You have seen the ads and signs of the Independent candidate raised in Cherry Hill who is running against Brandon Scott this month in Baltimore City. Now, hear his journey in business and education that led him back home to run for office.
Speaker 0 (0s): Welcome back w N S T tasks. Baltimore and Baltimore Positive. We are stepping up here with all of our local sponsors, including our friends at the Taharka, where the caramel crunch happens with that chocolate covered honey comb, tophi. Yeah. It’s as good as it sounds. Maiden Baltimore it’s the Harker and made with love, hear and serving up social change as well. We talking to Shawn and all the folks from Darcie Euro Baltimore Positive as well as our friends and families, we were trying to get together with all of our guests, either at faith.
These were at state fair, over crab cake, or some shrimp and grits and chicken and waffles, a club sandwich. It’s been tough in the era of COVID, but we’re hoping to get back to that very, very soon, we’ll be over at state fair, where they’re opening El Guapo across the street for our case to DIA. And of course fade these. You can ship those crab cakes anywhere in the world. One click away on the website. Also one click away from great representation and selling homes. I just saw my Facebook, Jeff Mueller just listed a home in Severn. So I see them now on video, you go to bowler and Kerry Realty and learn more about all that they’re doing there.
And of course, Jeff mole was proud. Dad, Don Moeller will tell you more about that. Don, I’m going to let you do the honors. Cause we it’s been a little while since we’ve we do a lot of election. We do a lot of public policy. We do authors, but we have a real Mayoral candidate here, which is the first time we’ve had this and a couple of months, right?
Speaker 1 (1m 23s): Shelly is going to be an election and Nestor. Before I introduce our esteemed guests, I wanted to tell you that over the weekend, I was talking with some friends and they said to me, I was a little skeptical. They said is that is that dark
Speaker 0 (1m 36s): Ice cream really is good. Yes, Sam. I said, guys, I hate to tell you this. It might even be better nester. I had the pistachio the other night and I’m a honey Graham guy, but the pistachio who’s moved to Frontica I don’t know. It’s probably seasonal for me. Eggnog is coming soon. That’ll talk to me.
Speaker 1 (1m 54s): I bet Bob’s familiar with dark ice cream and is our pleasure to welcome in Independent candidate for the mayor of Baltimore Baltimore businessman, Bob Wallace Bob Hill
Speaker 0 (2m 5s): Baltimore Positive. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (2m 8s): Thank you. This is great to be here. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (2m 10s): Bob, for A for you and running for mayor and putting an idea together. I don’t think it’s any secret that I entertain the idea of poor Don molar read through 40 pages of texts then, and a plan that I had that it’s still a only my wife had Don bowler myself at red. You know, I pulled back when Brandon one, I believe that Sheila would have made it interesting for lots of people. A. I want to give you all the options in the world, because I think when you put yourself into this space to run and put yourself out there and you’re successful businessman, you didn’t have to run for mayor.
Ah, and you’ve put this side of your life together to do this. And I have incredible respect for what an undertaking it is.
Speaker 1 (2m 53s): It’s been, it’s been a journey. I mean, I’m A, as you know, I’m from Baltimore born and raised cherry Hill
Speaker 2 (3m 1s): And went to Cherry Hill elementary Cherry Hill middle school and then the poly, the poly high school. So, so my, my roots are here in Baltimore. I love this city. I love what it has done for me, how it has helped me, but I must, I must tell you I’m disappointed in the direction that we’ve been going in the last couple of years. And you know, I moved my company from Columbia to downtown Baltimore in 2005. I’ve been here as far as my company and living here since 2005.
And I can tell you it’s been difficult from a business perspective because when I moved from Columbia to downtown Baltimore, we’ve had all the challenges that businesses and people face in Baltimore city. We’ve had employees who were, who are jacked at gunpoint, broad daylight. I caused a broken into almost every day. We have the homeless issue to deal with. We’ve got customers who are afraid to come to the city to visit with us. And it’s difficult for me to attract engineers and scientists to my company because they’re afraid of Baltimore city.
So, so you look at these trends that we’re facing as a city. And I just said, you know what? This is, we’re going in the wrong direction. And so what has to change? And I think their first thought is we’ve got to change the leadership change to the leadership in the city.
Speaker 0 (4m 22s): Well, for anybody to hear our voice. And Baltimore Positive, you are echoing the phone call I made to Don molar, literally when Don was running Baltimore County, literally two years ago this week, I think when he showed up at the Ravens game and we’ve been sitting together as the County executive used to it, to be my buddy from Gainesville. And I said to him, and you know, Don, you would agree. There were less people at the games you were coming downtown. And that’s where the whole conversation began to take a sports guy and make a voice and say, we’re all in this together, right?
Speaker 2 (4m 53s): Yes. So, so as far as I’m understanding, we are, we are all in this together and that’s why, you know, me as a non-politician in and as a business executive, you know, I felt compelled. I felt compelled to make this move to, to, to get our s**t, our city, another option for leadership than the traditional option. I mean, if you look at our leadership, Nestor and Don over the last couple of, couple of decades, it’s been a pattern that has evolved, you know, have a city council and in city council, president, and then coronation is mayor, and we’ve done this numerous times.
We did it. We did it with Sheila. We did it with Stephanie Rollins, Blake, you know, Jack was in the city council, city council, president. And now, now mayor, we kind of skipped Cathy Pugh a little bit, but she was still a career politician. And so we look at this pattern,
Speaker 0 (5m 46s): Well, she was a criminal. Let’s call it. I mean, I don’t have any problem calling for him.
Speaker 2 (5m 50s): I hear you. I Hill, I’m being, I’m being a little more gracious, but your point is valid Nestor. I can not deny that. And so w what, we have this pattern of leadership in our city and we see what we’ve gotten from it. And so folks, I just ask you, you know, if you always do what you’ve always done, then you always get what you’ve always gotten. And so I look at this as a, as a, as an entrepreneur, a businessman, I said, wait a minute, this pattern does not work. Is my daddy used to say this dog don’t hunt.
And so we need to change and go in different directions as a city. If we’re going to go in a better direction and become as I call it, Baltimore two point, Oh,
Speaker 1 (6m 32s): Well, well, Bob picking up on that, let’s first start with, and I think it’s no secret. When Nestor talked about wanting to run, he’s been pretty public that I kept saying to him, Nestor, it’s not a good idea. You’re not going to win. I wasn’t a fan of nester running. That’s never stopped. Nastor from doing is not going to stop me. Trust me in his life. It wasn’t going to stop me for running was me. And Brandon winning by enough.
That led me to believe that I couldn’t win because I wasn’t going to run to be a clown. I was going to run the win. So, so knowing that I had advised an astronaut to run, I didn’t think it was a good idea, knowing that he was likely to ignore me. I’ll ask you the same question, but I asked him, what’s your path to victory because I think that’s, I think when people look at it, elective racist, they want to know who’s a viable candidate, and we’ve never had a situation in Baltimore city where an Independent candidate has been able really to gather any amount of votes.
So talk to me about you and your inner circle and what you see as a path to victory. How are you going to make this happen?
Speaker 2 (7m 41s): Great question, Don. So, so Don, let me start first with the petition process. So as you know, to get on the ballot as an Independent, you’ve got to A, you got to capture so many number of, of partitions that people voters, registered, voters who will sign a petition to allow you to be on the ballot. I will tell you Don, that, that, that we, we are captured more than four times the requirement that the state or the city be,
Speaker 1 (8m 8s): Why was 3,981 at the time?
Speaker 2 (8m 11s): Yeah. At the time, then they drafted down to a different number nifter so it was like four times, like was 2000 and some change on that with the new law. That, that, that, that was changed. So we, we came in with over four times that, and I will tell you that the feedback we got from the people that were signing petitions is that it’s time for change and Baltimore city and the Wallace, you might be that change. So I’ve thought with that, Don, the second thing, I’ll start with his timing. You and I, we all know that that idea is good ideas and direction.
It’s all about timing. You could have a great idea what a great plan, but if the timing is not right, it will not work. I’m suggesting to you that the timing in Baltimore city is such that the people, the city is saying, you know what enough is enough. We cannot keep going in this direction. And so the timing is, is that we’re building this coalition. I call it the ascended call the coalition of youth Sunday. And it consists of Democrats, Republicans, independents on affiliates, blue collar workers, all the people who share one mission and one vision.
And that is that Baltimore is going in the wrong direction that our leadership has failed us. And that we need to get new leadership with a new direction. And that’s the common bond that, that, that, that built his coalition together. And Don, I’m telling you, we’re about we’re out in the neighborhoods. We’re doing, we’re walking, walking with Wallace campaign. We’re walking to all 32 zip codes in Baltimore city. And I can tell you almost a hundred percent of the people that we’re meeting in the neighborhoods. Number one, Dawn, they know who I am. Oh, you bought Wallace. Yeah, I know.
I know who you are and they, and they’re saying I’m a Democrat, but I’m voting for you because we need change and our city. And so Don did the path to victory for us. It’s very clear. Number one is we’ve got to win the Democrats to win, to win this thing. So Brandon, Scott got 20 to 9% of the democratic primary. That means that 70 A 71% of the Democrats chose someone else
Speaker 1 (10m 11s): Sounds like me, Don. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that pitch from Nestor, from his house.
Speaker 2 (10m 17s): Yeah, Don. And so I think the support is very, very soft. And I think that, again, timing people saying, wait a minute, we’ve had decades of this leadership. This is the resolve that we’ve gotten. Let’s try something else. Let’s give a different person, a different approach who has different leadership qualities to help lead our city. Okay.
Speaker 1 (10m 36s): Okay. Well, let’s let, let me, let me, let me stop you there because I think, I think that part, that passion, the commitment comes through loud and clear the idea that look, guys, we’ve tried all this before. Same old, same old. Let’s try something else. So, so I’ve got the message of, we’ve got to try something else. Now let’s, let’s get specific. Let’s get Bob Wallace specific here. Not long ago, we interviewed former mayor, president of the university of Baltimore Kurt Schmoke yes. And the mayor said he, bottom line did.
He said, he said, Don master is the bottom line. Anybody is going to be mayor. It still remains in Baltimore. What it was when I was mayor it’s crime and grime. So let’s start, you’ve alluded to it in your opening about the challenge. You have getting folks to come down to your business. So let’s start with number one. Let’s start with crime. What is Bob Wallace du to get this thing turned around? Because I think we all agree. Yes. It can’t go on the way it is.
So tell me what Bob Wallace his mayor does to make Baltimore safer
Speaker 2 (11m 43s): As a great question, Don. And you’re right. It is number one, because if we don’t fix the crime issue, then nothing else manage businesses, leave company families leave. We become a shell of a city. So my approach to crime is this. And it’s kind of based upon Don, not only what the experts are telling me, but also my personal experience being raised in cherry Hill and projects. I know about crime. I know about violence on a personal level. My wife’s family has lost my mother. My mother would have lost four for nine children in East.
Baltimore right. Some to violence, some to drugs, but some to that whole, that whole, that whole underground economy. Right? So I understand this. So as to my approach is twofold. Number one is A is the immediate crisis of the, of the, the, the, the violence that is taking over our city. And the other one is more of a systemic approach to how do we change the system, such that out our young people are making better decisions with their lives. Let’s take the crisis situation. The Christ situation is this.
We know that the there’s a very small percent of the population that is committing these crimes, these violent gun oriented crimes. These trigger pull us as we call them. We know who they are and we know where they live. So my plan is this number one, people asked me what I, what would I do with commissioner Harrington? The current current commissioner, my plan is to keep the current commissioner and work with him to implement his plan.
Speaker 3 (13m 11s): So Michael Harrison, Michael Harrison has job security and they begin
Speaker 2 (13m 14s): Under mayor Bob Wallace. Yes, he does. And here’s why I done that. We’d had this revolving door process for our police commissioners. I make, we’ve had like four commissioners in the last five years. This is crazy. We’re never going to get any kind of momentum if we keep changing that leadership. So obviously enough off his plan would that I’m saying, okay, I think this is a reasonable plan. I think that with the proper resources and focus, let’s let this plan work and work out. And I will support him in that regard. Now I will, I will validate the results and I will look at the progression and then I’ll make an assessment at that point.
But I’m not interested in bringing in a new commissioner right out the gate here is that after number one, number two, focusing on the repeat offenders and our city. We know who they are. We know where they live. So, so, so, so I have ABC approach to this crime issue. Number one is A you abstain from the behavior that is unacceptable in our society. And one of and B says, I’m going to bring to bear resources, wraparound resources, to help you young men, and is mostly young men and is mostly
Speaker 3 (14m 22s): Young African American men. Let’s be real about it.
Speaker 2 (14m 24s): I’m going to bring you wraparound resources, such as job, job enhancement, skill enhancement, workforce development, mental illness, support, home, home stability, all the things that might help you, sir, or ma’am to make the right decision. Okay. Now S a and B. Now C is consequences. So if I F I F I tell you to abstain and I bring to the table to help you. Cause I’m not trying to criminalize anyone, right.
Or a community as an African American man. I’m very sensitive to, to, to the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community. However, this behavior, certain behavior that as mayor, I will not accept. And one of them is putting at, putting in danger, harming any of our citizens. So there’s so serious consequences. So if I bring two resources to bear, to, to help you make a better choice, and then you still decide to take a gun and take someone’s life. What injure any of my citizens?
You will be held accountable. That means I will get you arrested. I will put you process you through the system. And I will get you out of the neighborhoods that you are putting at risk, right? And that’s not, I’m not criminalizing anything here. I’m saying that anyone and is the very small group who makes it decision to take a gun and to hurt any citizen in the city. They will have to do the consequences of that, right? So that’s the upfront piece. The longer term piece guys is we have to change the system of law enforcement.
So they talk about defunding the police. Well, I think that’s a bad terminology. I don’t think they mean that by just getting rid of police. That’s a silly, but I am open and interested and relooking and repurposing. And re-imagining how we do public safety. Next year, we’re going to spend between $550 million for public safety in Baltimore city, we spend more on public safety than we do on public education. So given the money, the money that we’re spending guys, all I’m saying is let’s look at the outcomes that we achieving with that investment.
As any executive, we do look at what am I spending? What am I getting out of it? Does it match? Does it map up? If it doesn’t map up, then I’m saying, wait a minute, time out, let’s reimagine this. How are you going to spend this money to get better results? That may mean that we take some resources and put them towards homeless issues or mental illness issues. We are, we are asking our police officers guys to do too much, that they would never train four and never intended to do.
But every time there’s an issue in the city who do we call? We call the police. And then these men and women are put in a bad position where they have to make a split second decision. And sometimes it goes bad. Sometimes it goes wrong. That does not mean we don’t hold police accountable. We do, I will hold them accountable because they are professionals. This is you and our professionals. I’m an engineer. That’s my background. I’m held accountable to my decisions as an engineer, socially, a police officer. But given that we’re asking our officer’s to do things they would not train to do.
And so we have to rethink Don and nifter how we do this, how we re engineered to get better.
Speaker 1 (17m 36s): Well, I w I wanted to pick up on that, Bob, because in your response, you then touched on another issue that the next mayor is going to have to deal with right out of the gate. And that’s the whole issue of police reform and nester. And I have had a multitude of guests from the academic world to the practitioner’s to, to elected officials. And as you indicated, it seems to me that we’re capable of holding two thoughts at the same time.
In other words, we need police protection in our community. If you’re going to go out there and assault police officers, and in danger police officers who try to protect you, you’re a thug. You need to be brought to justice at the same time. There’s another thought that says there’s been an element of systemic racism in our police departments across the United States of America, black men and women have often felt hunted on the streets of the United States of America. And we can’t tolerate that.
Both of those things can be true. What is Bob Wallace do to deal with the FOP and the entire police reform issue?
Speaker 2 (18m 49s): Yeah. Donna, that’s a great question, Don. So, so let me just start with perspective. So, so as a young boy in Baltimore in Cherry, Hill, I’d been on both sides of the police, right? And I’m familiar. I remember in 1968, the riots of 1968, I can remember that and I can remember the police coming through our neighborhood and not showing us respect. So that was kind of the relationship that we had at the same time. I also remember that the police athletic league, where we had police officers, who were our coaches on our teams, who were walking the streets, who knew our parents a**l, and they built this relationship with the city.
So I think Don that’d relationship has to, has to be built between the city and the, the community and the police officers. Here’s our reality as mayor, I represent the people, the citizens of the city, and I represent the police officers. So my job as mayor is to figure out how do I represent the interests of these two entities who are, who are interdependent in their success. In other words, if we want public safety, the police need the community and the community needs to police.
So we got to figure out how do we build this trust between those two? And I tell you Don, one key area that I fought this on is, is, is any area of a witness protection. And I’ll tell you why, because I know when I was coming up in the neighborhood, whenever crime was committed, the people in the neighborhood knew exactly who to corporate was. They knew who they, who the person was, but they did not trust the police to share that information, to put that person under arrest.
If we can rebuild the trust between the police and the community and looking at the witness protection program, for example, as one of the specific objects, we would have so much intelligence that the officers would be able to obtain to them so that they could close these cases and get the repeat offenders off the street. I was reading some record, Don. The data said that like 70 something percent of, of cases are not solved. So if I’m, if I’m a criminal, I’m looking at gee, I can a pretty good chance if I commit a crime that I’m not going to do any time.
Well, that has to change. And I think maybe we do that is through the witness protection program being four to five so that the people in the neighborhoods feel comfortable talking to the police,
Speaker 1 (21m 15s): Cut Nestor. I can see Nestor’s head. It starts to explode when you use that stat because every time we’ve been together and we like to do these in the past pre pandemic, we were actually all in the same room.
Speaker 0 (21m 28s): And then someone would point out that 70 to 80% of the crimes in Baltimore city go unsolved. And, and it doesn’t even compute Nestor right in your County. I live here to Bob, you know, I live at the Harbor and all of this was born out of all that you’ve seen and thinking that something could happen to me, my wife, a loved one, a neighbor, and there’s, you know, there’s a three out of 10 chance. They might find the person. And then that person might do time to might come back out on the streets and do a chat, right?
And, and that’s, that’s disappointing. It can never be acceptable, you know, for any of us and for you. And I had heard your name the last year and a half ever since I started thinking about doing this and you’ve done the thing and I have a great admiration for what you’re attempting to do here. And I certainly want to give you airtime on this. I didn’t know a lot about you. People could say Bob Wallace is going to rub up. Everybody told me that. Right? Tell me about your company, your background. I mean, I’ve done some, you know, rudimentary research on you, but I haven’t heard your story in your own terms other than coming from Cherry Hill how does a kid in 68 from Cherry Hill come from there to moving a company in 2005 into the city.
Speaker 2 (22m 38s): That’s a great question now. And this is one that I hope as mayor to institutionalize, to make this path available to many young, young people who were just like me, who started in poverty, but wanting a better life. So, so, so I was, I had great parents. First of all, mom and daddy, my mama was a janitor. My dad was a laborer. I will also tell you about mama. Mama. Mama was also a recovering alcoholic. Now, I don’t know if you guys, if you two know no any alcoholics or
Speaker 0 (23m 6s): I had two parents to buried them both, but they were alcohol.
Speaker 1 (23m 9s): And, and, and, and it’s amazing. Here we go, guys. And my dad was an alcoholic. So it’s just shows you how whites.
Speaker 2 (23m 18s): Amen. Amen guys. It really is. And it was tough for us because my older brothers went to Vietnam and became Korean military guys. And I was the first child nester to go to college and didn’t go into the war. So I was no different. Cause my dad saw something that he said, no, you’re not going to military. You’re going to, you’re going to college. And you’re going to Polly. Cause Paula, at times all boys school, it was kind of a nerdy school. So I didn’t want to be a nerd.
Speaker 0 (23m 42s): You took right at you. You, you know, you became an engineer. Scott when they sent me to Dundalk, nobody thought I was gonna grow up to be an hour, go engineer, cobble fame. You know what I mean? I got that going on. We can go on and on.
Speaker 2 (24m 9s): Is it to your point to me things, mom and daddy taught us. They taught us about the power of hard work, the importance of education and the criticality of faith in God, right? Those three things. And for those three things, my brothers and I were able to, to get a path out of poverty, into our Hill. My brothers became a steam career and military men, my younger brother now, and went to college, became engineers. And so that’s the basis of success in any society, especially in America. So the key is how do we now, how do I, as mayor given the path that I’ve seen?
So from there, from Polly, I went to UPNs to study mechanical engineering. I met my wife there at U Penn. She is studying biomedical engineering, cheese steaks, and pretzels, all this, right? You got to buy this, right. It kept me going
Speaker 0 (24m 56s): Right off the train. You’re right there. It’s Jesus Franklin field. I know where you are.
Speaker 2 (24m 59s): That’s right. So I met my bride. We got married after college. So I have raised in the family. So we have five kids, five grandkids, and an eight grandkids, four granddaughters and four grandsons. So when I came back to Baltimore after graduate schools, I went to U Penn, undergrad, and the Dartmouth for my MBA for graduate school. After Dartmouth, I came back to Baltimore in 1984 because my parents were getting older. They were having some health issues and I wanted to support them. And they’ve passed since that time. But that’s why I came back to Baltimore.
But now I’ve been here since A 84, I started my first business is next to and information technology. So we’re like in cyber and biometrics, software engineering type work started an energy company. About 10 years ago, we do law scale, solar, battery engineering, micro grid engineering. And our I’ve also written eight books on entrepreneurship and, and, and urban economic development. So, so I’ve done a lot of things. Mr. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve been blessed. I’ve traveled the world. I met with Kings and Queens and presidents of countries.
We do mission work and over in Africa and Latin America, we build orphanages, churches, schools, water systems. So God’s been good to me. And I’ve been able to try to give back as I have lived. So what back to Baltimore? So this is one of the reasons I’m running this too, for me, because I wanted to give back. I’m like a boomerang kid, right? I want his kids who went away to, to edit, just to get educated and get experiences and meet people do have relationships, but I’ve come back now on the Baltimore. And I wanted to bring all the experience I’ve I’ve, I’ve been blessed with and relationships to help rebuild out city.
And as, and that’s what I think is important right now,
Speaker 0 (26m 38s): Bob, uniquely
Speaker 2 (26m 42s): As a businessman, I, someone who has traveled
Speaker 1 (26m 44s): The world who’s started businesses, grown businesses, multiplied businesses, whoever ends up in that office at city hall. Yes, sir is going to inherit a fiscal situation. That really is unprecedented as a result of COVID. I saw recently that the estimates now range that as many as 60 to 70% of Baltimore city restaurants may never return to may never return.
I just saw an economic report this morning that whoever ends up being president of the United States on January 20th will likely face one of the most severe economic downturns in the history of the nation. So whoever the mayor is, is going to have to face the economic realities of declining revenue from COVID. Yes, sir. Then perhaps running straight on into the headwind winds of a national recession. What does Bob Wallace du to get his hands on the finances and figure all of this out?
Speaker 2 (27m 55s): A great question, Don and Don and gone left. I can tell you, I couldn’t have picked a more challenging time to be mayor of Baltimore city for the reasons Don you shared. I mean, this is going to be unprecedented. And that’s why I feel that the next mayor, nice to have the experience of managing through crises, the experience of being able to, to, to, to build relationships outside of Baltimore city at the state level, at the federal level and even internationally, right, is that that man or woman needs to be able to have to pull together the best minds and execute on policy and strategy.
That’s why I think of all the candidates, I’m the best, best one, best qualified to do just that. So what’d we do Don number one, when I’m going to do is that my first 100 days in the office, I’m going to conduct a forensic audit of all city agencies, because
Speaker 1 (28m 51s): I tell people what that means. Bob count the money from Dundalk would get elected. Bob, I can count the money.
Speaker 2 (29m 5s): Is there a third outside party, Don to come in and do an audit, a weight, a money is coming in, how it’s being spent. And if there’s any leakage of those of those funds and where that leakage or is occurring. Because I wanted to know as may, I’m starting out. I want to know what am I working with here? And what are the what’s the good, the bad and the ugly. The second thing we have to do is we have to build relationships with the governor at the governor’s level and at the, at the, at the federal level. And it doesn’t matter, Don, and as to who’s in the white house, whether it’s Trump or Biden better be whoever’s there.
I hear you brother, but we’ve got to figure out whoever, whoever in there I’ve got as mayor, I have to put the needs of my citizens first and humble myself, whatever that may mean and deal with the person in the white house to help our city. And then the other area is internationally. I’ve been blessed to have traveled internationally. I’ve read our relationships in many countries in the world. I can tell you that there is capital in different countries looking to invest in the us, despite all our challenges and all our issues as a nation, we are still the best destination point for investment capital.
And so part of my job as mayor will be to get my Outfest share that foreign capital to invest in Baltimore. And if you look at Baltimore as a city, we’ve got some, we’ve got great DNA guys. We got a strong bones, we got great neighborhoods. I’m walking through them now and meet new people. We have wonderful institutions, Johns Hopkins, Morgan, state, university, and university of Maryland. We’ve got one of the best cost of living cities on the East coast. Think about that compared to New York or Boston or even Philly. We’ve got this port one of the best ports on the Eastern seaboard.
We got all these great DNA, these great bones. What we’ve been missing is the leadership to pull it together. So we get the right person in city hall with the right team and right plan. We can pull this together, but it’s going to be hard gone. Like you’re saying, it’s gonna be very difficult
Speaker 1 (31m 7s): Speaking online. Wallace for mayoral.com. If you want to learn about Bob Wallace, he is running as an Independent. You know, I am a, you know, as I said, just, I tip my cap to you, you know, as a, as a civic leader and as a Baltimore. And is somebody trying to do is go ahead, Don. No, I was just going to say Bob, but by all accounts come Baltimore city in the census is going to come in under 600,000. So as part of this forensic audit, I go back years ago, there are other cities that have turned the corner nester, and I, for all the reasons you’ve outlined are bullish on Baltimore.
We believe Baltimore his best days are still in front of it. And it is a great city and it can be better. But my question for you is years back, they being, for example, in Detroit, talked about shrinking Detroit to make it stronger that you had to really downsize it in a sense in terms of its expanse, our ideas like that on the table. In other words, Baltimore for years had well over a million people. Now it’s down to half for that.
Do we need to take a real look at what Baltimore ought to look like and what services we need to make it truly a highly functioning city
Speaker 2 (32m 28s): Absolutely done. I think that’s a very, very key point. So, so, so my interest is so the size of the city is not necessarily the outcome that I’m going to focus on. What I will focus is the quality of the city, because I believe that if we build, if we deal with the root issues of our city and we deal with the quality, the crime, the crime education, that then growth will be an outcome of us making the right investments. Another area Don, that I’m going to focus on, which is not very popular is the text, the tax situation, our property taxes in Baltimore city, as you guys know, is double that of the surrounding counties.
Now, if I’m an investor, they have capital and businesses and I wanted to place them somewhere. Am I going to come to Baltimore?
Speaker 1 (33m 13s): It’s crippling, it’s a nonstarter. It literally is an OnStar.
Speaker 2 (33m 17s): Yeah, it’s a nonstarter. It really, really is. I mean, you got guys like me who has eight and city for 15 years, but the businesses, because I love the city, but most business people will look at those numbers and say, Whoa, that dog don’t hunt. And then they’ll move someplace else. So,
Speaker 1 (33m 31s): And you and I have many, many friends and associates,
Speaker 2 (33m 33s): So you’ve done that. Yeah, we have nested very, very true. And there are some, there is some businesses now who have told me, Bob, we have one foot out the door in Baltimore city. And depending on the selection, we’re going to say, what are we going to do?
Speaker 1 (33m 47s): Well, County executive, your, you and everyone in your seat was, was, you know, that that’s the pitch, right? That’s the pitch. Well, I was going to say that Nestor. It, it, it was a really complicated situation. It’s, it’s a wonderful discussion because we really did bend over backwards. And I think everyone, the business community recognized this we’ve bent over backwards to not raid Baltimore city businesses.
We did not want to benefit by taking businesses from the city. Now folks were relocating from outside of the area. Then we’d go toe to toe with the city and try to sell Baltimore County. But I will tell you that it got increasingly more difficult as companies continued to approach Don, I live next store to a hole. That’s now a tower that was McCormick spice when I was a boy. Right, right. I would come down here and you know, the McCormick spice company was at the Harbor and somehow they’re around Schwann road now.
Right. And obviously the expanse, you know, changes Underarmour came here, right? So, you know, we seen, we need under Armour to thrive and succeed and remain here and, and thrive in port Covington. So Bob, that gets us nesters, questionnaires that jumping off point, you’re an economic development guy. Come on. That’s been your whole life. What are you going to do to breathe new life into the businesses in the city? Because that’s, that’s, Nestor’s life blood as well. He’s a small businessman.
He depends on successful businesses in Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (35m 28s): So, so, so Don first in terms of context, my, my view is that every crisis, every problem is an opportunity to create jobs, right? So even, even this pandemic, this pandemic that we’re going through COVID-19 and by the way, guys, this is just the beginning of a number of crises that we’re going to face as a society and as a global community. But I believe that every crisis and every problem is the seed of creating an economy and creating jobs. So my, my plan in my first term as mayor is to create a hundred thousand jobs in Baltimore city, pod B are that plan is to attract at least a billion dollars of new investment into Baltimore city.
And so there are things that we have to do to make that happen on the, on, on the, on the outside crime grime quality of life. Those things have to be addressed. But as I said, Baltimore has great DNA and is strong bones. So we pull that together. This can be a very, very attractive city that people wouldn’t want to live in, but we have to build that economy gone, but it has to be built now dong on a new reality because here’s, what’s happening with COVID-19. You notice mid town is almost like a ghost town because people are working remotely and that businesses through the pandemic have realized, gee, we can run our business remote, right.
And still be effective. Well, what does that mean to all the real estate in Baltimore city, all those office buildings and all of those things and that, and the small businesses that we’re supporting, that those people in those buildings. So that is a different environment that we have to operate in. One of the things that I’m betting on A and maybe this is the engineer in me. I believe that there’ll be emerging economies that we need to capture things like artificial intelligence, things like cryptocurrency, things like robotics, things like a biotech and nanotechnology areas.
These are the emerging technologies that we need to control as a city and as a region. And I believe that if we do that, we’ll be effective at building our economy. So, so Don enough that I’m not interested and crying over the past, okay. What, what didn’t happen there? I’m looking at the future. I’m saying, what do we need to do to position our city and, and our region to be major players and those emerging economies. And that’s what the next mayor has to be able to do. He or she has to be able to make that happen for Baltimore city.
Speaker 1 (37m 55s): How has your thousand new jobs? You sound like a politician, Bob Bob, one of the other things you’re going, one of the other things you’re going to face is that the current city council has taken moves to really reduce some of the mayor’s power. And despite what the president of the United States thinks we don’t have Kings and Queens. We have executive branches that have to work with legislative branches. Any mayor is going to have to roll up their sleeves, get to work with Nick Mosley and, and the rest of the County council.
How does Bob Wallace as mayor work and create relationships with the city council members? I think first thing you do, Don
Speaker 2 (38m 36s): And Phil for me is to have mutual respect. So I believe that we can, we can disagree, but not be disagreeable. Right? So I know Nick most be Avalara spec for Nick I’ve. I’ve tried to mentor Nick over to he is because he’s like a son, a son to me. So I, I, I liked Nick. That’s a good start then. Right? The rest of the council, people, I don’t know so well done, but I’ll respect them. I respect them as professionals and as people, and that we have a shared mission, which is to make, Baltimore a much greater city from what it is today, but I, but, but I’m going to say, we have to focus on what’s going to help us to be great and help make that happen.
Now I do not agree with the city administrator role that Brandon Scott has put forward. I think it’s a horrible idea, and I hope that the voters voted down. And here’s the reason why, because if I’m in the heat of battle, I’m the mayor now. And Dawn, if I’m in the environment that you articulated, I new, environment’s going to be, we’re already projecting $103 million deficit and next fiscal year for Baltimore city. So if I’m in the heat of battle, I need control all the resources at my disposal to do what I have to do.
And this idea of the city administrator. I think it’s a horrible idea. And I would say to mr. Scott you either want to be mayor. You can’t play mayor. You gotta be mayor. So the next mayor can’t just play mayor and do press announcements and ribbon cuttings, and all that kind of cute stuff. He or she have to roll up their sleeves, get down in the dirt and the grime get down in the end with the people and make some things happen is going to be tough. It’s going to be bloody. And it’s going to take somebody who has courage as to what’s going to have to happen.
Speaker 0 (40m 18s): Bob, you’ve made this. I can promise you you’ve made my life miserable because I’m pretty sure that when we hang up, going to call me and get me a raft of do-do saying Simo, where I told you Independent could be competitive. And I could just see, I could see the wheels in his mind. I have no idea how many conversations I had for a year came up as the competitor. And I was like, well, hold on. The winner of the primary is maybe going to get 30%, maybe get 30%.
So I always felt like there was an opening and whether the world would be open to hearing that message. And I know you’re buying advertising. I see you ran, obviously doing our show and others. And people do know who you are and you know, TJ Smith had name recognition and it, lots of people spend a lot of money. Why did you not run in, in the primary? Did you see your opportunity? I, I saw the opportunity is running against Sheila winning I, that, that’s how I saw it the whole time. I didn’t see it as is someone else where to emerge that someone else would probably be hard to defend.
Speaker 2 (41m 23s): I follow you. So, so Nesta, I also bought that shield. Vixen was going to win the democratic primary, but you made a very good point. If you look at the pattern of a democratic primary in Baltimore city over time, the winner of the democratic primary is getting their percent is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. That means that the democratic base is unsettled. They’re they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re not, they’re not confident. They’re not clear on the leadership. So I see that as an opening and an opportunity.
So Nesta we’ve been, I’ve been running football over a year and a half, but it’s been a stealth kind of race at that point because I’m looking at the primary, as, you know, as the Independent, I don’t run in the primary. I run in the general, so I couldn’t run in primary anyway, but what I did is registered Independent. Yeah, that’s correct. I was a Democrat early in my, in my career. I became a Republican and later, and then I became an Independent and that’s kind of been the progression, my political thinking and my progression as a, as a man over, over time.
But if I look, if you look at the primary goal Nestor, you have like 24 Democrats running, you’re like five or six Republicans running for mayor. It was, it was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. And so I studied that environment, studied the issue, study what was happening. And I felt that isn’t Independent that the top of my timing had to be what it, what it was. And I think that was the right, the right decision,
Speaker 0 (42m 50s): You know, after you win or lose, we’ll have you back on, you can tell me how you left the Republican party. Okay. We’ll go through that. All right. That’ll be our next, that’s always the interesting question, Don, are we done with our questions?
Speaker 1 (43m 2s): Well, I think, I think we’ve, we’ve really had an in depth discussion. Bob, as I said, we tip, I’ve always said, because even though I ended up as County executive through very unfortunate circumstances, I never jumped in there and ran for office for a variety of reasons and like nester, anyone who runs Democrat, Republican Independent I always tip my hat to them because it’s a big strain on you. It’s a strain on your family.
You’re in a fishbowl, so win or lose A I congratulate you for being part of the discussion. And we do look forward to, to having you back to talk about this one.
Speaker 2 (43m 45s): I would love to gentlemen, we got some issues now, city, but we got great people like you guys, and we’re going, we’re on to a great path. I think that our future is going to be better than our past.
Speaker 0 (43m 55s): Wallace running for mayor. You can find him out at Wallace from air on the internet and a very, very easy night. This is our plug here to make sure you get your ballot. Make sure you go to the website, make sure you’re voting and make sure you’re following us at Baltimore Positive on behalf of former Baltimore County, executive, Don Mohler. I am mr. Aparicio, big thanks to all of our sponsors, including Tarka and state fair and fade Lees and molar and Gary Realty. We’re doing it. We’re merging WNS t.net with Baltimore Positive this week. Stay with us.
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