Solving issues in District 4 with Councilman Mark Conway

There are plenty of fresh faces in local government and some are even folks who grew up elsewhere and fell in love with Baltimore. City Councilman Mark Conway tells Nestor why he got involved in local politics and what he’s trying to do to lift the 4th District and solve problems.

Nestor Aparicio interviews Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway about his involvement in local government. Conway, originally from New York, moved to Baltimore for college and fell in love with the city. He studied government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and worked in the EPA and the mayor’s office. Conway emphasizes his role in solving community issues, such as public safety, energy affordability, and job opportunities for youth. He highlights Baltimore’s progress in reducing crime and the importance of continued efforts in public safety and infrastructure development. Conway also discusses the challenges of balancing family life with public service.

• [ ] Continue working to improve public safety and reduce crime in Baltimore.
• [ ] Explore policy solutions to make energy more affordable for Baltimore residents.
• [ ] Identify and create more career and training opportunities for young people in Baltimore.
• [ ] Follow up on the status and progress of development projects like the Inner Harbor redevelopment.

Introduction and Background of Nestor Aparicio

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Maryland Lottery and GBMC as sponsors.
• He talks about his 27th anniversary celebration and the hashtag #tastyNess.
• Nestor expresses his love for Ocean City and mentions meeting local politicians and business owners.
• He introduces Mark Conway, a City Councilman from the fourth district of Baltimore City.

Mark Conway’s Journey to Baltimore

• Mark Conway shares his background, mentioning he is originally from New York City.
• He moved to Baltimore for college and fell in love with the city and his wife.
• Mark studied government, politics, and philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park.
• He worked at the EPA in Washington, D.C., and later attended the policy school at College Park.

Mark’s Career in Public Service

• Mark explains his long-standing interest in public service, which began in college.
• He discusses the importance of government regulation in everyday life.
• Nestor and Mark talk about the impact of politics on people’s quality of life and the importance of voter engagement.
• Mark emphasizes his role in solving problems for constituents, from streetlight issues to energy and water bills.

Mark’s Decision to Run for Office

• Nestor asks Mark about his decision to run for office, sharing his own experience of running for mayor.
• Mark talks about the personal sacrifices involved, including missing time with his family.
• He recounts a community meeting in Guilford that inspired him to get involved in politics.
• Mark highlights the disparities in public school conditions in wealthier neighborhoods, which motivated him to act.

Challenges and Responsibilities of a Councilman

• Nestor inquires about the responsibilities of a councilman, including writing laws and overseeing city agencies.
• Mark explains his role in passing the city budget and zoning laws.
• He discusses the importance of stability in the mayor’s office and the impact of having a supportive governor and state’s attorney.
• Mark mentions the progress made in reducing crime and the need for continued efforts in public safety and affordability.

Public Safety and Affordability Issues

• Mark highlights the importance of public safety and the work being done to address crime.
• He discusses the need for affordable energy prices and the impact of rising costs on residents.
• Mark talks about the city council’s efforts to support young people through training programs and career opportunities.
• He mentions the fire department’s Spark Camp program, which encourages young women to explore careers in firefighting.

Hope and Progress in Baltimore

• Nestor asks Mark what keeps him hopeful about Baltimore.
• Mark emphasizes the progress made in reducing crime and the importance of continuing to support neighborhoods and residents.
• He discusses the need for infrastructure investment and the challenges of raising money for projects like the Inner Harbor.
• Mark expresses his pride in the partnerships and progress being made in the city.

Personal Reflections and Future Plans

• Nestor and Mark discuss the personal sacrifices involved in public service.
• Mark shares his experiences of missing time with his family and the importance of balancing work and personal life.
• They talk about the challenges of living in Baltimore and the need for affordable housing and job opportunities.
• Mark expresses his hope for the future and his commitment to making Baltimore a better place.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

• Nestor thanks Mark for joining the show and highlights the importance of public service.
• Mark reiterates his commitment to solving problems and supporting his constituents.
• They discuss the importance of promoting positive stories about Baltimore and the need for continued progress.
• Nestor wraps up the show, mentioning upcoming guests and the ongoing celebration of his 27th anniversary.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore City Council, Mark Conway, public service, government policy, crime reduction, energy affordability, youth opportunities, community engagement, infrastructure investment, affordable housing, public safety, local government, Baltimore progress, political challenges, community issues.

SPEAKERS

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Mark Conway, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task Baltimore. We are Baltimore. Positive. I am positively here in Ocean City, Maryland. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I have the pressure Lux trying to keep the Whammy out of here in Ocean City, as well as the lucky sevens doublers. It is our 27th anniversary. We are celebrating by eating my 27 favorite foods. I’ve been doing that all over the state. The hashtag is tasty Ness, and it’s all brought to you by our friends, a curio wellness as well as GBMC, our newest sponsor. You know, I love coming out of Mako here in O city. It’s a political paradise, but it’s also like businesses, local people and local politicians and people I haven’t had on the show from the City Council I’ve been doing Baltimore positive that’s seven and a half eight years now. And some of the districts have changed over where we have different council people, people have had on people I haven’t had on former county executives. I just ran into Barry Glassman, so I like the sitting people. Mark Conway came by earlier and said, Hello, he’s in the fourth district of Baltimore City. I said, which one is that set the North one? Is it the above? Oh, dad, but sort of next. So how are you? Thanks

Mark Conway  01:07

for doing well. Thanks for having me. Yeah, great opportunity to get to know me. Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  01:12

tell me about yourself. Oh, well. What do you want to know?

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Mark Conway  01:15

I’m originally from, from New York City. I moved here for college and fell in love with Baltimore, then fell in love with my wife and started to raise a family here. I’ve got Baltimore

Nestor Aparicio  01:27

more than New York. So,

Mark Conway  01:28

me too. So far, me too. So, you know, moved here and made it my home, and I decided I wanted to be a part of the change. I wanted to be a part of making Baltimore a better place. You know, in 30 years, what did you go to school for? I went to Maryland, study government, politics and philosophy. So you

Nestor Aparicio  01:48

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went to College Park? I went to college park, yeah, okay, but set wind up in Baltimore somehow.

Mark Conway  01:52

So let’s see. Went to college park, graduated. I worked in DC at the EPA for a little bit, and I went to grad school at College Park, at the policy school, and then when I graduated policy school, I moved up to Baltimore to work in the mayor’s office. So being

Nestor Aparicio  02:07

in government was your like, sports radio was my dream.

Mark Conway  02:11

Yeah, government, yeah, public service was always in the cards for me. Yeah,

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Nestor Aparicio  02:15

you always knew you were gonna run for something. I figured that out

Mark Conway  02:19

probably at some point in in college, and in part, that’s because I realized that everything you do in some way, shape or form, is regulated by the government.

Nestor Aparicio  02:28

Talk about politics, you don’t want to talk about the quality of your life. Yeah, yeah. And that’s if you stick to sports people saying to me, that’s that gives a middle finger from me every time, because there is no such thing as and I guess that’s part of the American condition where people don’t vote. Yeah. I mean, the reason this clowns running the country right now is because we people aren’t engaged enough to vote, and the people that are voting for him are engaged in nonsense and fiction. I mean, I don’t know what else to say. Like, yeah, I’m living in the real world. I’m blown away, yeah, that this guy could get elected a second time. But it really speaks to why feet on the streets and people like you that said, Yeah, I’m into politics. I’m in the policy. I will walk whatever it is. But it’s important when egg prices go up or gas prices down, or housing

Mark Conway  03:21

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or energy prices go up, you name it.

Nestor Aparicio  03:24

These turbines out, yeah, they’re out here with

Mark Conway  03:27

with signs and all. So, you know, I think you know, the what I appreciated most about politics and policy and working in government is I’m here to solve problems, and people come to me every day with any kind, any kind of issue, hot whole street light out, or I can’t afford my water bill, or I can’t afford my energy bill, yeah, and my job is to help them figure out how to resolve those issues. Sometimes we have government programs that already exist and there’s ways to immediately support them, and sometimes we don’t, and that’s where policy comes in. That’s where writing laws and figuring out where we might intervene is my job.

Nestor Aparicio  04:00

Well, I often ask, like, a guy like you who went to school for this, get involved. I have to run for office. You can work for organization, do all that, but the running part and the part were, like, your family, because, look, I was going to run for mayor. I mean, there’s, that’s why I did this, yeah? Was my idea was, like, we need better government. Yeah, I saw the city on fire. I saw Sheila. I saw, you know, Stephanie. I saw, I just saw it all. I saw healthy Holly. I mean, all of that. I know what moved you from non politician to politician. I mean, for me, we’re seeing the fireball in the sky and Freddie Gray and just and then Trump. I mean, I’m just like, I’m not a politician, but I’m an honest that’s a citizen, and that’s all I thought at some point, truth and good people are going to have to come back into service. And I mean, I’m glad to meet more of them, but every one of you who serves in some way, I know I had to think that thing through and say, is this right for me, even in a part time basis, but I’ve been a public figure throwing. Five years, I’m like, I I’m not worried about any of that. I really want the city to be better, and that’s why I’m honored to have people I don’t live in the city. I live in the county now, but yeah, um, these are hard personal decisions. To put yourself out there.

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Mark Conway  05:11

It is, it is, and it’s a lot on my family. It’s, I can’t tell you how many, how many nights I miss getting to tuck my my girls in at night, and they’re asking where I am. They’re asking where man right now, they’re five and seven, all right, yeah, yeah. So he’s at the beach. I was just on the phone with over the conventional so, you know, it’s interesting. I’ll tell you like I said, I figured out I wanted to run at some point in college, but it didn’t really hit me until I had kids. And I remember when we bought our house up in north Baltimore, I live in Guilford now, and I was going to a community meeting that happened to be at the then Guilford Elementary. And I remember I went to that community association meeting, and the first thing that they said when we walked in was, look, guys, we have it was middle of the summer. Look, we apologize. It’s so hot in here, we have to turn on this fan, this big, massive fan that was super loud, so people had to really speak up in order to be heard. And so they’re like, look, we apologize that the fan is so loud. You have to speak loudly because we don’t have AC in the building. And like, I was like, Wow. You know, this is one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city, and we don’t have AC in the building in the public school. Second, they said, look, please, it’s a little hot in here. Don’t drink the water because the water has lead in it. And that that took me over the edge, you know, realizing that we had schools in such poor condition, and unfortunately, in in a wealthier neighborhood, just showed me that there was this big disparity that the kids that were going to that school. Weren’t the kids that lived in the neighborhood. They were the kids that lived across York Road. It just there were so many pieces to that that really spoke to me, and I felt like I needed to actually jump in and make a difference. And as a father, seeing what my children are afforded and what I would like all children be afforded, is, in part, what keeps me doing this work every day. But you know, I think, you know, I want to, I want to solve problems. That’s why I got into this work. Whether, you know, I chair the Public Safety Committee, whether it’s public safety issues and crime and issues like that, or whether or not it’s social issues and affordability and things like that, I try to step in where I can to support my

Nestor Aparicio  07:14

constituents. So fourth district, tell everybody that is unfamiliar, because Sure, time I have a politician on I’m like, All right, yeah, you’re serving a district. I mean, they’re just numbers to most people, yeah. And most people know who, maybe they don’t, who the representatives are that live in a district, but putting the face on the community and where you are, you see Guilford, oh, that’s a nice area, yeah. And then you also say, Well, you know, my wife would always say to me, we drove through Baltimore, and I was entertaining the thought of being in politics. She would always, would always go to the worst neighborhoods we drive around. She said, You get to be mayor of this too. Yeah, you know what I mean you do? Yeah, you know. And I saw the mayor a minute ago. Look, I love Baltimore, and I’m proud of all of it stands for. But I every area has its own challenges. What’s the fourth what is the district? And sure what wakes you up and keeps you up at night in your

Mark Conway  08:03

district, the broadest brush would be North Baltimore, northeast Baltimore. For those that know neighborhoods in the area, you would think of York Road split in my district in about half,

Nestor Aparicio  08:13

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channel two in your district,

Mark Conway  08:17

south of there, south of south of my district, swallow with the hollow swallow

Nestor Aparicio  08:20

center part of my district. Yeah, right, yep, heritage barbecue,

Mark Conway  08:23

yeah, yes, yeah. So

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Nestor Aparicio  08:27

Spencer, you got the African restaurants there? That’s correct. Okay, yes,

Mark Conway  08:32

that’s all my district. And so I’ve got the govans area. I’ve got really York

Nestor Aparicio  08:38

Road, former Full Tilt, or, you know, former full Hill.

Mark Conway  08:40

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I love that place. Yeah, yeah. It’s really sad to see them go. But you know it what you see in my district is York Road is a historic red line within my district, and you see some of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the west side, and neighborhoods that need much more support and help on the east side. And I find myself trying to bridge that gap and York Road, to me, should be a zipper that can bring to bring together two very different neighborhoods and a place that is inviting and supportive. But we go all the way east, we stop before we get to Morgan. I’m about a block away from Morgan in parent Parkway. But yeah, yeah. Almost Cocos, almost, almost, almost, almost invite you over there. That’s not to look. I’ll never turn down a visit to Cocos.

Nestor Aparicio  09:27

You know, I’ve had Odette in other districts next door, or whatever. So, you know, I mean, you’re here now, yeah, Mark Conway’s here. He’s fourth district Baltimore City. What is a councilman and what do you do all day? And I see these meetings in the mayor’s office, city council president Zeke’s gonna be coming by, Brandon’s coming by on a daily basis. To be a councilman means what

Mark Conway  09:51

so my job is. I’m a legislator at the local level, and so I write laws at the local level, I would say probably. The most important work that we do is around the budget. We pass the budget for the city. We also pass a lot of bills around zoning and making sure that really governing how property can be used, how property is owned across the city. We do oversight for all city agencies, so the Police Department, Department, transportation, General Services, we make sure that they actually do their work and do their work well, and so that that’s more or less what we have proximity over

Nestor Aparicio  10:31

any thoughts on Trump talking about taking over,

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Mark Conway  10:35

it’s just ridiculous. Trump. Trump is not a very smart man.

Nestor Aparicio  10:39

I don’t know.

Mark Conway  10:41

I mean, I think Baltimore has had some of the greatest improvements in crime ever,

Nestor Aparicio  10:50

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full stop, because it was bad. It was as bad as it had ever been.

Mark Conway  10:53

It was as bad as it had ever been, and it is now. It is the best it has been in a long, long time, and we still have a great deal of work to do. And I agree, we have a lot of crime that we still see throughout the city, a lot of issues that we continue to have to deal with, and we are absolutely working on that. I’m I will tell you, if you see the work that I’m doing, you know I am, I’m probably the most vocal about exactly those issues. But we don’t need the National Guard to come. We don’t. That’s just silly. We don’t need

Nestor Aparicio  11:23

political about things, what, what has improved it? I mean, make the case to the county to say, city safe. Come back. You know, don’t, yeah. I

Mark Conway  11:32

mean, yeah, I’ll tell you this. And I had this conversation earlier today. Someone asked me what, what I thought was contributing to the reduction in crime, stability, stability. I would suggest having a governor,

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Nestor Aparicio  11:46

school, getting home, jobs, pay the bills. You

Mark Conway  11:50

said this early on looking at, you know, politics and why you started to get interested in this work. I mean, we had a lot of instability within our Mayor’s office. We had five mayors four years or something like that, that that has a real it takes a real toll on our city agencies and on the city. When you’ve got a mayor changing every couple of months, it was rough for us for a while. Having stability in the mayor’s office is really, really, really important towards staying on the same path with one plan, so that you can accomplish enough of that plan to see it actually come to fruition. I think to having a state’s attorney that has been a real partner and has been really tough on crime, I think it bodes well, because folks know that they will be prosecuted, that he’s going to actually move forward

Nestor Aparicio  12:33

on told me that we sat down because he’s been so busy, I haven’t had him

Mark Conway  12:37

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on it, yeah, but I think Ivan has been doing a phenomenal job. I think having a governor, having a governor that is about Baltimore, having go cap, actually work hand in hand with us, has been really, really helpful. You can’t just throw things so the Governor’s Office of crime prevention. I’m sorry I’m guilty of that. Sometimes the people so the governor’s office often coordinates a lot of efforts around crime and prevention of crime, and they often do so with the city. And for eight years under the Hogan administration, that just didn’t happen. And so what folks forget is that we were at this low point where we are today. In about 2014 we had 201 homicides that year. I remember, I was working in city stat. I was the I was the police analyst at the time, but we didn’t have much partnership after Hogan came in. And I think it really we struggled as a city.

Nestor Aparicio  13:23

The thing I always heard was we have criminals leaving jails and coming back to their nests, basically in Baltimore, absolutely who should not be out of jail.

Mark Conway  13:31

And I will tell you, I will tell you, we need to fix that now. So I think a lot of the work that the State’s Attorneys has done to prosecute some of our most violent criminals, those folks will get out in 510, years or so, if we don’t think about how we support those, those young men and young women that are won’t be so young anymore when they come out of prison, we’re going to find those same problems in the future. So we need to be very thoughtful about the steps that we take today, so that when they come out, our returning citizens program is truly effective. But these are the long term policy things that people don’t think don’t think about. It’s very easy to throw people in jail. Well, maybe it’s not easy, but to actually help repair those people and to put them on a successful track, that’s a lot harder. So we’re gonna have to solve these problems perpetually. This work never stops. But I think, I think things are on the looking up for us as a city, and I’m really proud of the progress that we’ve made. I’m really proud of the partnership that has happened from the mayor’s office to the State’s Attorney’s Office to the governor’s office, to the federal offices, FBI, ATF so and so forth. They’ve been really, really important in making sure that we can take down some of these more violent rings within the city. So I think, you know, there’s still a lot, a lot of work to be done. We still have weaknesses in some of our juvenile systems that we need to shore up. And that’s

Nestor Aparicio  14:49

something carjacking happens, or anything violent happens in the city, and it’s a 15 year old African American theater group, and it’s caught on. Video it I look ahead. The mayor Ocean City, you’re in the incident they had here six weeks ago shows up my timeline at five o’clock in the morning. The whole world knows about it’s like, yeah, well, that happens every minute of every No, it doesn’t. That was the isolated incidents. Whatever they are, they in some ways define it. If you’re watching Fox 45 or you’re reading the Baltimore Sun now, whatever, which used to be the sun that that lead story of problems, it needs to be fought with lead that’s Baltimore positively. Lead stories of, hey, good things are happening here. Let’s talk

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Mark Conway  15:33

about those. This is the important thing. I think it’s okay to say that we’ve got issues, but we are making significant progress, and we’re doing a lot of really good things. Baltimore is not the place it was a decade ago. Due to two decades ago, we have made significant progress. It is significantly safer. We’re having more interest, more interest. We’re bringing more businesses, and we’re building an identity beyond the crime issue. We still have issues with crime. We do, but you’re not worried about your safety necessarily when you walk down the street. That’s not the case anymore. And I think that doesn’t mean that we stop the work, we continue the work. We continue to support those neighborhoods, we continue to support the people that end up in that lifestyle and help them find a better path. But I think this, this is this is why I get into the work. It’s not easy. We have to tout our wins, we have to tout our progress, and we have to be able to tell a new narrative about Baltimore. We also still have a great deal of work to do, and I think we’re well on our way to continue to do that

Nestor Aparicio  16:33

great deal of work to do. What? What’s next for you? You know, what are the three things that you’re most concerned about?

Mark Conway  16:40

So, yeah, so I’m really so I chair the Public Safety Committee. So public safety is always at the top of my mind. I’m always thinking about how I can better, improve the system, improve processes, so and so forth, in partnership with all partners on the public safety front, another major issue that I’ve been really leading into, and I think everyone’s feeling it, is affordability of energy prices. We’re seeing a lot of pressure on energy bills, and I’m trying to figure out what we can do to make sure that energy is affordable. We’re seeing within the region, more AI, more data centers and not quite enough generation. We’re also seeing significant investments in in our gas systems within the Baltimore region, and I want to make sure that we’re thinking of ways so that those investments don’t make our energy so expensive that everyday people can’t afford to cool their to cool their homes, or heat their homes, or to keep their lights on. You know, the city council had a hearing a couple months ago. I want to say this was in the dead of winter when prices increased and kind of went through the roof, and we had a number of constituents across the city saying that they had to choose between their medication and paying their their energy bills. We never want people in those situations that should not happen. And so I’m trying to think of policy solutions that can help us resolve those issues. I’m trying to figure out what we can do to make sure that we have jobs and opportunities for young people, careers, not just jobs, but careers for young people, so they see a future for themselves beyond just the you know, bagging groceries in the grocery store, and that means training. We have plenty of opportunities with with the city and the police department, the fire department. Last weekend, I went out to the fire department’s training grounds, and they had, oh, it’s called spark camp, where they had a group of young ladies, ages 614, to 16 that were learning how to be firefighters. So these these young women were using fire hoses, climb up ladders, using fire apparatus and otherwise, just to kind of see what the job is like, and see that, you know, stereotypically, we think of this as a young man’s job or man’s job. Women can do this work as well, and we want to attract them into the fire service. We want to give them an opportunity to show that this is definitely doable, doable for them, and we need them and we need them in the fire service. So trying to think of ways that we can build more pathways into careers, in sustainable options in that way. Fourth

Nestor Aparicio  19:10

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District Councilman Mark Conway joining us here for the first time, a Baltimore positive word, Ocean City. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I have the double Lucky Seven doublers. It is our 27th anniversary. Or may go down here talking policy and talking city. What makes you hopeful about the city? What is your I mean, you made a life in the city, and you’re trying to get things together. I mean, talking about crime, and it’s not sexy. But the hopeful part for me, like I lived at the harbor, one of the reasons I wanted to get in this but housing. I bought my condo for $439,000

Mark Conway  19:43

in 2003 Oh, it’s probably worth a lot more now. No, no, it’s not 23rd

Nestor Aparicio  19:48

floor at Harbor court. I sold it for $385,000.19 years later. So tell me how that happens my but my home $430,000 I lost. $50,000 being in my and I spent $250,000 improving it, yeah, back when I bought it, yeah, that, that, to me, was indicative of the city needs real help above and beyond. You know, schools and the obvious Fox 45 leads. It’s really about infrastructure investment. I’ve seen the Baltimore Peninsula show up over port Covington, and things that were getting built, and shifts and all of that. And yet I’m at the harbor, looking out the window. And when I talk to people about the harbor, people come up to me and they’re sad about it. You know, when they talk to me about it, they’re like, I went down there. There’s nothing there. At some point we didn’t get that going. We do like we do. That’s it. My at the heart of My Heart Is that thing is been dragging Dragon, Dragon. I saw a drag for five or six years before I left three years ago. We’re now a decade into. Let’s get a shovel in the ground. Let’s get a plan.

Mark Conway  20:52

Let’s go, Yeah, well, we got to raise the money. I think, I think that’s, that’s the piece that we’re at now. The council has done what it needs at this point to move forward. Now we need the money to actually execute, and I don’t know the latest on where we are in that effort. Of course, the developer, NCB is actually leading that effort. But that’s what needs to happen.

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Nestor Aparicio  21:14

Takes a long time to get things done. It does, it does with any of these things, yeah, but

Mark Conway  21:19

then at some point you want to see it happen? Yeah, I know. I know. I know, I know, I know. I don’t know if you, if you’re a big reader

Nestor Aparicio  21:27

right now today, if we go down there right now, we’d look at it and say, Come on, Nestor,

Mark Conway  21:31

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have you read abundance? I have not. Oh So, case in point of exactly the problem that you’re having. So the book talks a lot about why it takes so long to build things in America while we have a housing shortage and otherwise, and it’s because of some of, well, this is, I think, fundraising, but a lot of the sort of bureaucracy and issues that slow down development within, you know, within our country, it’s not just Baltimore. This is across the entire country. So trying to think of ways that we can speed up these processes and make it easier for folks to do development across the city is going to be one of our best opportunities to see things like the Inner Harbor be rebuilt sooner, but even have more affordable housing across the city. And I think what you’re seeing, you asked, you asked earlier. You know? What keeps you hopeful? I think having people new council. I see Councilman gray walking right past this colleague of mine on the city council, trying to solve problems. You know, we are, we are coming in, we’re asking hard questions. We’re trying to solve problems. And I think that that’s how you get better. You know, being honest about where we do have faults and being resilient, and, you know, not giving up on finding solutions to those problems. So, you know, we’ll learn a lot about the Inner Harbor. We’ll learn a lot about what it takes to get more affordable housing, just housing period, across the city, but as we can get more people in here, I think it helps with the affordability. You know, what you can make on your house in 19 years? That’s really, really tough to hear. I’d be really frustrated. If that happened to myself, whoa.

Nestor Aparicio  23:02

We couldn’t give it away. We couldn’t get anybody to walk through a 23rd floor my place was pew. I mean, when you sell it? Oh, well, I put on a market probably 1819, I got rid of in 22

Mark Conway  23:14

Oh, it’s middle pandemic. Oh, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  23:17

The real problem with constituent to constituent. The real problem was that all of the apartments that came that were luxury had a lot of things that my condo fees got it and my taxes didn’t. And also, we didn’t have windows that you we didn’t have. We didn’t have outdoor space in the building where balconies, pool, game room, fire pit, all of those things that 414 had, Nestor I didn’t have. Yeah, so it sort of made condos a little outdated. They wasn’t nearly as attractive. Yeah, to doctors. People work in the city. People want to be in the heart of the city. It was, it was very problematic. It really was, I’ll

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Mark Conway  23:56

tell you, this. Had a really good conversation with state housing about, you know, what we’re doing around vacant buildings. And I asked them a question about, you know, we have all these plans about how we want to either tear down or repair vacant buildings across the city, and we’re investing a ton of money to do so and trying to streamline those processes. But one of the questions I asked them was, what are we doing to make sure that we draw the jobs and industries for workers that can then live in those homes. Because even if we fixed up the buildings, but people don’t buy them, we’ve not solved the problem. Yeah, exactly. We got these nice, beautiful buildings with tons of space, but, but nobody there. And so we have to find a way to draw businesses here. And so we should be looking at ways to make Baltimore City as business friendly as possible, so that we’re drawing new businesses and supporting new businesses to open up here in Baltimore. So I think there’s a lot that we can do there that can help, but I think that’s, that’s that’s how we help begin to solve

Nestor Aparicio  24:54

I moved to the county out of necessity three years ago, just sort of the way it worked out. Yeah, and I could have lived anywhere we did not want to leave the city. The thing I miss the most about cities walking around and the variety of I’m trying to stay skinny on a yoga mat. Thank you. You look great, man, but, but living in the city where I live, there was something about any moment, day or night, it’s like Manhattan. He was like, All right, where are we going tonight? What are we what are we going to go out and do with our feet and walk through the harbor to East Baltimore to Paterson Park to Canton to Fells Point up, up to Mount Vernon? Wherever we were going to go? We were not Uber people. We were not cabbie people. We were walking people. Yeah, and I think that that when I talked to Megan McCorkle or people that really tried to promote people living in the city. I love Megan, that the notion of living in the city is it’s a good life to live like I lived there 20 years. I didn’t I didn’t leave because I didn’t want to be in the city. But now that I’ve left the city, I’m like, and you guys are fixing it. Dare I say I’ll be

Mark Conway  25:59

back? You know, I’m sure you will. I really buy I’m sure you will, yeah, build

Nestor Aparicio  26:04

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it bigger and better, and we all come back. That’s kind of where it is, yeah. But I didn’t leave for that reason, yeah.

Mark Conway  26:09

But Baltimore has a pull, and I, you know, you probably see this just as much as I do. People go away, they move to other cities, and they find themselves coming back to visit, and then eventually moving back here to Baltimore.

Nestor Aparicio  26:20

And I’m from out of town, because, like, we want to know what’s going on in Baltimore, because we still care about it. Yeah, that’s a Dundalk thing to ever, you know, everybody ever left undock still kind of cares, yeah, to know what’s going on in the old name, absolutely. Yeah, they’re not invested in it. But, I mean, probably 2.1 miles from your district where I live now, I’m not that far, yeah, so I’m in the city all the time, four days a week. I mean, I’m I’ll be faithless next week. I’ll be a Coco’s weekend. I mean, I’m in the city all the time, and I don’t feel that demarcation of when I’m driving down 83 and Brandon’s there or whatever, I gotta slow down before I get the Bal. But I don’t feel like there’s a difference in that, but they’re definitely psychologically for people who consider themselves Harford County people are Carroll County people that, yeah, like, go into the city as a thing. I’ve never felt that way, and I hate that there’s a perception of that. And look, 20 years of bad crime and all of that and political mismanagement will do that. But I do like the fact that people, when they come back, and I invite them back and say, you know, don’t sleep on the city absolutely, you know,

Mark Conway  27:29

you know, it’s funny you mentioned that, and it’s funny I mentioned earlier. I’m originally from New York, and so when I moved here, I didn’t, I didn’t actually know the difference between the city and the county. I didn’t. I learned that. And so what is an invisible it’s an invisible line. It means nothing to anybody else across the country, nobody knows. Nobody cares. Baltimore’s Baltimore,

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Nestor Aparicio  27:47

Baltimore City, Baltimore County, is really

Mark Conway  27:49

it’s a big, big difference. Yes, yes,

Nestor Aparicio  27:53

municipal thing that they have in most other places.

Mark Conway  27:55

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Yeah, one of the one of two independent cities

Nestor Aparicio  27:59

across the country, every city is a part of a county. Yes, we are the

Mark Conway  28:03

only one. So you know, for instance, this I’m at Mako Maryland Association counties because Baltimore City is a county, but I also sit on MML, the Maryland Municipal League, because we’re a city, we’re city in a county. And so it puts us in a pretty interesting position. I won’t bore you with all the details on what that means for tax revenue and support for infrastructure. Through the city, but, you know, I think it gives us maybe some additional opportunities we can we’re able to speak for ourselves in many instances, but it also limits us in our ability to raise money, and so our tax revenue is hampered in part because we are an independent,

Nestor Aparicio  28:38

well, city, let’s cut through all the bullshit here. I mean, the reason Trump could take over DC is they don’t have a golfer. Yeah, right. I mean, there’s nobody to come defend this. Yeah, pretty much unconstitutional act, you know, whatever, whatever you would call illicit mafia act, whatever it is that, if he comes and tries to take Baltimore,

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Mark Conway  29:00

I’m gonna say there’ll be other things we all know why he’s doing this.

Nestor Aparicio  29:05

Let’s color your skin in the color mind as well.

Mark Conway  29:08

There’s that, there’s that, there’s also he doesn’t want the Epstein files to come out. Of course, he’s trying to distract from the Epstein files, which, you know, I hate to go down that rabbit hole, but anything to distract from that. So I think hopefully this doesn’t turn into something else, and hopefully we don’t have to deal with that here in Baltimore. Certainly I don’t think it’s necessary. I think we’re making significant progress, and I’m really, really, I mean, really, really proud. And I tell the police department every day, I tell monsie Every day, anytime I see them, how proud I am of the progress that we’ve made. But we should not rest on our laurels. We are not done. We’re not done. We still have a lot of work to do here, and people are really counting on us not to just get to where we were in the past, but get well beyond that. We want to be the greatest city in America, and in order to do that, we can’t just. Get to where we were in 2014 we got to get beyond

Nestor Aparicio  30:02

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that. Well, we got crab cakes. And they don’t

Mark Conway  30:06

that, see, I’m saying, come get a crab cake. Oh, I would love to do that. Appreciate you, Nestor, before

Nestor Aparicio  30:13

I came up, introduced himself earlier, we just met. But it’s, it ain’t over. Well, I gotta find the right crab cake in your day. I will. I don’t know. I’m trying to, like, get the my bearings about where exactly I want to take but swallow the hollows yours, right? Yes.

Mark Conway  30:28

How is mine? Yeah. I’m just thinking, you know, we can hit swallow the hollow anytime. I’m just anytime. Where

Nestor Aparicio  30:34

else we got crab cakes up in your district, but everywhere, probably every street. We’re down here at Ocean City, Maryland got crab cakes down here as well. We’ve had the mayor on. We’ve had Tom perlas. We got so many we have four county executives coming on, State Senator. We have our United States Senator, Chris Van Hollen coming by. So lots and lots of things happening here. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery, in conjunction with our newest partners at GBMC, almost in your district. What you go. We’ll be back in Ocean City here doing it the next couple of days, if you’re listening on AM 1570 and of course, we are eating our 27 favorite things to eat, including today’s Fisher’s popcorn. Because I’m in Ocean City, I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 task Baltimore. Stick with us. We’re in Ocean City, but I’m not getting a tan. You.