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
Mayor-Elect Jared Littmann on Annapolis
A campaign can win votes or it can build a blueprint for governing. Jared Littman, Annapolis mayor-elect, joins us to share how two years on the trail reshaped his plan: take the budget to every ward through annual town halls, walk blocks with residents to see issues first-hand, and rebuild trust by making engagement the start of policy, not the afterthought.
We dig into City Dock and resilience with clear-eyed realism—what it takes to protect a waterfront that the entire county treats like a shared park, why multi-level funding matters, and how climate adaptation must also include cooling heat islands, planting trees, and expanding public water access beyond tourist districts. Jared explains how the Resilience Authority and county partnerships can speed stormwater projects and align transportation without chasing a complicated city-county merger that might not improve service or cost.
Housing takes center stage as we discuss public housing conditions, voucher funding risks, and major redevelopment efforts like Robinwood and the Choice Neighborhood Initiative. We talk nuts and bolts—inspections, licensing, revenue restoration—and the legal landscape around lawsuits that could strain a $200 million budget. Jared makes the case for addressing root causes whether or not the city prevails in court, with homelessness prevention and wraparound services on deck through stronger county and state coordination.
We also go inside City Hall strategy: pairing new and returning council members for mentorship, holding a retreat to set norms, and starting budget priorities in the fall to avoid the annual ambush. The ultimate goal is simple and measurable: every resident should feel that their government cares, responds, and works without insider access. If that culture holds, trust grows—and with it, the capacity to deliver on resilience, equitable housing, and access to the water that defines Annapolis. If this conversation resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and tell us your top priority for the first round of budget town halls.
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Welcome everybody. I am with my friend Jared Littman, the newly elected mayor. Although you're a mayor, you're a mayor in waiting as of what do you call a mayor-elect. Until December first. Until December 1st. So this will go out before that.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:So congratulations. Thank you, and thank you for having me here. It's an honor to be a part of your uh podcast here. I've been listening to it for a while. It's uh it's an honor to be here. You're a listener. Awesome. I am.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay. Yeah, I I know because you're you're a homework doer too. One of the things that people have all said about you is that you do your homework, and I've noticed that. Well, congratulations. The campaign part is over. Phew.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Are you glad of that? Yes. I you know, it was a much better experience than I expected when I started. I thought of it as something I just had to get through in order to do the job that I was very anxious to do. But really campaigning for that long, I learned so many more uh issues, I met so many more people, and I feel much more connected and prepared, frankly, to do the job than I realized I uh ahead of time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you announced how long ago? And and then before you announced, I'm sure there was a process. So how long ago really did do it this way?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:I announced January of 2024, was preparing for that about three months or so, but really, you know, having preliminary conversations even before that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Uh huh.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And so but yeah, so I've been saying since January 24 since I announced, and now it's uh you know, almost 22 about 22 months ago.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Aaron Powell Yeah. That was a much longer campaign than I did when I it took a while. I I was a late announcer because they couldn't find a candidate remember to run against Steve Shue.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And so I think I uh You know I felt like I had to announce early because I was asking so many people for help or money or endorsements, and I felt like I needed to say this is what you're asked, this is what you'd be contributing or be a part of. Yep. And if you want to be part of a volunteer with me, this is a a thing I'm trying to do.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. No, I remember that. And and I think it was a wise move. So I think everybody who's listening knows what the mayor of Annapolis basically does. It's funny. When you say mayor, they get a they kind of understand when you say county executive, they have no idea. So um you are the mayor and you will be the mayor on December 1st. Yes. Looking forward to the inauguration, which I believe is going to be at Navy Stadium, is that?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:It is. We'll have a ceremony that's open to the public and free to attend with uh basically as many seats as we'll need. And then there'll be a uh ticketed uh reception to follow. Awesome. Awesome.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, so what brought you to the when did you start thinking of running for mayor? I know you're an alderman for were you four years or eight years? Five years. Five years.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Five years. Yeah, so my first year was filling the vacancy created when my predecessor resigned with basically a year left in his term. And so I started in January of 2013. By uh April I decided and to announce to run for my own term, and I announced that, and then I ran for and got uh won election for my own four years. Okay. So sorted a total of five years. And if I'm anticipating your question of what made me decide to do it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:When did you yeah, what made you decide? And yeah.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:So by the end of 2013, I was also on a corporate board. And so I was had basically I had three jobs. I was running my hardware store, doing this corporate board, and I'm corporate board of the hard of ACE Hardware, right? Of True Value.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:True value. So oops, oops. Yeah. That's okay.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:We're now ACE, so that's not a dirty word. Okay, okay. So at the time I was we were with True Value, and I was going between those three jobs, and each of the other jobs were making me smarter about the other two. And in in particular, I mentioned that because the corporate experience, we were doing a strategic plan where the CEO was leading it and we engaged all of the True Value employees, which were roughly 600 people across the country, and at the same time I would go to city council meetings with a staff of roughly 600 people. And I was seeing how we were not engaging our city staff, frankly, the council, the go in including the residents, in ways that I was learning how it was done so much better on that level. And so I kept on having these experiences of, man, if I was mayor, this is how I'd want to do it. And here's an opportunity for us to be better. We can engage better on the budget with residents and the city council. And so I was having those experiences and those thoughts, but I wasn't in a position to run for mayor at the time because I had those other jobs, my kids were younger, and so it was a uh a process of succeeding myself and getting off of all those things. My wife is running the hardware store now. Yeah. I got off the corporate board a few years ago, volunteer boards, my kids are older, they're driving, one's in college, one's in high school driving, and so uh got to the point where I could free myself up to do it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's interesting that you were thinking about how to how to well, they were thinking about how to run a business better through communication with staff, and you were thinking about how to run a city better through communication with residents and staff. Exactly. And I remember one of the first things that you asked me about when you you wanted to sit down and talk about and and it was interesting, you didn't just want to talk about how to win the election. You wanted to talk about governing. And I remember you met with some of my staff as well about some issues that had come up. But you specifically brought up our community engagement and constituent service team, and Vincent Vincent Molden and James Kitchen had sort of created it before that, and you wanted to understand how that worked.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:I did, and I still do. It's as I campaigned, it was reinforced the need to be really good at that. There were so many different groups of people that felt like either they were didn't have a seat at the table, they didn't know how to have a seat at the table. We had one brunch that was specific for business owners who were black, and there was such a frankly a diversity of businesses, number one, but such a thirst and hunger for more information of how they could be engaged with the city government as a whole, opportunities on how to reach capital and just things like that. And so had that sort of experience with so many different communities, and so I made promises to a lot of groups of yes, we will continue to listen to you after the election to help us be smarter.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I've been working on my state of the county speech, which is coming soon, and trying to figure out how to frame the work that we've done as county government in the in the moment that the country's in. And particularly this, I always see the biggest challenge that we have is an anti-government sentiment and that we have to build trust in government through engagement. And and I talk about the things that we've done to make government work better through efficiency. I'm not saying we figured it all out, but it's been the focus. And then the other part is engagement so that people know that they have a seat at the table and there's a lot of things, there's a lot of strategies for that. And it's absolutely, I think, the only way to sort for for democracy to survive. To rebuild that.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:One of the things I've been promising, and I doubt you would have no reason to have heard me say this to any group, but one of the things I've been promising is to model town hall meetings like what you do around the districts around budget time. And so I've said that I'm going to be in each ward each year, at least once a year, where we're going to ask residents about their budget priorities and allow residents to speak up where they are, not asking for them to come to City Hall to let us know their preferences. My goal is to do two town hall meetings in each ward per year, having one focus on budget and a second one on everything else, and to also add in neighborhood walkthroughs so that where there's a community need, Clay Street comes to mind where we're actually taking some of our leaders and and walking down the street with residents and where they could point out what's important to them. But I didn't know if you had heard me talk about the town halls that I modeled at the end of the year.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and we did a we you know, I I gotta admit we did more town halls earlier on, and we did we did them on a lot of different issues. We did them when we had hard issues like forest conservation, we did them around land use planning, we've gotten our plan done. So I think it's especially appropriate early on. And I tell people who are like thinking about running for office that don't feel like you have to know everything and talk and tell people what you're gonna do necessarily. If you have ideas, t say them, but listen, ask questions, listen, listen, listen. People people love to be heard. They need to be heard. Absolutely.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So so let's get into some of the stuff that we may be doing together. I mean, I had a great relationship, I still have a great relationship with Gavin Buckley, who's still mayor until you get sworn in, until that moment. And uh you never know what he'll do between now and then. So we may have some things up our sleeves. No, we don't. But it's been so important to have an alignment of vision at least. And it hasn't always been that way between county leaders and city leaders. So we're gonna be working on things together. I'm looking forward to that. What's on your agenda? What do you want to talk about first?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Yeah, I appreciate that. So City Doc comes to mind first for a lot of people, including me. And obviously, that project is queued up in the sense that it's finally through all of the approval processes and uh the appeals, and so it's ready to get going. We're down through the last most recent boat show, so we're it's it's started already before, which is great. Groundbreak. And so I'm really excited to get that project done. We obviously see the impact when by not doing it and record floods and the record frequency as well. And so I'm very anxious, and I know the county has been supportive along with our state and federal partners. No doubt a project that large is going to run into unexpected hurdles. And so as we expect I as we experience them and navigate through them, no doubt you'll probably be hearing from me on what challenges I'm facing.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You mean you're gonna come ask for more money?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Well, you know, I I've heard you say a few times when you talk about Gavin that you hear from him when he wants money.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That is part of a mayor's job, just like if you were running a nonprofit organization, is to raise money, because he he found what he I mean, he found out how hard it is to actually raise tax rates to create revenue, and that had to be done in his first term. The city's finances were a mess, and and they got them in order and got the trip- the bond rating as a result. But yeah, he he did a great job of get going to the governor, uh going to the General Assembly, going to our congressional delegation, and going to the county, every level of government above. I do the same thing when we're trying to get grants.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Trevor Burrus, Jr. I think he gets enough credit, frankly, for how much money he's been able to bring in from outside city government coffers, whether for all the different entities and probably more that you even mentioned, and how often. And our state partners and you and our governor all deserve credit for being responsive. So I hope to continue those relationships and work together. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And the the last one related to it was related to City Doc. We put two million in. It was actually Councilwoman Rodvan proposed getting into the budget we did for the Welcome Center. And I, you know, I justify that by saying that the city of Annapolis, especially downtown and City Dock, is the favorite destination of Anorundal County. It's the place we love to go to play. Like we all love going to down. You know, I mean it's just great to have. It's almost like having this huge park. So I feel like it's appropriate for our taxpayers to invest in that as a as an amenity.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Well, it's uh as a city representative in incoming, I'm very grateful that you have that perspective because I it's no one requires you to have that perspective, and I'm glad we have an effective advocate with our county councilwoman, Ravyan.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. So I expect that that all continue. What else? You talked about I mean you you've got housing issues, obviously.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Short-term rentals and even in current state, so meaning like nothing goes gets worse, we have a lot of housing issues. Right, right. We have public housing that is in some state of unsafe on some level. We have a we have the voucher program that's at risk from HUD of being underfunded or delayed funding, and that's obviously a huge concern. We get the city gets $850,000 per month from HUD through HACAT through to the voucher program. And that's aside from the public housing itself. We have these big, big projects on the books. Robinwood is scheduled for redevelopment. The CNI Project Choice Neighborhood Initiative would redevelop Esport Terrace and Harbor House in a big way that impact will impact so many people's lives and hopefully for the better. It's mixed use, m mixed income development. So as we see a federal government pulling away from supporting these housing needs, worst case scenario it was quite scary to me. And if so, if we see some of that funding significantly pull back, I'll I, as a representative of the city, will be looking to engage with our county and our state for help in addressing potential homelessness, potential need for wraparound services. And so those are things that are certainly top of mind. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And that's going to be everywhere. I mean, we're we're certainly our Office of Emergency Management is is handling our interagency response, and homelessness is a huge part of that, especially if they do what's in the Big Beautiful bill and and all of that. On you know, on HACA, I've seen some progress though, which has been really rewarding. I mean, we the city, the county, and HACA work together with some state funds as well to get the units that were not actually inspected and generating revenue, get them exp inspected and approved and back on the rolls. And so that I know has helped.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:I also made huge progress. They're much closer to getting all of those unlicensed entity uh units back on being licensed. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's what I've heard, yeah. So there's more revenue coming in. I mean, they have to think of it that way. And I know that one of the recommendations when some folks looked at how the county could help was also these lawsuits are getting in the way of some of the progress. They're they're taking time and they're taking money. I think it got a little personal and uh everybody got kind of dug in. You're now the new kid on the block. You're I mean you're a party to one of the I mean the the city is being sued by Hacker, right? And also being sued by a group of residents with an attorney.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:I think the main lawsuit is just I think of it as mostly a lawsuit against a group of residents who are represented by the attorney. I don't think I think HACAC is a group of residents. Yeah, I think that's the bigger issue. I don't think the I'll need to confirm where we are with the suit from HACA between us and HACA.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And separately between us and the historic Annapolis, too, which another AJ, another lawsuit to resolve. The lawsuit that we're mainly talking about here from the residents is based on a prior lawsuit that resulted in a settlement. And so if you extract out what that was settled for to the current residents, you're talking tens of millions of dollars. And that's obviously for a city budget of $200 million, a a situation that could potentially resolve itself even amicably uh those sort of money, $10, $20 million million dollars, you're talking obviously it's a huge impact. Other options is that the city just goes to trial and wins, and that's essentially the least expensive option uh result, and then of course you can go to trial and lose. And we don't know where that ends up. Right. So there's two concerns here. One is an outcome of the lawsuit, and separately is addressing the underlying concerns that caused the lawsuit, whether or not the city is found liable or not.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know that you will focus on trying to resolve that and and address the issues. So and the county has pitched in some money and helped on that.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And that's and the state as well. To give them credit.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And the state as well. Yeah. Hacker residents are county residents. So it's it's all of our problem. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I I definitely hope to reset some of those relationships. You know, it's an obviously in a lawsuit where people want a monetary payout, it's difficult to just reset a relationship.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Right.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And and I know uh Gavin and his team have tried to resolve these in ways that short of having a lawsuit. So I um leave a lot of room for there's good reasons why we are here now, but it is a chance to have a fresh look at these lawsuits and disputes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So are we going to merge city government city and county government and make one big happy government?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:You know, I get that question or got that question a lot on the campaign trail. And when you get into specifics of what is in the interest of the county to take on those services, and would those services actually be as good? And so if you have a goal of either providing the same services at lower cost or at the same cost but better results, I think in a lot of those situations it's hard to see where it makes sense to have a real merger. I do have a I have experience as being a volunteer member of the resilience service. You're not willing to step down and honestly if that's if I thought it was in the best interest of the residents, I would do that. I know. But I am not convinced that. I'm not looking for that either. Yeah. Where I think the county and the city do a great job collaborating is as an example, is the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Andorola County. I'm a volunteer member of that board now. I'll be resigning in the next day or so. There's room for things like that where it's not necessarily a merger. It's not even just plain not a merger, but it is a collaboration of where we can do things better together. Transportation is an area where I think we could probably explore ways where we can be more efficient and work collaboratively. And it's not to say it hasn't been worked on. I'm not trying to create an original idea, but it's it's furthering and growing that collaboration on transportation in the environment. Stormwater is an area that comes up frequently. A lot of those issues cross boundaries all the time. Yep. And so anything that crosses boundaries, we should be looking at ways we could be better partners. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I should say you did your due diligence on this because it had come up during the campaign, and there's a group of people who've been advocating for for years really to do more of that merging. And so we talked, but then I had you sit down with our CAO, Christine Anderson, and and others to really dig into what the county's interests were and where there may or may not be. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And you know, not surprising, these questions have come up for years. So uh Ms. Anderson was able to share years of studies about each of these issues. Right. And so we'll we'll get into those issues and make sure that there's not opportunities to be more efficient. And if there are, you know, I'll come knocking not just for um more money, but for ways that we potentially can do something efficient that makes sense for county residents. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And for folks who don't know, there's a there's a calculation of how the city's property taxes work based on the services that are being shared, what is being provided by the county versus the city, because the the city residents pay money into the into the county for those services and then they pay into the city for those services.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:So And I think it's frankly worth re-looking at things like mutual aid agreements. Not that it they certainly benefit both county and city residents, but we want to make sure that as development has increased in certain areas that we're we're still uh they still make sense from a monetary perspective. Trevor Burrus Right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:What about public water access and in the environment? You hear about those much during the campaign?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Yeah. And so when I talk about City Dock as an environment, I try to quickly pivot to the point that City Dock is and and sea level rise and water level rise isn't the only environmental issue that we're caring about. And that in some areas they it's a heat sink in parts of the city because they don't have trees and they don't have access to parks and green spaces, and that's always been a passion of mine. We didn't talk about my background, but uh from an environmental engineering perspective, environmental law perspective, I've been caring and bit passionate about those issues. So I really want to make sure we do a good job of that. The city has made strides with the public uh access plan and water quality plan separately. It's it's unfunded though, and so for largely unfunded. So I think there are something like 72 or 82 different spots in the city that through the work Eric Lashinsky and the and uh Christian Kubiak have done to identify spots in the city to improve water access. There's uh identified areas, some of them are easier than others, including like uh street and parks and fixing some bulkheads. I mean that starts to get more expensive when you talk about bulkheads, but those are we need to figure out how to get some funding for those projects. It's hugely important. There are we talked about the housing redevelopments. Some of those projects, like the uh Eastport Terrace and Hartware House, they are so close to the water and have such incredibly poor access to that same water. And so in as part of the redevelopment that we're talking about, if we can show that the city actually truly cares about each community, each resident, and is focused on providing more access, better access, safer access for all residents, I think we can go a long way to rebuilding trust in government and what we can do for all people. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Affordable housing with with water access would be pretty unique to Annapolis and pretty great. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:It is. But you know, you go to especially like the Hacker headquarters, right on the water. And it it's on the other side of the build- one side of the building is water, the other side of the building are these uh communities, public housing communities. But because of tree lines and bad trails and no maintenance, you just don't have access there.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Aaron Ross Powell, Yeah. I remember when I came in, I was lucky that I had a guy named Pete Barron working for me who understood the way uh legislative bodies work and how important the relationship is between the executive branch and the legislative branch. So you've got a largely new, some older City Council members, newly elected, and I've noticed that you have all worked together on the campaign. I mean, it ha maybe it helps that you're all of the same political party, so there was a coordinated effort, coordinated campaign. And what do you see as do you have do you have strategies? I mean, Gavin would take them on international trips, and what's your strategy going to be to make sure that everybody um everybody works together?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Yeah, so I I a lot a big part of my job is making sure that the council is working together. Obviously, in a city it's a little different setup than the county because the mayor is part of the council and also the CEO. So we're doing a few things off the bat. Number one, so we happen to have four returning council members and four new council members. And so I've made some pairings for mentor-mentee relationships, cleared it with all of the incoming, uh returning council members, and obviously was strategic about it, trying to pair up people who not only are experienced and uh with less experience, but where we can avoid some clicks. So trying to avoid any particular groups from being segregated or left off. And so I want to make sure all these relationships are collaborative, that everybody is appreciated, everybody is valued, and everybody could come along. So I think from those mentor-mentee relationships will be helpful. Number two, we will be having a a short retreat uh in Annapolis, we're not leaving anywhere, where we're going to be talking about ways that we want to be treated and expectations for each other of how how we can work best collaboratively. This is before you take office? Yes. Uh the retreat will actually be just after taking office. Just after. Yes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Interesting because I remember when, as you were saying that, I was remembering um we went out to dinner with all seven council members. Only one was had been an incumbent. So they were all new, so they hadn't taken office, I hadn't taken office, there was no open meetings requirement. We were allowed to all meet together during that time, and how valuable it was to just have dinner together and and socialize a little bit.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Right. And so, yeah, on my uh list is making sure everything we're doing isn't cleared by our legal office to make sure we're complying with the Open Meetings Act and and everything. But we um having served on the City Council, one of the experiences I had was the first budget came out when I'm on the council, and then it got attacked by all eight council members. And so I talked with the mayor of why is it done that way? Why aren't we having conversations in the fall? Now, granted I wasn't a council member in the fall, but it was confirmed from the other c my colleagues, those conversations didn't exist. So why aren't we having these conversations in the fall? So you all eight members could say, this is what's most important to me, this is what I can't live without, this is where you know I can give. And so when I'm preparing a budget, it should already reflect conversations and collaboration with the city council members.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yep.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:In any organization, government, nonprofits, govern um for-profit, everyone always says communication needs improving. And so it's I'm not gonna be perfect, I'm not gonna get this right, but I'm gonna be making sincere effort to do regular communication. So that's another thing I'm doing. So a third thing is setting up one-on-one meetings to make sure that I get a chance to hear from my uh the eight incoming council members, my colleagues, what's important to them, and try to develop strategies where I can make each of them feel successful and be not just feel, but actually be successful so we can begin those to create trust and respect for each other. I want to have those relationships go as quickly as possible to get there.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay. I'm gonna ask you a question that was asked of me when I was running for office. The question was if at the end of all of this, if you could uh accomplish one thing, what would it be?
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:If it was a city.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Hopefully you'll accomplish more than one thing.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Yeah, so do I. If I get I guess if it's only one thing, it's to have all city residents feel like my government cares about me. That I feel like me as a resident of the city, my government respects me, cares about me, has been been responsive, they've been uh engaged, and I am a part of my city that cares.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's it. That's a good great answer. I I'm not judging your answer or anything, but I will say that mine was very similar in that instead of saying a policy, the uh legislation that you get passed or a building you get constructed or something like that, it was in the minds of the of the people of the city. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Right. Yeah. And it's partly I would say that's not an answer I would have given in January of 24 before I started campaigning for two years. But from doing and having those experiences, just hearing over and over again from people who felt like it doesn't matter who I vote for, it nothing changes for me. Um you're all going to do what you're gonna do. Just hearing that message is very disheartening.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And certainly the environment that we're in right now on a federal level with a certain level of chaos, that I hope to feel I hope that people feel like that uh a Limburn administration is professionally run, that there's it's not chaotic. You don't need to have my an alderman's or mayor's phone number to get anything done because it it works the way it's supposed to work. Yeah. That's my goal.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. And and if people feel that maybe it wasn't true that government is the source of all evil and that in fact it is their government at the local level, maybe they'll be open to the idea that other levels of government also have their best intentions and and we can uh save our system of democracy. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I mean I don't trust you in all institutions, but people are at the point where it's it's almost like if you're an institution, you're bad. Right. And that's that's a dangerous place to be.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:And along those lines, we know when I started we had a different presidency, and so as the it's evolved in this current presidency, part of my mindset has been I can't control everything. And so what are the things I can have an impact on? It's this local level. And I want residents to feel like whether or not they feel like they can have an impact on the national level and global level, that they can have a positive impact here. And so I tell people that your job doesn't end when you vote. That I want people to continue to be engaged, volunteer on boards and commissions, come out to public hearings, share your concerns, and help us do better.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, I am very excited about your plans and your attitude about it all. Thank you. I was I was at the event at level where you got everybody together on election night, and and I was just sort of touched by how humble and genuinely like the fact that you don't really like public speaking. You don't really need this job, actually, you know. Run on the group.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:There's easier ways to spend my time. Right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:But but it is clearly, clearly, clearly a heartfelt desire to make, you know, make the city better and make government work and thank you, build trust. So thank you. I'll do everything I can and thanks for joining us and good luck.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Great. And so how do I get access to that bank account again? When the city needs money? Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We we guard that pretty closely. But come to the budget town halls and tell us what you think.
Mayor-Elect Jared Littman:Very good. All right. Thanks so much for having me here. It's been an honor. You're listening to the Pittman and Friends podcast. If you like what you hear, please hit the subscribe button, share with a friend, and join us for the next episode.
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