keith Brewer from the Ravens coming on talking about my 25th anniversary documentary. Here’s the title of my documentary. No one listens. everyone hears they said I had no listeners but it’s my 32nd year. No listeners want to listen to you and they want to listen to your show. Every one years word faintly stay with us to Baltimore positive and Am 5070 Towson Baltimore
