Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Future-Proofing Anne Arundel: Matt Fleming on Resilience, Sweden, and What Comes Next
Learn how Executive Director Matt Fleming's childhood adventures in Saudi Arabia sparked a lifelong passion for coastal resource management and resilience. His unique journey, culminating in his leadership role at the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, weaves through the challenges of balancing environmental conservation with economic growth. From early experiences in the Red Sea to tackling coastal management issues in North Carolina, Matt's story is one of dedication to making Maryland's communities more resilient in the face of climate change.
Unpack the intricate layers of resilience as we explore its impact across energy, transportation, food, water, and housing systems. Learn from Matt about the strategic approaches being employed to integrate resilience into project portfolios, highlighting innovative financing mechanisms and cross-sector collaborations. Throughout the episode, we draw inspiration from international examples like Sweden's achievements in urban sustainability, showcasing how proactive environmental strategies are not just beneficial but necessary for sustainable growth and economic viability.
With a focus on urban resilience, shoreline restoration, and the collaborative spirit driving these efforts, Matt Fleming shares how Anne Arundel County aims to be a model for resilience, setting a precedent that could influence regions far beyond its borders. Join us as we discuss the vision for a fair and equitable strategy in resilience efforts, and the ambitious goals set to shape a sustainable future.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman that's me and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by and for the people. I'm here today with the man who is tasked with making our county resilient. His name is Matt Fleming and his title is Executive Director of the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Resilience Authority.
Matt Fleming:Welcome, Matt. Thank you. I am optimistic about being Conan O'Brien... Sorry, wrong podcast but optimistic about being Steuart Pittman's Resilience Authority Director, so thanks for having me.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:All right, Anne Arundel County and Annapolis. I like to switch them. Actually, you know, I think you have Annapolis first, but I think Anne Arundel County is the most important part of that, but I won't talk to the mayor about that. So, all right, we, uh, we need to get to the question of what the Resilience Authority actually does and what we mean by resilience. But first I want to, I want, uh, to know what brought you to this job. So tell us the story. Okay, you can start wherever you want, maybe with education, but wherever you think is relevant, okay.
Matt Fleming:All right, I'll go way back. So growing up I lived overseas up until about sixth grade. I think the majority of the time there I spent in Saudi Arabia and, thinking back to that time, as you can imagine, desert, all the buildings were gray, so it's certainly a certain image there. And then every weekend my dad would take us to camp on the little islands in the Red Sea and I can every time go up under the water. I can remember the color of the coral, the fish and just being blown away by that and leaving that I was like, okay, I know what it is, but I want to be somehow connected to kind of ocean management around that aspect of it. How old were you when you left? I guess I left in midway between fifth and sixth grade, okay, so you know, of course, like every kid you're like, oh, I want to be a marine biologist. So that was kind of my brain for a while. Um, fast forward that a bit, I guess you know.
Matt Fleming:Back in the states now, we would vacation in North Carolina and always on the Outer Banks. We surfed and fished this and that in Cape Hatteras and one year we went down there and there were all these signs up about the piping plover and I just remember going into stores you know, kill the plover or save the plover, and I had no clue what a plover was. And I remember driving out on the beach and the beach was closed off. And then I come to learn it's a federally endangered species and so on. And then I'm like, okay, that makes sense. You know, protect the birds. As I started learning more and listening to the community you hear about, you know the economic impact of it. You know fishermen who couldn't make a living. You know people that rented equipment couldn't make a living, people not coming certain times of the year. And that's when I was like, okay, click, there's like that idea of balancing these multiple uses. I don't know what it is, but I want to be involved in that. So in college I connected that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So that was how old?
Matt Fleming:That would have been in high school right up through into college. So that's when I made the connection into being around the ocean and then somehow making that connection . how do you balance the wise use of and the conservation of our coastal resources, which then, you know, led to my college and then led me to the Department of Department Resources? Natural So Resources that's how I got involved in coastal management, I was at the Department of Department Resources for Resources about 25 years right here(right in Maryland, right Maryland?) here in Maryland, yeah, Maryland quick story on that.
Matt Fleming:When I left college there were two coastal programs in the country. Where'd you go to college? I went to University of Maryland, okay, yeah, I went to Binghamton and then finished up at University of Maryland, Binghamton, New York, and then, uh, there were two, just you know, across the country, like these are the two leaders in the country, it was Maryland and Massachusetts. And just a kind of a credit to my old boss is you know, I cold called. I stopped in Massachusetts, tried to meet the program, met a few folks, did the same thing at DNR and the Secretary, John Griffin at the time, met with me, toured me around DNR talked about his vision.
Matt Fleming:I was like, okay, that's where I want to work so I spent 25 years there, involved in coastal management, which then led me to Anne Arundel County so after 25 years um yeah, so tell us what your position was at the end.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So at the very end.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, so I worked my way up. At the very end I was. I finished up as the director of aquatic resources, so responsible for the whole water side of the agency. So boating, fishing, bay restoration programs, um climate uh, monitoring and stuff, so okay and so forth.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, and we knew about you. Chris Trumbauer, I think in particular, who's now our budget officer, was a river keeper, was a councilman. He certainly knew about you. And well, go ahead, finish your story.
Matt Fleming:No, because I was going to apologize if they knew about me. So yeah, so I think it was Matt Power who I worked with a little bit at the state Right he was at Department of Plan and Time and certainly Chris, yeah he was Deputy Secretary of Planning and then he was our Chief Administrative Officer here in the County.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We hired him first to do land use work and then became our Chief .
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Administrative Officer.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, Okay, so that was part of the connection.
Matt Fleming:Yes, so they reached out. Certainly, it was a difficult decision. The timing was tough because you know you were also going through a potential— To be the director of the Resilience Authority right, correct, yeah, which was a brand-new creation. First in the country.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, Well, the first of—yeah. There's a debate over that, but pretty close to first.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, I can defend that one a little bit, okay, okay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And we had to get state authorization to do it. Senator Elfrith, I think, helped to move a bill that gave us authority to create a resilience authority Correct, and then we put it into our budget. We actually did not get a unanimous vote on this. It was somewhat controversial to create the Resilience Authority and then we put into the budget the money to hire staff to get it going. And then we needed somebody. And how did you hear about it?
Matt Fleming:So I did see the advertisement and the folks who were running the interview interview pool, they reached out to me. Um, both, uh, I think Jackie Guile at the City sent it to me. Um, certainly Chris sent it to me that okay, you should think about applying. I was was not actively looking. Um, you know, very content. You know I had spent almost a full career at DNR um and I started thinking about a little bit more and meeting more members of both your team and the city's team. I was like all right, you know what? This could be pretty cool. This could be something that could be a great opportunity. You know we've always worked with Anne Arundel. You know, in my prior role at DNR I worked a lot in Anne Arundel County. I met Erik Michelsen who's the lead chair of Bureau of Watershed Protection and Restoration, or Bureau of Restoration and Watershed Protection.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You guys have always been an incubator for a lot of innovative so you know, it was the best place for all you wanted to work here. Come on, just say it we're the best place for all you wanted to work here.
Matt Fleming:No, definitely. I had a long partnership with some of your departments. Good people, yeah, some wonderful people.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Let's just be honest, right, you didn't know if I was going to get reelected and therefore you didn't know whether the Resilience Authority was going to have a future, and you didn't accept the job.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, I would say I delayed on accepting the job.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You delayed, yeah, yeah, um, you know again like so, but we managed to get it started.
Matt Fleming:We brought in um, Danny's with uh throwing?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:yeah, Danny's Throwe Environmental and and they knew that their time was was temporary. To get it started. They created the board, they the basic structure of it, and then, miraculously, I got re-elected and uh, and then you came over. So you've been here for what?
Matt Fleming:two years about 18 months, yeah, almost two years, yeah, okay, um, but I mean, I really do I think that the it's certainly like I didn't know you. Um, I knew a lot of folks on your team. I think my biggest fear, even though I think the idea of helping communities prepare for climate change you know, helping this county make a transition to renewable energy and you know, I think those you know are apolitical issues, especially if you're doing as you envisioned and doing it helping to relieve some of the tax burden.
Matt Fleming:Apolitical, yeah, and you know helping to relieve the tax burden on the county where you can by bringing outside resources. I think that would have survived. But the idea of trying to start something new with an entire new team trying to figure out how to govern, I think that's the part that was giving me hesitation. I think, at the end of the day, the idea and this sounds not like my personality, hopefully you guys have seen this is the projects speak for themselves. I'm not somebody who likes to take credit. I love working with a team, but the idea of this Resilience Authority and almost like I'm creative and almost like a director where your name's associated with it I think that was a part like alright.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I'm going to do this. You want to create the monster, yeah, or the savior, I should say, and and uh, I don't think there's anybody at this point who voted against it, who would um want to get rid of it now, because we can get into this. But y'all have raised a heck of a lot of money. How much? Uh, $43 million, $43 million of outside money?
Matt Fleming:federal state and that's money that we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have a Resilience Authority.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So what is it? Tell us how it's structured and what it actually does, and what's the scope of resilience we hear that word all the time and what is included in resilience.
Matt Fleming:Great question. Actually, when we were in Sweden last week, I read this whole idea of resilience authority and resilience authority director. We were going around the room introducing ourselves for listeners who don't know.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We were in Sweden last week and we'll we'll get to that pretty cool, the um and you.
Matt Fleming:You managed a lot of the trip, thank you yeah, okay, um, but we would do our introductions and you could see people on the transportation director. I'm the county executive, I'm the mayor and we go to, I'm the resilience authority director and you hear the record scratch. What's that? So I appreciate the question. So first, resilience the way I look at resilience and the way we look at it is it calls us to rethink about the systems that supply our energy, our transportation, food, water and housing.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, so it's not just resilience to the impacts of climate change, correct, yeah.
Matt Fleming:And I think to that question I think it has a transformative power calls upon us to plan for the current and future impacts of a changing climate and to mitigate those risks. It doesn't have to be fatalistic and projects that we undertake, they can seize the opportunity to build on the strength of a community and hopefully eradicate some of the inequities we've seen in the past. And my hope is that you'll see that in our current project portfolio, but certainly as we build out a future project portfolio. So that's my definition of resilience and that's how we discuss it within the board Go ahead, and it's a financing mechanism too.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I mean it's a pretty complicated thing like a redevelopment authority is a way to get some things off of the books of the capital budget for a government and you manage to find who the stakeholders are that are going to benefit by a specific project, and right now it's largely federal money because it exists, but it could be private sector investment, right, it could be anything. So we haven't had to go to the taxpayers yet.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, correct, yeah, no, I think that to that point, you know, that singular focus on resilience and helping the County prepare for the climate impacts, you know, allows us to specialize approaches to address these challenges and to kind of design projects and the financing around them with that goal in mind, you know. Again, I'll use another example. You know other programs have certain drivers and I'll go back to my good buddy Erik Michelsen. You know you take the Jabez floodplain.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So Erik Michelsen runs the Watershed Protection and Restoration, which is the funds from the stormwater fees that people pay.
Matt Fleming:Great.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And so that program. He does an amazing job with it. Yeah, he's the best anywhere.
Matt Fleming:Absolutely. You know he's always helped push the envelope in my time with DNR where they were trying to do things beyond kind of that specific mandate where you could build in habitat. You know we were trying to figure out how to support those with other grants. But that program and Erik's program has a specific mandate and that's how do you address the stormwater requirements, how you do that in the most cost-effective way. And when you look at Jabez you know to look at this under the resilience lens.
Matt Fleming:You know we were able to kind of advance this idea of climate ready restoration. So how could we, you know, use some, some of the mitigation, some of the you know the stormwater funds? How do we also incorporate some of the Bay TMDL funds because there's a nutrient ecosystem benefit there? How do you incorporate? We got habitat funds from NOAA. And then you know transportation dollars. How do you mitigate the potential impacts to transportation to 97 and 32 there, so you're able to kind of pull together. I think that's a unique nature, just from stitching together different fund sources, that we're able to make a project move forward that if you just looked under a specific project mandate it might not have. And I think you know we have a really good time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So this is restoring the stream. It starts, I know Is the Navy Dairy Farm where it begins or it goes through there.
Matt Fleming:It actually goes almost all the way up to the top part of the County, Jabez does.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, this branch and it goes to Severn River right? Severn River, yeah.
Matt Fleming:Okay, and this one stretch is just below the 32 interchange and just addressing it as a stormwater issue wouldn't have happened Because of the highway. Yeah, and just really restoring the floodplain itself. Great.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, so let me just let me jump to Sweden real quick. What moved you about what you saw there? I mean, clearly you know they are way ahead of us on reducing carbon emissions, sustainable economic development. We saw a lot of that. Is that resilience, and what changed? What clicked in your mind that you might be able to bring home?
Matt Fleming:Yeah, well, certainly mitigating, you know, greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. That's in our wheelhouse, so that is a focus of ours.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, like the County's working on their plan and I know you're working on a plan for locating solar and I know that you've now probably gotten involved in our efforts to go electric on the County fleet, correct, yeah?
Matt Fleming:and even where we can do projects to incorporate green infrastructure that sequester carbon even looking at soil amendments that do the same. So try to incorporate that into our project designs. But the economic development piece is a good question Because I think one of the things I walked away from in Sweden is just how they just showed that transformative power of resiliency. You take the possibilities that they demonstrated around renewable energy development, the advancements of new carbon-friendly building technology, rethinking what we saw when we were in Sweden. We saw an old port that was dedicated to oil and gas and coal storage and how they've moved off of that and how they've rethought those spaces and kind of again building with sustainability and resilience as the lens that they were doing that in and the demand from that from the consumer, how people wanted those office spaces, they wanted to live in those houses and just that piece of it, and how they integrated all those parts to it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:The demand from the consumer and I was really shocked that there was also demand from companies, from developers, real estate developers. We you know, we learned about one of the first speakers was actually an economist, remember, and she talked about the cost of inaction and how she's working actually all over the world.
Matt Fleming:Um is the Stockholm Environmental Institute which I hope to build off of that as one of the first like key takeaways.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, no again. I know it gave some of us ideas for research that we could do here to sort of measure the benefits, the economic benefits. But there was a developer that was talking about the circular development strategies where they reuse things from buildings that are being taken down, and then one example was they were complaining to the city that they were requiring an extra lane for cars in front of this big store, this big building, and they said no, we need one less lane for cars, we need bikes and pedestrian because they understand what the market is doing. And it was kind of cool to see that and to see that some of the work that we do to facilitate the sustainability is for the government to get out of the way as opposed to have to invest money.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, and I think the very clear goals that were laid out by the city or the government, like this is what we want to achieve, and the buy-in from the private sector as well as the community, like okay, we get it, it's not like we have to do it, we want to do it, and that really kind of translated in both the two cities that we had a chance, and I will guarantee that?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I mean the fact that we had state level, county level, um, and city level, uh, it was, um. It's really clear to me that there's going to be action as a result of this and we're working on a list of things and we're going to be presenting all of that. So, so, um, can you say something about city dock, because I I'm a big fan of what they're doing there to address flooding and uh, raise city dock but also create a space that's a public space and exciting and fun uh for families and visitors and all of that are you involved in that?
Matt Fleming:Yeah, so, um, funny going back to our earliest comment about were we the first? First you know there's some debate on that is that project was actually the impetus for the Resilience Authority idea. Um, when I was with DNR, uh, there was a study that we did about doing can financing stress test with the University of Maryland to look at can the city truly address its climate issues? So they looked through do they have the funding in place? Do they have the strategies in place, the structures in place to do it? So in that study it came to the thinking, one kind of rethinking the parking garage, how to make that connection, and also thinking about is there a structure to help manage the funding in a way that can take on these massive projects? So we were involved in some of that stage. Certainly I'm not taking credit for it. We can look at the clip.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, yeah, they came up with something pretty complicated. They redid the crumbling parking garage and that's part of the city dock financing system that they've set up. They seem to have a really big FEMA grant on the way and that's going to fund a lot of it, and they've gotten a lot of outside money. I've got to hand it to the mayor. He knows how to raise money. He doesn't stop begging, I could say, to get money to the City of Annapolis because they can't just raise their taxes. They're already higher than the rest of the County. You know they can't get away with that.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, so from that initial study you know we have an incredible team in place.
Matt Fleming:And certainly the mayor is a leader of that, but you know their public works director, their emergency management department. They've been raising dollars for this, so I don't think they're all the way there. So I certainly I think they're looking to us to help to see if we can yeah, very close if we can figure out how to close any potential gaps. So you know we're providing support, helping to look in some other potential funding opportunities, uh, as this project moves forward. So, yeah, I am, uh, I appreciate. You said the piece about making kind of making to build a wall around that. That's not taking advantage of what's truly unique about that place, so creating a place that reactivates it. You know urban places. You know urban places. You know public places for people to connect with water, to be connect with themselves.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, so here's one I know you're working on. That is exactly that Glen Burnie Town Center. What's that got to do with resilience?
Matt Fleming:Absolutely, and that's where you know it's kind of leading into. As you know, I really think these urban centers, you know, while certainly they can concentrate risk, they really can be kind of incubators for solutions. And I am really excited about Glen Burnie. We're working, you know it's one of our first portfolio projects, the town center. And you know, being from natural resource side, you don't get to work in urban environments that often and you always knew that was a missing part of our portfolio. So, having the opportunity to truly take stock of the physical environment, the social environment that's there, and build on the strength, so can we deseal the environment, can we look at trying to get rid of impervious surface there, can we create access to green space in that community where it doesn't exist. Can we use, also create that as a space where you can connect that community to um bike trail routes, you know, as a hub, you know, going north or south and right by the trail and it's just, you know, you think of, you know, getting people out of cars and um it's also.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's also just a few blocks from the Cromwell end of the light rail that goes to Baltimore.
Matt Fleming:And helping people make that connection where they are and where they are connected to the Chesapeake Bay and how taking care of their own environment. I think that area is going to take off.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I do too, so okay, here's another one. You've actually been working with Fort Meade and I know there's a long history with the Naval Academy, but what's going on at Fort Meade? Resilience, they're not on the water yeah, right.
Matt Fleming:So certainly, uh, resilience is not just a coastal issue. You know, I think you know stormwater, flooding, road impacts and even getting into things like, um, uh, emergency evacuation. Know, like, looking at you know how that community can handle if there's an issue that they need to evacuate. You know, do we have the road infrastructure that they can safely evacuate? So that is something that we'll be working with Fort Meade on. It's called a Military Installation Resilience Review. So it's a partnership with DOD, Fort Meade and the County to look at what actions that we can take outside of the base walls that can make the operations on the base more resilient, but the community outside of the base more resilient. So we'll be looking at everything from potentially housing to roads, to communication infrastructure. I think, again, with the resource that's there at Fort Meade, I think there's a lot of interest nationally. I think it's a great opportunity.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, good, and I know that the Navy's been at the forefront of it. In fact, I was there at the Naval Academy just a couple of weeks ago when they completed did ribbon cutting I guess you could say their wall. That is important, along with the raising of city dock, and they talk about it like they talk about it in Sweden. It's part of the way they do business, it's part of national defense, and they've been doing it for a long time. So, okay, I have one last question. You've been at this for two years now, or a year, and what did you say?
Matt Fleming:A little more than a year and a half. Yeah, 18 months. Yeah, I'm making it sound less, okay. Okay, there's more I need to get done in two years.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I guess, has it been what you expected it to be, and have you achieved what you set out to do in that first period of time? Huh, so I.
Matt Fleming:I hope so. So one of the things certainly I was one of my initial goals was trying to I work. I spent 25 years with a team and I knew how to get things done with the team being a part of a team and one of my goals of how own team members, you know, embraced this idea, welcomed me, helped me kind of work through some of the initial struggles. I know you challenged me how do we create a model for other communities, not just here in Anne Arundel County but for the City of Annapolis, and I do think that we have a very strong framework in place and I know that from the demand for me to go to I've probably spoken now to about eight or nine counties in Maryland. We've been sharing all of our policies, bylaws so they can help set up their resilience. So I think that goal of like let's be a model here.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Are there some others that are popping up?
Matt Fleming:Yeah, I would say there's some other ones that are thinking. I know Charles County is the other one.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:They also say they're first, and I think they were. In some ways we were the first multi-jurisdictional, for sure, with Annapolis, yes, correct.
Matt Fleming:Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I think they beat us to the punch. But who else is coming?
Matt Fleming:I don't want to trouble them, I'll let them announce it. Yeah, I'll let them announce it, but certainly there's been about three or four on the Eastern Shore and probably about four or five on the Western Shore that I've reached out, and one from Pennsylvania and one from Virginia.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Hey, they're probably the same ones that are going to be part of our cool ferry network that goes all around the Chesapeake. The five-county coalition, that's a good guessing.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, nobody believes me but it's happening. Certainly trying to create a demand for this work. I thought we were going to have to get the word out as a new group. I've been blown away by the demand from our work by the constituents, the number of site visits I'm probably averaging it. It's slowed down a little bit, but I would say it's been about an average of two to three a week. We are going out to a community looking at an issue, assessing an issue, working closely with City or County staff, regardless of whatever jurisdiction it was in. There's a lot of interest, there's a lot of need for it. So I think that trying to create the name and the demand, that was out of the box.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You started out alone, although you had a wonderful board, and now you're not alone. Tell us how you've grown.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, so I'm very excited. So we have two great new team members and I'm excited to see what we'll be able to do over the next 18 months with them. So Kristina Alexander she came to us from the governor's office of service and spent the past year as an employee of the office of service and just she wasn't just a fresh out of school type person.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:She had a lot of experience, right. Yeah, she was an attorney. Yeah, she's an attorney.
Matt Fleming:She was in the AG Office for Virginia, State of Virginia um, then worked up at um, uh, the under armor the distillery there. She was their AG um. But yeah, she did the service year with the governor. That's amazing.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:She's been fantastic. So the year ended and of course, she hired him. Thankfully, we were the hire Director of what operations?
Matt Fleming:Director of operations correct, okay, good. And then Gabe Cohee. As many folks know in this area he led a lot of the restoration programs at Maryland DNR applied for this job as another of the DNR transplants, just like Chris, and myself he starts on Thursday and he will be also ran a non-profit how are you going to manage $40 million of projects and do all the other stuff?
Matt Fleming:one of the jokes at DNR. I was always focused on the economic side. They used to call me a science-tician. Don't take him out to try to ID birds or fish. Gabe will be the person out in the field to be able to do designs. He's fantastic, awesome, that's great. He's a great addition to the team.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:All right. So I would say that I don't know what your expectations were, but I think you've met and exceeded them. You have met and exceeded my expectations. I didn't think that it was possible to get so many projects going this quickly. Okay, I lied. One more question If I come back and interview you in five years, I guess I'll be a reporter at that point, because I'm not going to be the County Executive in five years. But whatever, my next career is, what are you going to be bragging about?
Matt Fleming:Three things. One hopefully city dock will be done. I would have learned how to use QuickBooks by then. And then we've kept Theresa Sutherland as chair because she is amazing, but I know her time is coming up.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Oh, chair of the board, Theresa Sutherland.
Matt Fleming:Yeah, our success, I can contribute to her.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Really she's fantastic, but she was the county auditor for a long time.
Matt Fleming:City administrator has been probably one of the most impressive human beings I've met in my time in in work, in the work, in work. She's been amazing so but yeah, so my hope is kind of our initial grant portfolio will be done. You know, I I promise you we would kind of show proof of concept, so kind of that, first one to three years. Let's show we can get projects on the ground and take advantage of this historic opportunity. We're in with all the federal dollars out there.
Matt Fleming:So, like Carrs Beach, the EV infrastructure projects, model building and resilient standard codes for Anne Arundel County and the City, Glen Burnie Town Center, Fort Meade, I think long-term, in that five-year period, I'd love to be able to have transition away from relying solely on grants to a scalable revenue strategy. I would love to get to a point where we could advance the right type of, that's equitable and a transparent strategy. But for private shoreline restoration, um, I think that is a, you know, 90, almost 95 percent of the shoreline in Anne Arundel County is privately owned and across the Bay I think we can be a model for the entire Chesapeake Bay region on developing a strategy that is um, fair and equitable, um, and then hopefully we'll have that resilient and ready and run that portfolio of projects that's repeatable, built on a model that built on itself, and have that up and running in five years. Those are my goals.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, I feel like we're really lucky in Anne Arundel County to have you. You know they're the really smart people out there who like to create stuff and that's what we needed. And you know, you mentioned wanting to be able to be a model that others can do, and I always say, Anne Arundel County is kind of a microcosm of the country in a lot of ways, demographically, politically, and so, yeah, if you figure it out, it'll happen all over the country, the world, and it'll be a better place.
Matt Fleming:Thanks for your support, I appreciate it. All right Thanks.
