Michael Sanderson of MACo on County Power

Most of what you count on each day doesn’t come from Washington. It comes from your county: the roads you drive, the schools your kids attend, the health services that protect communities, the recycling system you expect to work, and the local decisions that shape what your neighborhood becomes. On the latest episode of the Pittman and Friends Podcast, County Executive Steuart Pittman sits down with Michael Sanderson, Executive Director of the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo), and they get straight to the pressure points of Maryland politics and public policy and how they impact local government. 

We walk through how MACo represents county leaders in Annapolis, why an open public hearing process can prevent bad legislation, and how a truly bipartisan organization still finds common ground when the rest of American politics feels stuck. Then we tackle two issues that define daily life for residents: transportation funding and housing. Michael explains why Maryland’s local road funding never fully recovered after the Great Recession, why that gap squeezes county budgets, and why so many people misunderstand what gas taxes actually pay for. 

From there, we get into the housing shortage, zoning, smart growth, environmental limits, and the “Smith Island cake” problem: layer after layer of approvals that can make building painfully slow. We also debate the toughest question underneath it all, when state preemption is a necessary tool for progress and when local control is the wiser path for land use, infrastructure, and community trust. We wrap with grounded advice for leaders making hard budget calls and a rare note of optimism rooted in local accountability. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome back everybody to Pittman and Friends Podcast. And I'm here this week with my friend. Am I light to be your friend? Absolutely. We are friends. Okay, good ahead and check on that. My friend, Michael Sanderson, the executive director of the Maryland Association of Counties Mako.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome. Thanks very much for having me. I'm delighted to do this. You know, first time, long time, I'm a longtime listener, so excited to be on here with you. So our organization does the Conduit Street Podcast. We talk about politics and policy across the state, a lot of county issues. So this is uh familiar territory, but happy to be playing a road game here.

What MACo Does For Counties

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And I'm a regular listener too. I can hear the jingle in my head, but I won't sing it anymore. All right, all right, all right. Okay. So, folks, this is gonna be fun because well, first of all, Michael Sanderson is one of I I will say you will blush, you won't see him blushing, but he's one of the smartest people in Annapolis in pol in well, I'll say politics, but really policy is what it's about. And running a bipartisan organization. And you've been you mentioned 30, 30 General Assembly sessions. It's true, 30 years. So love this game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're you're into it. I can I can tell. So first just tell folks what Mako is and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Sure. Mako's the Maryland Association of Counties. We're a trade organization. Our members, like I don't know, there's probably a Maryland Association of Plumbers who looks out for the interests and priorities of plumbers, right? Our members are the elected officials, county executives, council members, county commissioners across the state. And in Maryland, that means we're central for service delivery. An awful lot of Marylanders get all their fundamental frontline local services from their county government. So big believers in local service and sort of delivering good government back home. Mako's an organization, we try and help member education having conferences and events to sort through difficult issues, learn from one another. And also we're a voice on policy issues in Annapolis. We come to the table and say, hey, uh, you know, uh, we're worried about this bill, it might impede our ability to do our recycling system that we've got set up, and it's, you know, we're killing it with recycling, and this is going to set us back. You don't want that, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, well, and I gotta I gotta say, without make-o there, to tell the folks at the state level, the delegates and the senators, what the impact is of the laws they're passing on local government and on the people that we serve, our shared constituents, they'd be making a lot more mistakes than they do.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I mean, I think I think big picture, it's probably fair to say that like that's that's how the process is supposed to work. Maryland's really good at having an open participatory process. So we're gonna have a public hearing on this idea. Everybody gets to read the bill, they know in advance, you know, next Tuesday afternoon is the day to be heard. And, you know, MACA will come to the table and say we're worried about implementing this program, and here's what our concern would be. And then right after us will be the taxicab association saying, hey, by the way, like we're running taxicabs and people count on us for these services, and we have a concern that you might not have thought of. I think an open participatory process is the way to get all those voices at the table, but we're definitely among them. We are in every committee of the legislature throughout their whole legislative session, which just wrapped up.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah, yeah. And people do listen. And for folks who are listening, I will also just say obviously we've just finished a a session of the Mail and General Assembly, and we'll talk about some of the things there. The county and Arundel County, I think all counties also do their own individual lobbying on in issues that affect us. Sure. But we really do rely on Mako for the things that are common for all of the counties.

Why County Work Stays Bipartisan

SPEAKER_00 3:43

So you're powerful. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. And and and it's a it's a collaborative relationship. I mean, that's us at our best, is the things that are delivered by county governments. And Maryland is really reliant on a local service delivery system, our local departments of health, and we pave the roads and plow the streets and fund the schools and the libraries. Like everything you really care about is mostly coming through local government. Big policy set by the state, but like what you care about this morning is mostly that's my county executive, that's my council, that's my commissioners. We're getting stuff done.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah. And I should also note that I'm on the board of Mako. You have leaders from across the state. It's a bipartisan, a truly bipartisan organization. Right. You know, you think of Maryland as a blue county, but in terms of the numbers of counties, are there more red than blue or a few more red than blue.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Um but uh honestly, that's never been Mako's bag. Like our strong suit is take those hats off when you come to the table. And I love it when people are embedded as long timers at the Mako Legislative Committee taking positions on bills or on our board of directors trying to build strategic relationships and so forth. And they're like, wait, you're from the other party? We seem to agree all the time. I didn't even know you were a D or an R. I love when people I love it, right? Yeah, I mean I love the. There's not much of that left in American politics, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

And it's so refreshing, and it's and it's real, though. So I mean when we have our board meeting, our retreats and things, and then of course we have the you know, the big ocean city meeting that happens every year. But we actually do get together and talk policy, and I've I mean I I've got some friends that are that are in red counties, and I have to say that in some counties, if you want to do public service and you want to get elected, you go with the majority party. So I think there are people who who are there who are really not partisan folks, they're government folks, and so it's it's great. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

I mean one I mean one of the one of the easiest taglines for local government is there's no potholes colored red or blue, right? I mean I mean public service for the most part isn't really about those kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah. And so you've got a team of folks, how many on your staff?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

We've got twelve or thirteen on the Mako staff, and we do all of our conferences and events internally, and then also do our policy work. So we're all hands on deck throughout the year for that stuff. Yeah, you've got you do a lot for what you have. And you, how did you end up there and what's your background? Yeah, I'm um I I'm a true policy nerd. I got out of graduate school with a degree in public administration, and my first opportunity was with the Maryland General Assembly. And they're um sort of famous across the country as having great professional staff, and and uh I was really excited to come to Annapolis to do public service. Okay. Absolutely. So but they're a place to work if you're if you're a young policy wonk and you really want to know how things are really is, really is. And uh I was I was thrilled by that opportunity to do sort of nonpartisan policy work. There are some states where whoever the majority party is in the state senate gets to hire all the staffers who do all the budget forecasts and and other things like that. Maryland's very aggressive on the we want good professionals doing all that analysis. That's interesting. I had to I don't know what the split is, but not everybody operates like Maryland does. I love our system, I love being part of it. And then for me, I left the legislature when I got an opportunity to work with counties really exactly because of the breadth of the things counties do. So I I came from there, uh, worked with Mako as part of our policy team, doing sort of you know, effectively lobbying, doing advocacy, and just like never left, I guess. So I've done I've done more than 30 sessions now with the with the the General Assembly along with Mako and uh I love I love this job. That's it, that's great.

Preemption And Local Control Tension

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I hope you stay there for a really long time because uh really valuable. So I know that a lot of the focus is on budgets and the imp the impact of state budgets on on counties, but there's also something that has been always a common thing between the leaders from the counties, which is local power, local authority to be able to listen to our voters and then do the things that they want. And you know, often the state tells counties what they can and can't do and what they should do, and sometimes there's a bit of a clash there. I mean, I've I've had situations where I think, well, maybe the state should do it because it's good policy, and that way everybody does it in all the counties, and I'm okay with it. But uh and then others where clearly local decision making seems wiser, particularly land use issues. But even there there have been some exceptions. And and I guess it's preemption is the word that gets used when the state says uh no, you we're gonna preempt your decision making. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Right. I I think I think inherent in being a local government leader like you, or the folks who sit around the table at a shop like Mako, or our professional staff who try and you know do advocacy work, this is just a perpetual tension. And I I think you can see it from multiple points of view and see where other people are coming from. So I I I don't think it's an outrageous point of view for a senator to say, I think we should just take all this decision making away from the cities and towns and counties. This shouldn't be local, it should be we're gonna do it all exactly this way. And I look from one end of my district up in Baltimore County to the other end of my district in Baltimore County, and I'm I'm I'm sold that this is the policy for everyone. There are times when the state says, yes, that's what we're gonna do, and top to bottom, we're gonna be all the same. Yep. There are a lot of other times where the local governments, I think, have a persuasive case that trying to take one idea and say, let's do this in Garrett County up in Appalachia, and also in Somerset County, probably our poorest jurisdiction on the Lower Eastern Shore, and then also in Prince George's County, right outside of Metro, D.C. I mean, that is the exact same policy really the best fit for all those disparate parts of this state? We're America in miniature, and that means we're different in an awful lot of ways. I've lost count of the number of issues where the one size fits all just dissolves by the wayside by consensus once you shine some light on it.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, yeah. And then people get people get really upset when the position that they don't like is being pushed on them. And this is true federal and state, of course, as well. State rights. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

You can you can change the players and like this same conversation is happening with the federal government and individual states, and you've got states of different political persuasions and how they feel about that relationship. And those echoes between the federal state and the state-local relationship is pretty obvious. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Local Road Funding After Recession Cuts

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah. Yeah. So where do we want to start? Why don't we talk about budgets and let's use as an example funding for roads and how that's evolved over the years.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah. Maryland's quirky here. Um and I'm like I'm the guy. I've been doing this forever. But uh I I would say, I mean, funding for roads is different in most states. You look in Pennsylvania and local governments only have to take care of bridges that the state highway system manages roads all the way down to the little tiny connectors. In Maryland, we have lots of local roads, and then everything with a number on it is either a state or or interstate highway, and the state has a system for doing the big stuff. Right. But your county manages roads all throughout Anoronal County, the city of Annapolis has their own public works and so forth. We don't have any revenue. You don't you don't have a gas tax, you don't have, you don't get any money when someone buys themselves a car or registers their car. So the only thing we have at local government in Maryland is a share of the state revenues that they send to us by formula. This is actually pretty common in Maryland. A lot of programs are run locally with support by the state, usually through some calculated formula written into law so it's predictable year to year. School construction. Yeah, yeah. There's like a long laundry list of different programs that kind of fit that general mold. The difficulty with transportation is things got grisly back in what we now refer to as the Great Recession, 2008, 9, 10, summer of 2009, the state got so deep in their own budget hole, they cut virtually all of our local road money. And usually when things are bad for a year or two, you you kind of limp through a couple years and then you put things back. And the the funding for local roads and bridges never got put back. So this is this is like massive tension between state leaders and local leaders because ever since then, counties in particular are we're back to like 30 cents on the dollar of where we were just in dollars in 2009. And paving a mile of road today way more expensive than it was then. So it's a strain on your budget, and it's pressure on like property taxes and and income taxes at the county level. People think their gas tax pays for the roads. In Maryland, the quiet secret is it pays for the state roads, and then it gets a little shifty after that.

Housing Policy Permits And Smart Growth

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah. Yeah. So we have to figure out how we're going to finance our part of it. So housing's been a big issue this year. Uh the last few years. Housing shortage. Ten years ago, they weren't talking about that. They were talking about other land use issues. And I remember under the O'Malley administration, it was Plan Maryland and what was being done to tier areas where development should take place and what how that should happen. So just tell tell us some of the wars that some more war stories and where we stand now on housing and open space. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

This is another topic that fits right into that area of what role should the state have? I mean, this this has been decades and decades that Maryland, like most of America, has said like zoning. The process of this side of town is where we should have the industrial and commercial kind of activity. Over here should be mostly residential, and then these other plots will have a mix here and a mix there. And you kind of, you know, you come up with a vision for what land use ought to look like. You have places like Houston that just says, do whatever you want, build whatever you want, all the places. And that's one model. Most places have some organized way of saying for the water to drain. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's that's led them to their own their own issues. But in Maryland, like lots of places, there's a tension between what's good policy for zoning generally versus what do you really need to do block by block in each community with input from that area and the people who live right there. And that that's that goes back to the 40s and 50s here in Maryland. More recently, uh Governor Glenn Denning back in the 90s was a big advocate of smart growth, and that became a real mantra for him and smart growth where you build where there's infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Don't build way out there. Build here where we've got where we've got water and sewer and we've got some capacity. Right. Let's do less out there and more in here. And I mean, there have been back and forth about how much of that do you make rigid state policy and how much of it do you make incentives so more and more communities will go that general direction. Interestingly enough, the last number of years as the availability of affordable housing and sort of the missing middle in the housing market has has just grown and grown as a thing a lot of people are worried about in what's usually a private market. I mean, it's it's for the most part, governments aren't in the business of deciding what the price of a house is going to be. We have an indirect role in what's available and where you can build and things like that. And Maryland's been pretty particular. Don't build right next to the bay. We want to have limits on phosphorus and nitrogen and runoff into the water systems. We want to replace the trees you cut down. We're that kind of state.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

We've also had crazy rules in counties that say that you have to build a certain lot size above that, or a certain size of the footprint of the house. Right. Like we don't want affordable. We wouldn't allow mobile homes in Anne Arundel County or even the prefab homes that are built. Right. And to me, that was just sort of a classist thing. Like we don't want low, we don't want working people here. We want bigger stuff. Um now it's it's flipping, I hope.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I mean, I I mean I mean land use policy, as you can see, like you can connect the dots from what seems like nuts and boltsy inner government workings, but there's a lot of policy adjacency there. This tends to be that ends up being it's about finances and it's about what communities look like and it's about traffic and it's about environmental stewardship, like all that stuff wrapped into one. So so I mean the the state and local governments have had our back and forth over the years. The issue of the moment, not just in Maryland, but everywhere, is how do we find more supply of homes that the two-earner in Anne Rundel County, where it's a teacher and a firefighter, how can they live in what parts of the county can we find housing for them?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Sure. That's what we start calling in the city.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, I mean, that makes more sense to me. I think people consider it attainable and other things like that. But essential workers, you know. Our economy can't function without those folks. And if we don't have somewhere for them to live, we're in trouble. So at that level, there's a there's a pretty widespread agreement that there's not enough and there are multiple obstacles, and we ought to scattershot all of them. So among those have been state, state bills talking about the local permitting process. When we agree this is a place to build, let's do that more rapidly. Let's not have this take 18 months, 36 months, let's try and do go quickly where we agree on yes. And do the same thing with state agencies. The governor's been pretty aggressive on saying, I want to get my environmental and transportation and forestry people all talking to each other so we can all stamp yes at the same time rather than 11 months on this and eight months on that and so forth. So they call it the uh the Smith Island cake. You've heard that language that yeah, trying to get something built here is layer after layer after layer. Yeah. So you target each of those through public policy, and that turns into bills telling counties, do things this particular way, and let's change that, and let's get these things off the table. And that's that's a compromise worth working toward.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah. And and I will say that there's been a clash the last couple of years, especially last year, I think, between what the governor's team is trying to do at DHCD and what the members of Mako have been saying. And as I've listened to it, I've I've wish there was more communication because I've heard some county leaders from the Eastern Shore where they really can't build unless they have, you know, sewer capacities. Right. And they want housing. They really do want the housing. Right. And and they want the housing to be affordable for their workforce. And some of the things that have been coming down have been f not really targeted by income. I I don't believe that just increasing the supply is going to get to affordability. We know what's happening on Riva Road here, where we created all the density in the world and we thought we'd get some affordability, but nobody working here can can live in those apartments. So I mean I know some good stuff is passed, I think, this year. Didn't the transit-oriented TOD bill pass? Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

A couple of big bills supported by the administration, supported by a really wide sort of a whole gaggle of pro-housing advocates. So I think I think we'll have a bill signing day with a couple different bills being signed into law. And housing is one of these things that like you're not gonna see something in six months where everything changes, but it may very well be that you make some changes at state level policy, and you're gonna have an election cycle coming up where affordable housing is gonna be a major issue in some of these contested races, and that doesn't hurt. Like that's that's one of the ways that politics changes as well. So I think in the space of time, and maybe there'll be some market changes too, right? Like mortgages coming down from 7% back to 4% would make an awful lot more houses affordable for people and projects pencil out better, too. So we get multiple tailwinds, including some state legislation that was hard fought. Yeah. I think we could get things back in a better direction. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, yeah. And I worry about the politics of it. Sometimes you you know you kind of go too far, and there's the yimbi-nimbi tension from the yes in my backyard, not in my backyard. Don't build anything. There's a banana with the banana is a good thing. It's fantastic, right? But there's the political reality of what we do as well. And people really do want to protect what they've put their life savings, their they've mortgaged their future earnings in, and and they they chose it and they don't really want it to change, which is a natural instinct that everybody has once they're in that in that situation. And at the same time, I've sat around the Mako table a couple times and said, I hope you guys don't kick me out of Mako, but I really think that we should we should let the state preempt us because we're all chicken and afraid to actually do what's right. But then I've gone to, you know, I've I think I might have said some things at the state level that some of the advocates uh the YME side um has irritated them too, because I really fear that I I don't believe in sprawl development is the answer, you know. And some of the stuff that encourages sprawl development is just not I I think it it creates a political backlash and it also is bad policy, in my view. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

I just like one quick observation just to drop and run away, but I know like you've got sophisticated listeners. And I think like the advanced topic here about housing policy is it's kind of it's kind of a tension against if you're a big believer in public process, like I am, and I think most people would say generally speaking, like you have a public hearing and you hear from I mentioned this earlier, right? But you have a public process for input on things you're weighing as matters of policy. And right now we're hearing people in good faith saying the public process is a weakness in the way we do land use. Having public hearings on a new proposed development that fits a general land use plan is a bad step because now that they've heard the details, somebody's angry that they live right next door and they're worried about parking or traffic and that sort of stuff. That's a really interesting public policy question. I don't have an answer for you, but I think that's that's an intriguing place to be on the debate, right? And there's a whole new movement.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Well, I mean, I don't know if it's a new movement, but you know, the abundance Ezra Klein book that says, look, the government has gotten in the way of progress, and we can't build anything anymore, so we can't solve our housing crisis, we can't do economic development, we can't do a lot of things. And and I there's so much truth in that. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right? I mean, most of those layers that put in the Maryland layer does that mean that you don't have a voice anymore for the community? You can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

So I mean if if if Maryland is the Smith Island cake for development, those layers didn't happen on their own. They were mostly placed there by people acting in good faith, thinking that they were doing exactly the right thing. And going back and saying maybe we don't need to do forest conservation? I don't know about that.

State Budget Gaps And County Impacts

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah. Ultimately the power is with the people, and that's what I think you and I both believe that if people mobilize and they they swing elections, and then the the people who uh want to get elected have to think about it. Trevor Burrus As it as it ought to be. So budget-wise, how did we do this year? You know, I we all know that when one level of government is got a budget problem, one of the things you can do is dump it down to the next level. I mean, our president actually came right out and said, you know, we can't afford to be doing Medicare, Medicaid, child care, all these things because we've got to spend it on our military and wars. I think they have deleted that from for it. But that is the attitude. That is, you know, and and we get some of that at state level. I've actually felt like this governor talks to us and understands that you can't rely on that. And some of our delegates and senators do as well. And so we've we've we've had a good battle over some of these.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

I I don't think anyone's doing this sort of thing. I don't think anyone in Annapolis is doing this out of malice. I don't think that fiscal leaders in the legislature or this governor or his predecessor ended up sort of laying some costs on local governments saying, I'm doing this because I I think they're full of waste or they're bad people or I disagree with them. It's just it's just when you have to solve a billion and a half dollar problem or a three billion dollar problem back in 2025, and the number is gonna be really big for a year from now in all candor.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

You have to do it by a certain date and you have to get the votes. And and this is in the federal government.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

We don't print money here either, right? In the federal government, you know, they talk about how big is the surplus or how is the deficit going to be in a given year and what's our total debt from the state. You have to have a balanced budget plan every year. And so yeah, you've got to work it out basically down to the dollar. And sometimes that means local governments have to split a cost or eat a piece of the pie or that sort of thing. Nobody loves it. I don't think anyone in Annapolis thinks that's wonderful policy. It's just sometimes born of necessity. So we've taken our dings and dents, and county budgets will have some scratches for the next couple of years as a result of Annapolis decisions. Next year is gonna be a real challenge for folks who win in this electoral cycle. They come back as senators, as delegates, as county leaders. Um, the state's got a big fiscal reckoning to handle like this time next year. And uh it's gonna be all hands on deck. What can we afford, what can't we afford, and how do you how do you pull it all together? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

And they all know it. Yeah. And they're all working on it. And yeah, I mean, there is the, you know, things are a little different in election year sometimes. But I, you know, I just want to say that, and uh tell me if you agree with this that I was impressed last year, and then particularly this year, that there was not there wasn't that much drama this year about the budget, that the leadership of the House, the leadership of the Senate, and we all know how powerful the leaders are in Maryland of the House and the Senate. Yeah, that's true. Um, and the governor. Those are the three the three parties really that have to agree on the budget. And they got it done, what, like a week early, and not everybody was happy. Last year, you know, they they really i it was difficult. But just the fact that they they sort of did it as adults. I mean, it's the low bar that we're now looking at, you know, is can government actually function?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Right. I would say I I I think it's I think it's proper to give hats off that the players realized like we're not going to gain anything by having a whole lot of Discord, have a big fight over the like$200 million in the margin of a$25-28 billion budget. I mean to try and put it in that framing, like the last 1% you spend or save, you can really jump up and down and yell and scream about it. Or you can kind of say the governor's plan is pretty good. Let's nip and tuck a little bit and put this thing to bed and get everybody out of here. And I think I think that was probably the right game plan for this year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So we've got just a couple minutes here to go. You see a lot, and you work with people all across the political spectrum to try government work. You're that guy. Do you have any advice for politicians who are trying to navigate these times? And do you have any optimism about the future?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I the place where my optimism resides is I've seen cycle after cycle of what felt in the moment like really hard decisions be made by local leaders of both stripes, red and blue. And sometimes it's folks going against the party that they that you know that they signed up for and supported them and deciding we just can't afford these things. We're gonna have to make cuts, even though I I was elected to try and do big things, we're gonna have to make cuts. And the and the reverse. I was here for fiscal discipline, but now that I've seen the whole picture, I'm gonna vote for tax increases to live up to our word. Same thing on land use decisions. That's true that both of those things happen. Over and over again, and we act like we've never seen it before. Um and and that that the the first and second act of that play out all the time, uh-huh and it always feels like it's brand new, and it always gets accompanied with forecasts of doom. You all be run out on a rail. Right. And a lot of the time when you can look your neighbor in the eye, like the county officials, you're at the grocery store with the people who vote for you. It has a different level of accountability than the U.S. Congress, right? When you can talk to someone at the aisle in the grocery store and you explain this is the reason I did that, and I would do it again, there's there's nothing that's better than that level of communication. And it happens at the you know, at the 4-H meeting or at the rotary or whatever. Um but I I love that it happens at the grocery store. That level of accountability and and to see to see folks survive those tough decisions and come back and reap the benefits and their their counties, you know, the county's better off for it. That's that's what has me believing this isn't as bad as sometimes we write it off as being.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah. That's a big lesson. I I am I remember my my my father used to say that all the time, because he was old, you know, 93, been through a while. Sure. And it's like, you know, uh because I asked him if he had any optimism about the future, and he said, uh absolutely. You know, it seems like a war here or a war there, it's the end of the world. No, actually people are becoming more less violent, more connected, and every generation is better than the one before it, and we are progressing in the right direction, which it's really hard when day-to-day things are happening to see that.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

And that doesn't get clicks these days, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for coming over here and and doing this podcast. I think I was over there at yours at one point a couple years ago. And hopefully we'll do some more. But I've learned a ton from you and from Mako, and I hear that from county leaders all over the state that they they learn from Mako, they learn from their peers through Mako.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

And I guess I'll see you in Ocean City in August, huh? That that sounds great. Well, I appreciate the invitation and those reflections about the organization and our work is what like keeps me doing this stuff. So I really appreciate that too. It is, it is a fantastic organization. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

All right. Owen, you get the last word.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

All right. Well, friends, you're listening to the Pittman and Friends podcast. If you like what you hear, and I know that you do, you want to smash that subscribe button, share the news with a friend. That's how we're gonna get more on board, and join us for the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Amen. Thank you.