Left Handed Leftist

No Party, No Problem: A New Vision for Prince George’s w/ Tonya Sweat

• Carlos Childs • Episode 25

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In this engaging conversation, Tonya Sweat discusses her journey as a independent candidate for County Executive in Prince George's County. She shares her motivations for running, her transition from a democrat to an independent candidate, and her views on the importance of community engagement and activism. Tonya addresses pressing issues such as education, healthcare access, and cronyism in local government, emphasizing the need for transparency and accountability. She also discusses her position on the pressing issues facing Prince George's County, including economic development, traffic infrastructure, community policing, youth engagement, substance use, and the controversial topic of data centers.

Tonya Sweat:

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SPEAKER_02

Awesome. What is up, you all? What is up, you all? Tanya Sweat. Thank you so much for being here with us on the Left Handed Leftist Today. How are you doing in this wild, weirdly mild weather? And hopefully it stays like this for a while.

SPEAKER_03

Happy Saturday. Yes. I am well. I'm well. First, thank you for having me. And I hate to be the bear of bad news. I'm not a meteorologist, but rumor has that we're supposed to get some precipitation at the beginning of next week. So enjoy it while you can.

SPEAKER_02

I know, right? You better get out there and enjoy the sun before you are just rained away. See, the good thing is it's not gonna rain on our parade today. That's that's the good part.

SPEAKER_03

That's it.

SPEAKER_02

So again, thank you. Thank you so much for making time to join us today. I am just so excited for this conversation and kind of getting into it to start. Can you tell our viewers who is Tanya and and what you're running for?

SPEAKER_03

Look, the newest um hashtag these days is I am Tanya Sweat. Moisette Tanya Sweat is the name you will see on the ballot in November. And I am running for the third time to be your county executive. And this time I'm running as an independent. So, no, I will not be on the ballot in June. Please do not look for my name. And I need everybody to continue to participate in this process until November 3rd, 2026. So that's when you want to look for me on your ballot. And hopefully I will have earned your support and you will check me off as your next county executive. I tell everybody, just a country girl from South Carolina, trying to do right by our community. And so hopefully we'll get into more detail about that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, let's definitely. No, let's definitely get to it. Kind of getting into, well, one, what made you run for county executive? And then let's get into why you're not running as a Democrat, but as an independent.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. What made me run for county executive? Anger. Anger. I started doing this in 2020, right at the end of COVID, if you will. Because at the time my son was graduating from high school, and I had been the PTA mom, if you will, but I had learned a whole lot about what was not going right in our education system. I had an up close and personal view of what was happening with PGCPS and what was happening on the state level. Because by then I had served on state committees at the Maryland State Department of Education. So I had an inside look at what was going on. And I was very concerned. I'm still concerned. I still have a daughter in PGCPS, okay? And I'm tired of Prince George's County being ranked last for education in the state. The state now is not in the top five anymore. So it's not just the children in Prince George's County who are suffering. We're suffering statewide. And my question is, what are we not getting right anymore? But that was the thing that first kindled my anger. And being an attorney, having served in the military, worked in the federal government, I said, wait a minute. If education's broken, what else is broken? And so I then really started paying close attention to what was happening in my home county. And I realized, whoo, I've been, ooh, I had my head buried in the sands. Girl, wake up. There's stuff going on that I have been trusting our elected officials to do, and they're doing exactly the opposite. And uh, true story, I was sitting on my couch, meditating, praying in my private time, saying, Lord, somebody got to do something. Somebody ought to do something. And the voice said to me, You keep saying, somebody, why are you looking for somebody to do what you know how to do? And it was like, wait a minute. Never said I wanted to run for office. That's not on my dream sheet. Not on my bucket list. Not on your vision board. No, sir, not at all. It was not on my goals. But I realized very quickly, when I looked in the mirror, I had worked for and behind the scenes with politicians for the majority of my legal career. I know the game. I helped them play the game. I wrote the policies that they used to get elected on. I wrote the policies that helped our country, our state, our communities. So why not run? And I said, you gotta stop saying somebody get up off your behind and do it. So here I am.

SPEAKER_02

That's that's powerful for you to come from totally like the, I can't even say fully the private sector, but like the private public sector mix, and then say, you know what? Because that's one thing I always say. Activists, organizers, we always are on the outside pushing the politicians. At some point, we do need to be the politicians because at some point I get tired of of trying to make a politician do the right thing. At some point, put us in, let us just do the right thing up front.

SPEAKER_03

And what's worse, Carlos, there are lots of people who did right here in Prince George's County who, like me, have worked behind the scenes, making the politicians look good. And I will tell you, because we know what's in the sauce, most of the time, we're just like, Lord, I just want to give me my check, let me go home. I do not want to be bothered. And so it it takes a lot to want to step out from behind the scenes anonymity. Because technically, I wasn't even an activist. That label was through thrusted upon me after I ran in 2021, 2022, but I wasn't even an activist. I was a concerned parent who was trying to make sure my child's school had the best resources possible so he could get the best education and not end up in jail and go on to college. You know what I'm saying? I'm just doing what I thought a mother should do, but then I have this experience from behind the shadows. Because I literally was in the shadows. Because when you're working for politicians, who knows nobody knows who the campaign manager is. You rarely know who the chief of staff is. If you call the office, you might talk to a staffer, a constituent liaison, but you don't know who that person is. You don't see their face in the public space. And so I was in that category. I was behind the scenes and loving it because I got paid good money to do it. So now you want me to put on a public persona, and I'm struggling with that one. I'm getting better at it, but that's been the hardest part. Giving up my private life, my anonymity in government now to be the face and the voice that people know.

SPEAKER_02

You walk down the street and people are like, oh, wait, isn't that Tanya? Oh, wait, hold up, male, Tanya. I got a problem. Let me tell you.

SPEAKER_03

I can't even go to the food line in Waldorf, brother. I can't. It's that bad. Putting gas in the car. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You're like, okay, Tanya, well, I need you to know the gas price is getting a little high. So I need, what you gonna do about it? No, it's definitely when you run for office, it is giving up all sense of private life and just and just really like battling out for the uh public. So, but um, uh, real quick, I do want to also uh you mentioned that you're not gonna be on the ballot this primary, but you're gonna be on the ballot in November. Can you talk about what kind of made you decide that? Because previously you had run as a uh Democrat.

SPEAKER_03

Look, I was ever since the day I could vote, I was a registered Democrat. And I gave that up late last year. I'm now an independent. And I'm transparent, I don't lie to people. When I ran in 2020, in 2021, when I started my campaign, I was a disgruntled Grumma den Democrat then, very disgruntled Democrat. And things have happened, and we've watched it happen in real time publicly that have discouraged me even more so in the Democratic Party. And then when I ran in the special election, more happened. More. And I use that term very loosely. But specifically, what kind of tipped me over the edge. In a primary, generally, your party leaders don't take sides. And I say more, and and it was funny that I said that because it wasn't intentional, and the pun was not intentional a few seconds ago. But when I saw governor more endorse the current county executive, I went, wait a minute, what? What what we who does that? Where do we do that at? And so I took that as a message. If the governor's gonna come out in a primary election and endorse somebody on the Democratic ticket, and there were nine people on that ticket. You picked one over all the others. And that's not the game. That's not the rule. I said, you know what? The Democratic Party is sending me a message loud and clear. The Democratic Party of Maryland is telling me something, and I'm not offended. I hear you. You don't like what I have to say. You don't want me on your ticket. I don't have to be. By law, I have a choice. And oh, by the way, if I run as an independent, I don't have to deal with your BS in your primary. I go straight to the general election and Democratic Party, I'll meet you there. Let's talk about it. Because you're not talking about the issues that matter to us in Prince George's County. You're forcing us to talk about national issues. And while we may be 10 miles down the road, some of us live literally inches from the D.C. border, the national issues right now are not what's hurting us the most. We need somebody in the state of Maryland who's gonna take care of us. More importantly, we need people here in Prince George's County who are gonna take care of us. And if you're not concerned about that, I definitely am. So let me move out your way and let you do your thing. Because I'm gonna continue to do mine. And I tell people all the time, I can disagree with you and still love you. Because loving you just means sometimes I gotta step aside and let you be you. So I have to let the Maryland Democratic Party be who they are so that I can be who I am. There ain't no conflict. There ain't no, well, yeah, it's gonna be a little opposition, because the other thing is I can get to expose all they dirt because I know it. There are no party loyalties with me. So I can attack them just like I attack any other party that has issues and platforms that I don't agree with, and I don't have to feel like I'm betraying anybody. So I like the independent space. I think I might stay here. Look, I got a new respect for Bernie Sanders. That's all I was saying.

SPEAKER_02

Ooh, there we go. I love it. I love it. And I'll say this as someone who is on the left, as the title of the show says, it is a breath of fresh air because, as we see, the Democratic Party has a strangold in the state of Maryland. And it's really, if it's ever an issue of what the governor's doing, what the state legislature is doing, to a certain point you can't call it out because there's this inner party relationship of you do not call out the major players within the party. So it's definitely a breath of fresh air for you to having experience that, not do what you see a lot of these career politicians do, is like, look, I've been kicked and tossed aside by the Democratic Party. I'll stay here and fight it out and try to get appointed to a seat by somebody and move up the ranks for you to actually say, no, if you all don't want my agenda, you all don't want to make it a fair playing field, then I'm gonna go outside of it. So kudos to you for doing that. It takes a lot of courage.

SPEAKER_03

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Of course, of course. So kind of going deeper into your um uh decision to run to run for county executive and kind of playing a devil's advocate here, what do you say to some people who who would say, why not start more locally, like for a school board seat that you were uh fighting for, not fighting for the the uh seat, but but fighting for uh PGCPS and your own children. Why not a delegate seat, a state senator seat, or a county council seat? So so you can kind of show people I can represent a smaller group of uh people before going for this larger uh county executive seat.

SPEAKER_03

You know, that's one of my favorite questions, and I do thank you for asking that one. Because I've been asked that before. Matter of fact, I have a lady, I'm not gonna call her name, but she rolled up on me after the uh 2022 primary. Mm-hmm. I'm mad at you. I said, why? You didn't do what I told you to do. I said, and what was that? She said, I told you you needed to run for delegate. You could have won that. I was like, oh, okay. No, that's not me. And that's the answer. That's not me. I have served my entire legal career in the executive branch of government the whole time. When I was in uniform in the Air Force, the military, the United States military, the Department of Defense falls under what branch of government? The executive branch. When I worked as a banking regulator, even though I worked at an independent agency, meaning it wasn't appropriate, that's all that means. The money we use to pay our bills didn't come from taxpayers because part of what we did at the National Credit Union Administration was we insured credit unions. And so credit unions had to pay for deposit share, we call it share insurance, but the same thing as deposit insurance. We are the sister agency or were the sister, I was in the sister agency for the FDIC. So credit unions had to pay for share insurance, credit unions had to pay an operating fee. That's how the money was raised to pay my salary, okay? But that agency still falls under the executive branch of government. And while I did work in the federal government with a lot of Congressmen and women, I worked with senators to get legislation passed. I worked with their staffers and their committee members. I was not a part of the legislative branch. I know how it operates. And what I will tell you is in the legislative branch, you got to trade and barter to get things passed, because you have to have a majority vote. Sometimes you got to have a supermajority. That means in some instances you have to sacrifice the concerns of your own constituents just to get a compromise in a bill. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. Um, not that I'm not willing to compromise. However, because my job, even though I wrote regulations, I wrote policy, my primary job was enforcement, implementation, execution. And when I had to write policies, it was because in the execution, something was off. And so I had to explain how the law works so that people would understand why we were operating the way we operated. It was my job to make sure it got done, to get it done, get it done. That's what I did, okay? That's the executive branch of government. That's what I know how to do best. And so that's why, yes, I'm running for the executive, the county executive, the chief executive of Prince George's County. I could have worked for the county executive. I didn't get the pleasure of being invited. Nobody asked me. So when you don't like the way things are going, the law doesn't say I have to start at the school board. There's no path. There's no carve out. Well, that's another one of the things that I don't particularly like about the two-party system. Because they have these paths and these expectations for people. I live up to my own expectations and the expectations placed on me by my creator. Period. End of discussion. I know what gifts I have in me. I perfected those gifts. I know where they will work best. And I have to say, I'm not good at manipulation. I don't do that well. I'm an independent thinker. I know me. I know what I will do. I know what I won't do. And so I had to put my skills to work where I feel like they can best be used to serve this county. On the county council, you got 10 other people you got to deal with. On the school board, there are eight other people you got to deal with. And so, yeah, I could have gone there and tweeted my thumbs. I could have duped it out with folk, but at the end of the day, I want to move this county forward. And swaying a majority sometimes is more difficult than you think. No, it is. The power of one, power of one is a mighty thing. The county executive has veto authority. In recent history, it's only been used one time. Really? Yes, sir. One time. I got a problem with that because that means there's no check and balance in our system.

SPEAKER_02

That is, that is, that's shocking. I would expect the county executive to have more kind of like, okay, because you're right. It does show that there is almost this kind of unity is a nice word for it. You could also say kind of control for a bad way of it of, hey, the council is always going to be lock and step with the county executive. And there's supposed to be this uh uh a check and balance system. And I'm so glad that you kind of, and I love your response to that to that question too, because it also sets it up to like you're not trying to be a career politician of it of once I go to school board, then I go to state delegate, then I go to council, then I go to county executive, then I go to Congress, then I go to Senate. It's just like I'm trying to make a career path for myself. And like you said before, you have a career outside of this. This is because you saw uh urgent need within the community. And kind of going into the conversation um uh more, how you mentioned how you were not invited to be a part of the county executive's uh current administration. And we see a lot of people have been up in arms with the bringing back of, I believe his name is uh Dr. Moody with um uh with the county executive people oh, Mokey, yep, with the uh people from the Jack Johnson era. We see the the recent move, move of uh uh former uh former councilmember Calvin Hawkins, also former uh councilwoman Ingrid uh Watson moving up to the uh county executive uh level as well. What are your thoughts on kind of this kind of shakeup, but also bringing back of some of the old characters?

SPEAKER_03

The word that comes to mind is cronyism. It speaks a lot about, it gives a huge appearance of cronyism in the county. That's what it is. In government, the beauty of being a leader is you can identify talents that have been hidden because nobody's paying attention to some of us. And you can highlight that talent. You can bring that talent to the forefront. When an executive gets in a place where they ain't nobody else out there except recyclables, we got a serious problem. And that executive needs to stop and say, why is it that I don't have new faces at the table? Because one of the things that a leader, a true leader, is supposed to do is to help motivate, help encourage, and help develop talent. What does this say about the succession plan for our county? We're not developing our youth. We're not putting our young adults in a place where they can pick up the mantle and keep this thing going. Look, I'm 53. I don't have a problem saying that. I can retire right now, believe it or not. Technically, I'm still working because Social Security says minimum retirement is 62. So I still got nine years to do this thing. And oh, by the way, I got a 14-year-old who's just getting ready to go into high school. So we gotta make sure she's ready to go to college in a few years. So I need to pull them in more put some coin in the bank for her. But the bottom line is this when I do retire, who's gonna do this? And in order to make sure, Carlos, you are ready, that I'm pointing the finger at you, because anybody who's got enough initiative to start a podcast, you got some drive in you. I need to mentor you. Yeah, just a little bit. And that's all you need. Just a little bit. Size of a mustard seed, my friend. Little bit. But I gotta mentor you. And it's not about brainwashing you and how this thing is supposed to go. Literally, it's mentoring you so that you understand this is what the current system is. Learn it and then change it for the better. But if I don't even let you get your foot in the door, when I drop dead, there's a vacuum. There's a hole. Who in the world is gonna fill it? But we keep going back to, and please don't get me wrong, because I have no problem with returning citizens. You have paid your debt to society. Welcome home. But we're talking about the public trust here. That's the highest trust I know next to that of a husband and wife on this earth. Once you breach it, I'm not giving it back to you on a silver platter. No, we're not going back to that. Once you've served your time, you ought to have some marketability. You ought to be out here advising other people, mentoring young people. Teaching in college, because that's generally what most successful politicians do when they retire. They go get a nice cushy college job.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Why can't you get that cushy college job? Because if you can't teach the next generation how to run this government, bruh, sus, we got a problem. I'm wondering about you. So that's that's where I am with it. You keep recycling these folks, you're telling me they don't know what they're doing. Because if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't want to come back here.

SPEAKER_02

That's powerful. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_03

I've been invited to go back to my old job in the fuse in the federal government multiple times over the last 10 years. And I laugh at them and say, are you serious right now? If I come back to this agency, I'm coming back as general counsel or I'm coming back as a board member. I might consider being the executive director of the agency. What I ain't gonna do is come back to mid-level management. I've already learned that job. I did that job already. Anybody who wants to keep going back to the same well, you ain't learned a darn thing, and we didn't get any benefit from you. But there's something here you think you can get from us, and I gotta cut you off at some point. Go sit down somewhere. I don't care who you are.

SPEAKER_02

No, you're right.

SPEAKER_03

That's why I like term limits.

SPEAKER_02

I love that too. I love that too. Too, and the thing is too, because as you're kind of as as you pointed out, you're seeing the same recycled faces. It gives the thought process of in a county of almost a million people, it has to be other people who could do the job. But then two, it's also as if it has the air of like I'm passing out favors to people to bring you back, say, Oh, you were here before, you supported me. Here's your job, here's your cushy government job to go retire in. And then even when you look at the kind of downstream effects that it's having, you have with the uh moving uh former councilman Hawkins, but also uh councilwoman um Watson that created two um seats to be uh vacant for the um a county council. And we've seen recently, what is it, a third of all the council uh people now have been either special elections, which we saw barely anyone turns out for, or appointed. What are your thoughts on just what's happening in terms of just democracy when it comes to the county council and just people choosing who represents them?

SPEAKER_03

Two things. It's failure, is our failure, voters' failure, because we don't recognize the ambition in a person that says, I'm not committed to you, I'm not committed to the job. And so we put them in this job. And then the second part of that is they know they're ambitious and they're not willing to finish the assignment. So our system's broken on both ends. Voters have to become more astute, which means we have to do more research on our candidates. We have to learn to ask the hard questions. I've had more people say, I don't know you, boot, you didn't know anybody else you were elected either, apparently. I'm not trying to, and I'm not trying to run the nasty, no, I'm not trying to pick on nobody. But let's let's keep this thing real. I give Miss Also Brooks credit. She finished her first term. She walked away from the second one. You thought you knew her, but she didn't give you eight years, because that's what you hired her for. You thought you knew Miss Ivy. She walked away from District 5, didn't finish that second term, got the at-large seat, and before she ever got seated in that seat, she was running for county executive. Y'all forced her to stay in the at-large seat, and I guess I should say we, because I had a hand in that because I was running against her.

SPEAKER_02

And I and honestly, and honestly, not taking your credit or taking the credit from just the voters, I'd be resigned or stepped down from running, citing uh personal health problems, which even shows that it's kind of this like it's about me, rather than saying, you know what, I just got to at large, let me stay here and let other people run.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly. If I promised you I'm going to do something for you in this seat, I need to deliver, I'm gonna peek on some other people. Cause it's going on still. Miss Blagay, she left District 6, got an at-large seat. The damn seat didn't even get hot, didn't even get lukewarm, and I should running for District 5, U.S. Congress. And then she said, I didn't know the seat was gonna become vacant. I don't care that you didn't know. You made a commitment to us, even though the county council put you there, keep your commitment. That's why I tell you the public trust in my mind is second only to marriage. If I marry you and you tell me for better or for worse, and three months into the marriage, hell, right after the honeymoon, you want to be gone. I'm devastated. I don't know if I ever want to get married again. So I understand why 80% of the voters in the county don't even show up. I get it. You'd have breached a commitment to them how many times?

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. What would you so to people's question, hearing all the problems, what would you do to reinstall or reinstate public uh trust as the county executive?

SPEAKER_03

That's a difficult one. All I can do is lead by example, garner myself, carry myself in a way that the voters see that there are still people out here who believe in this democracy. They are still servants, true servants, who are here for the long haul, who are committed to them, who are dedicated to making this community better. All I can do is be me and show you this is not about money for me. This is not about my next election. This is not about my next job. Because I took it, I don't need this headache. I really don't. Oh God. I look, I'm making good money right now. Who? I'm making so much money. I hate the IRS, like every other business owner out there, because I hate writing that check. I hate writing the check. I do, I'm not gonna lie. This year I said, put me on the payment plan. I can't get this all to you one time. I can't. Put me on the payment plan. So I'm doing good. I'm doing really good. So for me to give uh what I'm doing on my own, I'm stroking my own ego every day when I open my checkbook. I'm like, girl, you did that thing. Yeah, you know, but what I can't do, all I can do, literally, is ask for the votes and then get in there, and just like I work my tail off for my household, the sweat household, work my tail off for Prince George's County and give you all I got for the term that you bless me with. And what I one thing I will promise you, there will be no resigning for nothing else. It ain't happening. That's not really a big step up. I'm gonna ride that sucker out for four years. And if you're crazy enough, if you love me enough, if you bless me to do it four more, I'm gonna ride that out for four more years. And when it's done, then we'll talk about next steps. But beyond that, I'm committed to this moment in our era, in our history, in our time, right now. I cannot think beyond that.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. That is a breath of fresh air for a lot of people because you're right. I don't think people really think about it once it's happening. Of when someone does run for office, it is a commitment that I will be here for whatever the extent of that term is. And when people leave to jump to another office, the public perception kind of turns into, oh, isn't that great that this person's running for something else? It's like, well, hold up, you need to finish doing what you said you were gonna do, especially when it, especially when it comes to people resigning near appointment times. When it gets gets to a special election, I can kind of give you a little bit of grace. But when you have someone appointed, it's like, so now the voters don't even choose who represents them now. Now it's just, I get it to weather.

SPEAKER_03

I ain't giving you no grace for a special election. Not the examples we have, because they were already in office. Yeah, you're right. Maybe one thing, if I was a deputy chief administrative officer for something and I'm resigning from that appointment, but if I'm already in elected office, why would I leave this elected office to get appointed to another elected office? That don't make no sense.

SPEAKER_02

No, you're right. It's insane. It's insane what's going on. It's insane. So thank you for that. So as we kind of transition on to some of the some of the other issues going on with the county, because there's a lot wrong with the um with uh Prince George's county. It is a lot wrong with the county. It's some good things, but the problem's a problem out there. So one of the biggest things a lot of people have been talking about is health care within with it within the county, especially as you get more to the uh southern end of the county, having less of the healthcare options, or really even outside the beltway, it is kind of a stark difference between the haves and the have nots. What is your thought process or uh vision or plan for how we increase positive health care outcomes for the county, but also have just more healthcare access?

SPEAKER_03

Hey, I though now you're gonna understand why I chose county executive. Because that's a battle we're gonna have to take on with the state. And who's supposed to take on that battle but your county executive? Your county executive is not just holding a seat. Your county executive is also supposed to be an advocate for the people of this county. And the state of Maryland is a part of the reason why we don't have a better health care system in Prince George's County. And my question to the state of Maryland is why? We closed Prince George's Hospital over in Chevrolet because we were building or we built the University of Maryland Hospital system, but the emergency care there is not up to par. I don't go there, but I've heard the story. We have Southern Maryland Hospital over in Clinton. Yeah, I saw that look, Carlos. I know. I've been in that joint too. It ain't, it's not what we want and need it to be. I also am very aware that Med Star wants to build a full-fledged five-star trauma center on Indian Head Highway. But not a tree has been cut down to make it happen. But we can cut down some trees real quick to build some townhouses and some single-family homes. That's a failure of our chief executive because our chief executive should be in the battle to make sure that every person in this county not has just primary care, but specialty care. Nobody should have to drive to DC to see an oncologist or an endocrinologist or a cardiologist or a neurologist. We should have them right here in Prince George's County. And everybody that I talk to, they gotta drive across the board. I love the fact that there are so many native Prince Georgians here. But when you ask them where were you born, the majority of them were born in D.C.

unknown

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03

They grew up here, but they were born in D.C. That's a problem.

SPEAKER_02

As someone who lived in Temple Hills for a little bit uh my life, born in D.C., raised in Temple Hills, then Waldorf. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I'm an outsider. I own it. But but but let me tell you something. I was born at Orangeburg Regional Hospital, and I grew up in Orangeburg County until I left home at 17 to go to college. I have two children who are natives of Prince George's County. They were both born in Montgomery County. Now, that's because of my military connections. Okay. They were born at Walter Reed. They were both born at the President's Hospital. That has everything to do with the fact that I'm a military veteran. My husband is a veteran. But how many people in this county are natives who weren't born here? That's a problem. And that shows you how long our healthcare system in this county has been subhar. And not one elected official talks about that on the trail. Not one. We gotta fix that. If Med Star wants to build a five-star trauma center, I said bring it. Because trust me, not having that is part of the reason why we lost the commanders.

SPEAKER_02

I'm glad you mentioned the commanders too. And can you kind of go into your thoughts of just economic development, but also talking about these kind of specific projects? We saw our Prince George just kind of has seen the commanders leave. They've seen Six Flags leave. You see that there are empty shopping malls that are uh now now popping up. And there is a promise of the mini-sphere coming. There are some hesitations of it, some people positive, some reservations. What are your just overall thoughts? Or first, what are your thoughts about all of these different uh big economic projects that have left? And also what is your thoughts and visions on what should replace them or what should come next?

SPEAKER_03

Well, things are rapidly changing in the county and in the district, well, the DMV. So opportunity is there. I don't know if we're positioning ourselves, though, to take advantage of it, from what I hear. I've had several people approach me about big economic development ideas, and they look like us. And one of the biggest concerns is that they're not getting the ear of those who are currently in office. That's a problem. The problem is this the county has never been good about development as it relates to African Americans. And I can say that from personal experience. My family does have, in our history, a failed business that a small restaurant that we tried to build here in Prince George's County. It was open for 18 months. Wing Heaven Akakik, some of y'all know it. Um and we went to the county. Yeah, that was us. Yeah, we went to the country.

SPEAKER_02

I do remember that. I remember I think I remember. If I don't remember, my family has talked about it. So yeah, no.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we were part of that franchise. And we went to the Economic Development Corporation and asked for an investment. We were told we were too small. We weren't gonna create enough jobs. Yeah. Yeah, friend. Yeah, look, I got some history with this county that I don't talk about. But yeah, yeah. And so my husband and I literally took 250,000 of our own personal dollars and invested into that business. The county, while the community supported us, the county was not very supportive. And so when you look at the commercial investment, the economic development that's coming here, I'm gonna be I'm gonna keep it real. Let's talk about it. The sphere. The state and the county have pledged money to the sphere, to that construction. Where the hell does this money? I'm sorry, where does money come from? We got deficits in the state budget and in the county budget. Where is the money coming from? That means the state and the county intend to borrow the money in the form of municipal bonds, and the taxpayers are gonna bear the burden to pay it back. The sphere's not gonna pay not one dime, not one red dime of real estate taxes because most people don't recognize National Harbor is under a tax abatement. That's private property.

SPEAKER_02

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, there's a tax abatement on that property. The homeowners who've bought condos and town homes, they're paying property taxes because they bought it from the developer. But all that commercial business, there's no property taxes on it. No, no, there's a tax abatement. So we're not gonna get property taxes. And they talk about, oh, 6,000 seats. We're gonna sell some tickets. Well, yeah, you are. You get a sales tax. Who paying the sales tax? The people who buy the tickets. Do you know who the majority of the people are going to the MG? Right here. Prince Georgians. Yeah. Prince Georgians. People who look like us from DC. Cher came here and did a residency. That started and ended so fast.

SPEAKER_02

Not the demographic lesson.

SPEAKER_03

No, no. I remember that. Cher was gone quick enough. You can batter. Go back and look it up. I'm not lying, and if I'm lying, call me and tell me. Every other major artist who's come there has done two shows at best, and they look like us. So who's patronizing MGM and paying the sales tax? It's us. So who do you think coming to the sphere? Yeah. And our county leadership is lying to us. Our state leadership is lying to us. And if it makes$1.5 billion in revenue, where is that$1.5 billion coming from? It's coming from us. Development does not happen until you bring money into your community, whether it means bringing in commercial business that commits to paying some type of tax revenue. And the majority of the tax credits that go out when you live in white jurisdictions, they give you employment tax credits. But you're going to pay the property taxes. Because you're going to use the roads nine times out of ten, if the schools are good, you're going to bring in families who are going to need to use your schools. So you're going to pay the real estate taxes. And you ain't ever going to get an abatement on sales tax because that's always the consumer who's paying it. We give away the wrong things. The sphere is not good for business in Prince George's County. And oh, by the way, it ain't good for business in Las Vegas. They're trying to diversify that mess to collect the money they're losing in Vegas. That's a whole nother story I don't want to get into.

SPEAKER_02

No, yeah, I need to bring some people from Las Vegas on to talk about that.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, Lord. Big business is something. And if you don't understand how it works, and you get you get screwed all the time. The loss of six flags, same thing. You're talking, what is it? I think about 800 acres of land. Who are they gonna sell that mess to? Lord Jesus, it'll break my heart if they come in here talking about buying more house, building more townhouses and home. Whoo, residential development. Because now, where them kids going to school? Whose school is gonna be overcrowded?

SPEAKER_02

Well, recreations they're gonna have.

SPEAKER_03

Right, and we still got a teacher shortage. Y'all, are you kidding me right now? That ain't, that would not be the move. And I'm so glad that the Six Flags, ownership has said pretty much they gave us the hand. Don't talk to me. We're gonna decide where this goes. And that was somewhat ugly the way they did that. But I appreciate it because the people we have in office don't have a, they don't understand, they don't have a clue. They don't even know how to negotiate the deal. Because we give too much of us away. So when I start talking about economic development, I'm talking about recruiting in businesses who want to truly invest in our community, not just build a house, sell that house, make their profits, and build more houses. Because they think that's investment. That ain't investment. I'm talking about businesses that don't mind paying real estate taxes. Businesses who don't mind taking employment tax credits, because they're gonna give out jobs that pay six and five-figure salaries to the local people who live here. Those are the types of businesses that I'm talking about recruiting into Prince George's County. And it doesn't all have to be technology, because you see, AI did not clean not one outer of the ice that was piled up on our streets a few weeks ago. AI can't do that. So it ain't just about technology. AI ain't ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever gonna unplug your toilet such that we won't have our feces floating down the Potomac. AI can't do that either. We gotta recruit into businesses that don't mind paying property taxes. Don't mind helping us build a healthy economy here in Prince George's County. And then don't mind putting our young people to work in jobs that pay livable wages. Don't get me wrong. I eat fast food from time to time. It ain't my favorite. But fast food ain't ever gonna help my babies get a house. You can't afford a$375,000 townhome when you're only making$15 an hour. That ain't gonna happen. That's the type of economic development we've got to bring into this county. It exists, but nobody's courting them because we're too busy going to the trade show in Vegas.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

They're not at the trade show. They're not at the trade show. We chasing the bling bling, but everything that that glitters ain't gold, baby. And every piece of glass ain't a diamond. We got to get smarter about how we do business in this country.

SPEAKER_02

No, you're definitely right. And I'm so glad that you brought up the from the permitting problems of they're not being helped from even the government, um, just institutions that are supposed to help you, like help help your family with you all's business to these large economic development things that they they kind of tout out. And you're right, they kind of use the flashiness of like, oh my gosh, a sphere is coming. Look at what it brings, look at how great it is, without really getting into the uh tax part. And I'm gonna add in a clip here, Joe, uh, of uh councilwoman Ivy who was talking about how, like, well, residents aren't gonna have to pay for it um because it's not coming out of their taxes.

SPEAKER_00

Very geeked. Jolene Ivy is an at-large council member in Prince George's County.

SPEAKER_01

Most importantly, this isn't costing county taxpayers um money.

SPEAKER_00

You just said that this will not cost them anything. That seems to be one of the things that's that's driving concern about this plan is hey, you know, we're we're taxpayers and we think maybe our tax money should go somewhere else before it goes to a sphere. And you're saying you're you're saying that Prince Georges County taxpayers won't be paying for this.

SPEAKER_01

No, we're not paying out of our pockets, right? This is this is money that is not coming out of our pockets. It's more like future dollars that we wouldn't even be getting if not for this project. People need to stop looking at it as sphere, they need to look at it as an economic engine. And we're we need to have more economic engines in our area, and this one just happens to be more interesting than most.

SPEAKER_00

If this plan does move forward, it'll still be at least three years before the sphere is here, but that isn't stopping some wishful thinking. Who would you like to see play there for the first time?

SPEAKER_01

I'm a huge Bruno Mars fan all day, so that would be my choice.

SPEAKER_02

And then the the newspress are like, well, how how is how are we paying for it? And they're like, Well, it's just delayed, they're not gonna pay us the taxes that they're supposed to pay us, which again means residents are paying for it to make up for that um that loss of uh revenue. So, no, you're definitely right. One thing that a lot of people are also concerned with too, and this kind of goes goes down to more uh South, South, South, South County where the National Harbor is, is traffic. You do not have any type of metro connected to the National Harbor, so it's easy for people to get in and get out. You're gonna have 210 be more of a pile up than it is getting to and from. What is your plan when it comes to kind of traffic? Because we also have have the metro, which is talked about expanding multiple times, but we see over and over again when it comes to South County, they really do not care about expanding so much. What is your plan when it comes to uh traffic?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, I live off of the deadliest highway in the nation. That's chilling. First and foremost, I'm going back to the state. They owe me, they owe us because Indian Head Highway, Maryland 210, Piscataway Highway, which I don't know what the name is these days. Was supposed to be an expressway. I still have copies of the plans. Yes. Every stoplight was supposed to be taken out from. Back to Kirby Hill Road all the way down to Akakek Road, Livingston Road, where I live. And it was going to be an expressway with on and off ramps and crossovers. We got one intersection. We got one interchange done and it stopped because the state took the money to rebuild the nice bridge that crosses the Potomac in Charles County. President Hogan wanted that to be his legacy. He wanted it done before he left office, and damn it, it was done. But you left my community in a lurch. And Charles County is still building houses over here off at 228. Yep. And everybody comes now 210 to get to Charles County. And the county, this county, is building more houses out in Akeek. We're battling over where they're going to put townhouses and whether they can put them on farmland and hi-yeah. Yeah, Aki ain't the country no more. I moved out here because it felt like the country to me, but not in it anymore. We squarely are becoming the suburbs. Okay, it is what it is. I'll deal with it. But we gotta do something with that road. Maryland 210 went from a two-lane highway to a six-lane highway. And y'all keep adding houses. And yes, if you build it, they will come. And they've been coming. So now we need to take the stoplights out of that highway. And when we take the stoplights out, yes, I'm gonna ask the state to bring in the Maryland State police. Bring them back, please. We need them to enforce traffic and keep that road safe. So we're not using it as the Prince George's County Speedway. Because that is not supposed to be. And traffic cameras are not working. We need police. We need patrols. And not only can the Maryland State Police help us, I'll even work with the Sheriff's Department. They have that authority. The police department is strapped. I get it. They don't have enough resources. Let me go over here and work with my friends in the Sheriff's Department. They can do traffic controls as well. Because believe it or not, when I write your butter ticket is revenue. And is it revenue off of you? Yes, it is. But we got to enforce the law. And if you want to break the law, I can't put you in jail unless you kill somebody driving your car. But I sure can find you, Taylor. And guess what? If we wrote more traffic tickets, everybody's insurance would go down. And people are screaming about how high automobile insurance is. Automobile in Maryland is high because we do not do traffic enforcement anymore. And so we are riskier drivers for that reason. And the insurance companies say it's going to cost you more to insure you. If we start doing some traffic enforcement, your auto insurance will go down. Because the state's doing the job, or in this instance, the county's doing the job to keep the roads safer. There are less accidents when I force you to drive the speed limit. When you don't want me to give you a$150 ticket and slap two points on your driver's license, you slow your tail down. It's called deterrence.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So it's going to save you money in the long haul. In the short term, yeah, some people are going to be mad because you're going to get that$150 ticket. I will see you in district court over in Hydesville. And if you come to the courthouse, not only are you going to pay your$150 ticket, you got to attack another$75 on because the judges had to take the time to talk to you about your ticket. So you got to pay court costs. It costs. It costs the speed. And people need to learn that. I hold everybody accountable, not just corrupt elected officials, I also hold the community accountable. And you got to understand, it's expensive to drive 70 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone. So if we stop that, makes the road safer, insurance goes down, you save money for everybody. That will be the first help for 210. That's the first help. And we changed that into expressway, off-ramps. So now you don't have people turning right and left. You don't have stoplights. So you go from 55 to a dead stop.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's crazy. Because the speed limit out there, once you get past Old Fort Road, it's 55. Yeah. But how many stoplights you got?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you stop and go, stop and go, and then yeah. Yes, sir. Especially if it's being one long stretch of road, people fly, oh, I could just fly through.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And so we have to make the roads safer. And part of that is, yes, letting the traffic flow, letting it flow, giving people off ramps instead of having to make 90-degree turns into communities, because you got to slow the traffic down to do that. Let the traffic flow, give people off ramps, and then let's let's uh enforce the law. Let's have some oversight out there. Because we have to respect the law. The law is in place so that we respect each other's rights. There are a million of us in this county. We all have to share it. And I can't, I can't give Carlos more rights than I give Johnny. Somebody got to balance it out. That's what the law is for. And we have to enforce that law so that everybody can live comfortably and in peace. And when you do that, it irritates some people. I get it. But when you do that, it makes it safer for everybody. And it literally makes it more economical for everybody because you drive certain costs down.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Okay. So I'm also glad that with that you mentioned the police aspect too. I do want to ask you what is your views on police? Because we look at what's been happening. I mean, and this was was uh when it was county executive. Also, Brooks, you had the kind of a total, I call it a police takeover of the National Harbor, a curfew put in place. You've had kind of expressions of like having a countywide curfew, and we've seen kind of a ramp up of police being being used for uh low-income people, especially kids, to kind of be like, hey, we don't have recreation for you, we don't have places for you to go, things for you to do. Here's a police presence as a as a deterrent, and especially with the National Harbor, it was almost like a we want to protect businesses. Well, well, one, they kind of made kids as the public menace and then said, we want to protect businesses without giving kids anywhere to go, we don't want you here. What is your kind of view on policing when it comes to youth? But also what do you want to see for the youth to actually do to keep them or deter them from crime?

SPEAKER_03

Okay. So when you talk about policing, I remind everybody, I'm married to the police. Wow. My husband, yeah. My husband is a former part-time deputy sheriff in Oklaosa County, Florida. Excuse me. He did that when we lived down there after he retired from the military. That was his first job. And so I believe in community policing in its truest form. I also was a prosecutor at one time. So I worked very closely with the police. FBI, Office of Special Investigations, Local Police. I had to prosecute the crimes that they arrested people for. So I have to been a law enforcement officer. So I don't hate the police. There is a need for the police. Now, the problem is because of some prominent, well-known policing disasters, let's call them that, murders, let's call them that, assassinations. I'll even go so far as to call them lynchings, because that's what they were.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

The police have now gotten a bad reputation. The police have to do, there's there's still work to do to rebuild that reputation. Defunding the police is not the answer. It never was. I never agreed with that. Because when you defund the police and you take the police out, then there is nobody to protect and serve. And anarchy sets in. And that's literally, to some degree, in some neighborhoods, what we have anarchy. And it's not because the police don't have the funding, it's because we just don't have enough bodies. Because we made the police the bad guy. And so our children don't want to be police officers anymore. Okay? We still got work to do. So as the county exec, my responsibility is to manage and supervise. I'm your first level of oversight when it comes to the police department. We're gonna do the work. We're gonna rebuild the reputation of the Prince George's County Police Department. Matter of fact, I'm gonna call them out. I just got a phone call because I got a meeting at 1:30. The police just called a place that's letting me have my meeting and say, we heard it's a protest. What if it is a protest? That's not the police officer's job to stop protests. First Amendment says I have the freedom of speech, freedom of association, and if I want to protest, I have to protest. And why would you call the company that's allowing me to use their facilities to hold my planning meeting, by the way, and ask, are you having a protest today? That's not what the police are supposed to do. That's not it. So we're gonna stop that foolishness day one. Protect and serve. Arrest the criminals, collect the evidence to prosecute them so we can protect our community. That's what the police are supposed to do. Period. As it relates to our youth, they're not criminals. They're not menaces. And to those who want to contribute to their delinquency because you know we don't prosecute the children, I'm coming after the grown folk. I'm putting you in jail because you're a bad influence on my babies. But I'm also gonna give the children something constructive to do. Our recreation centers should be there for the children. That's what they're for. We got recreation centers that close at 7 o'clock. Yeah, I know. I know. And we have teenagers who may not have a curfew until 11. So where are they gonna go? Rec Center closed. Wrong answer. Rec center, my plan open at 6 until school time. For parents who need someplace for their children to go until the bus can pick them up and take them to school. There may be a cost for that. Because you may have to give them breakfast. You gotta have somebody working there to supervise those children until the school bus comes. But that then solves the problem of not having enough drivers. Drop your baby off at the rec center in your neighborhood, school bus stop in the rec center, they're gone. When the kids are in school, if there are no activities for retirees or seniors, rec center closes until school gets out. Because the bus gonna bring them back. When the bus brings them back, I need people there. Oh, y'all got the middle of the day off. I need to see you back here at 2:30, 3 o'clock and be ready for these kids when the bus gets here. Mom and daddy, come on get your kids. You pay for them to be here till 6, 7, pick them up by 7, or I'm calling the CPS. With one exception. Extracurricular activities, sports, arts, music, whatever other classes we can offer in that rec center, dance. If you get in those services after that 7 o'clock hour, then the children can be there. On Friday and Saturday nights, we're gonna have lock-ins, sleepovers for our teenagers. Absolutely. Bring in the DJ, because that's what the kids want to do. They want a freestyle, they want to dance, they want to be able to play basketball in the middle of the night. Why not do it at the rec center?

unknown

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03

And I'll be paying staff to do it. And we got college students at the University of Maryland. They need work study, they need jobs. It don't have to be the old, older, more seasoned adults. We can pay college students to work all night long. Trust me, they'll take the money.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

This is easy. Yo, this is low-hanging fruit here. This ain't hard. So we can keep these rec centers open. We'll have our high school students coming in on the weekend to tutor those kids who need tutoring. High school students can do it and get their community service hours because they need them to graduate. If you got your hours, then now we can talk about a part-time job. Summer work. County needs to be the biggest employer for our youth. I need you to work at the rec center during the summer, giving out basketballs, cleaning basketballs, giving out footballs, cleaning footballs, giving out the tennis records. Our teenagers can do this during the summer. And how we haven't figured out that that's a place, that's a hub for workforce development in our county is the stuff that I'm gonna work with Park and Rec to do, to put into practice. And then I want to bring in our intramural teams. We got sports fields at our rec centers. Why is AAU team, they out here begging the schools to use the fields to practice? What? You got a field at the rec center. AAU comes under now the umbrella of Park and Rec. Wow. Okay. Every child who wants access to a sports team, basketball, football, volleyball, softball, baseball. And you're not gonna just play here in the county. My daughter plays club volleyball. We travel. Virginia, we're going as far as where's Pennsylvania at some point. I don't ever see anybody from Prince George's County when we travel. Why is that? There's scholarships in baseball, softball, volleyball, lacrosse, equestrian. We got we got horse, we got horse farms around here. And I want to give my child riding lessons. Do you know how painful that was? Why can't we do that at Park and Reds? The park police got horse, but we ain't got nobody to train a baby how to ride a horse. Are you serious right now? It boggles my mind.

SPEAKER_02

That doesn't make sense, yeah. That's wow.

SPEAKER_03

Maryland used to be the cat one of the capitals of horse racing in the nation. We still have one leg of the triple crown, but Prince George's County doesn't train our children how to ride a horse. What? And these are free slaves. No, no, no, go ahead. Look, free slaves were some of our first jockeys. The first man to win the Kentucky Derby, the first jockey was an African-American free slave. Now that tells you why they all now are Hispanic and but anyway, we can't talk about it. We're not talking about systemic racism. I'll come back for that show, Carlos. But I'm just saying, you get what I'm saying? We got these talents. Why are we not catering to them in Prince George's County?

SPEAKER_02

You're right. One gives young people something to do, so keys keeps kids off the streets. Two, that's economic development that you're mentioning because the jobs that the kids get, well, well, one, you have the jobs, the summer programs that the kids get. They're spending their tax dollars, they're spending their money in the county on things. You have also kids, kids who may through these after-school programs figure out a career field for themselves to get people into these jobs uh too. It's and it's a shame that we as a society, and I'm gonna get into the race conversation just a little bit for this one statement. It upsets me a lot that you have white communities who the first time, hey, when they start having kids committing crime, they say, okay, what programs can we offer? But in the black community, it has been so much levied against us to look at each other and say, Well, where are the police to lock up our kids? As if we don't know the systemic harms that happen when you just look at just locking up kids right and left. It is just, it boggles my mind and it's insane.

SPEAKER_03

Trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma. And then we wonder why everybody damn near crazy. Yeah. I'm bringing in programs. I'm sorry. Call me Marionette Barry. I don't care. I'm bringing programs.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. I love it. And we need the programs, and that's what people have been asking for. Final questions here is one, it kind of is attached to some of these uh programs and nonprofits. Is that in Maryland or in Prince George's County, a few years ago, they set up legislation to have kind of a marijuana money board, which takes all the money from the marijuana and looks at how it can be invested back into nonprofits and community groups as well. This legislation passed, what, back in early 2022, 2023? It is now 2026. The board has not been established yet. No money has gone out. Everyone's like, where is all this money from all this marijuana sales? Um, it was recently kind of said that the county executive's office was the one who hasn't appointed their people. The count count council's looking at the county executive. County executive's looking to council. Everybody's looking back and forth. What is your thoughts just like on this overall of just what should happen and and how can you just make this process actually happen?

SPEAKER_03

First thing you appoint, you appoint people, and you don't appoint people who have investments in marijuana. Because there are a lot of people in this county. Recreational use became legal. They rushed out to invest, because it's a moneymaker. Again, on the backs of us. Again, I'm not gonna go there. I digress. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02

We're gonna hold that for a for a different podcast.

SPEAKER_03

Get my calendar, gone, book me few times this season. I'll be doing it.

SPEAKER_02

I love it.

SPEAKER_03

So, first and foremost, we established a commission. First order of business, there ain't no delay. As a county executive, there's several appointments that I will have to make, and you better believe that one's on the table. The other thing is I'm going to the Office of Finance and say, where's the money? Because if the money was supposed to be paid to us, did we get it? Number one. And if we got it, where in the hell did it go? Because if we don't have a commission to help with doling out the money to be used under the law as it's intended, why not? And where's the money? Somebody got the money. Somebody used the money for something. And no, it ain't for one council member to decide who's gonna get all the money. I ain't calling no name. The commission will be established. The money, the tax revenue will go where it's supposed to go. And one of the first places it's gonna go is for addiction we have. Because I'm tired of smelling hotboxes as I drive down the street. I'm sorry. And there have been news reports now that the excessive use of cannabis is causing cancer, it's causing gastrointestinal issues, and this is all in our community. And we just talked about the fact that we don't have the specialized care to take care of my punk. And unfortunately, it's a lot of my young people who are doing this. So I gotta get them off this crap. Self-medicating is not the way. So let's get them remediated so that they understand. Yes, it may give you a sense of peace and calm. But you're so peaceful and so calm that you can't function in your daily life. That you're falling asleep at the stoplight behind the wheel of your car. That's called driving impaired. That's illegal. You called it out. Yes. That's called driving impaired. That's illegal. You're gonna kill yourself or you're gonna kill somebody. We need to educate our our our recreational users. And I said recreational users for a reason. Because I do know there's a medicinal purpose, and it's legal. I can't stop you no more than I can stop you from drinking liquor. It's legal. I need you to be smart about it. And I've had people call me and say, Miss Sweat, can they deny me a job because I use marijuana? Yes. Yes. Because you're a risk. I let you come to work high, and then you hurt yourself. The first thing you're gonna do is file workers' compensation, and I'm paying for your injury, even though you came to work high as a kite. Well, actually, you were calm. You couldn't sin, but you couldn't handle that machine and you cut off your finger. Yeah. Are you serious right now?

SPEAKER_02

You actually made me think of something. Um, and this is a separate from the from the final question I had to ask you anyway, but do you would you would you put a ban on drug testing for people who work within the county executive office?

SPEAKER_03

No. Okay. What a ban? Heck no. I don't want you working in the office while you, I'm just gonna sit while you sin.

SPEAKER_02

You're right. I love that. But no, no, no, not that. I mean, you know how certain jobs, or like the federal government used to used to drug test people to say if you are on or or if you have marijuana within your system, you can't have a job. But also noting that marijuana is one of those, those like drugs, if we use it today, three days later, it could still show up in our system where we have no effects for it.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. And let me tell you something. And I'm not saying our firefighters and first responders are using marijuana, but I do know there's been a big battle in county government because some first responders use it. But knowing that since January 1st, we've already had 51 accidents with our uh fire trucks and ambulances, yeah, I'm gonna test you. Because if you're driving a county vehicle that was paid for with tax dollars and you wreck it, and oh, by the way, I'm sending you to an emergency and you Zen in a county vehicle. I'm sorry. The urgency just ain't there to put that fire out. I mean, I say that for facetiously because I'm trying to keep it light. Let's, I mean, when you think about it, though, for real, for real, I'm having a heart attack. I call 911. Y'all send me an EMT and the EMT high. That's gonna go.

SPEAKER_02

You're gonna tell them, look, maybe if you was a little high yourself, you wouldn't have a heart attack.

SPEAKER_03

He might. You never know. Well, how is that how is that gonna go though? Really?

SPEAKER_02

I get what you're saying. A little bit of pushback I will, I will, I will offer to that is you can say the same thing with alcohol, but we can't test for that. It's kind of one of those things like if you drank yesterday, you may not feel the effects of it the next day, just like with marijuana. You may smoke it the day before, it's in your system the next day, but you're not affected by it.

SPEAKER_03

But you know what we do test for alcohol? If you come into work and you look like you're off balance or you smell of alcohol, breathalyzer.

SPEAKER_02

So yours is more of an impairment at that moment circumstance. So where it wouldn't be a drug test of marijuana for like in your system, it would be more like like an impairment test of like, hey, if we see you're impaired that day, let's handle that rather than a you smoked three days ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly. If you smoke three days ago and you're not out here wrecking cars or killing people, or you're not urgently getting people to the hospital, or you get out here and you suppose be um scraping the snow or shoveling the snow or salting the roads and you running over mailboxes. Yeah, you you mangling mailboxes. I mean, hey, that's literally that's the law. It's nothing I can do. However, the law also says I can do random testing. And in the random testing, there are levels that show excessive use that's going to cause prolonged impairment beyond just a couple of hours after you use it. That then is an indicator of addiction that shows there's a problem that as an employer, because as a county executive, guess what? I'm an employer. I can say, I need to recommend you get some treatment. Again, that's why that commission exists. That's why the money comes in to pay for those types of services. Where is it going? You know what I'm saying? That's why we need to make sure the money's there so that I can provide to you the addiction services that you might need. I'm not saying you get fired out the gate because addiction has been established as a healthcare issue, not a criminal issue. But we have to think about the effects of our use of, I don't care what kind of legalized drug it is. Hell, they could be Tylenol, Anvil, Benadryl. Benadryl gets some people high. Let's just keep it real. So we have to be mindful of all of that. And I put now recreational use of cannabis in those categories. And I will treat that the same way we treat alcohol, the same way we treat the abuse of prescription drugs, the same way we treat any other type of addiction, because it's about the health and safety of our workers, and it's also about the health and safety of the county.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, thank you for that. And then final question, and thank you for so long for staying this long with us. My last question, and we kind of touched on it with economic development, is data centers. That's the biggest conversation going around right now. You have the massive protests of uh people, when we talk about actual protests of people who have fought against the uh land oversight. You have had the current uh county executive, Aisha Bray Boy, talk about a quote unquote moratorium while this task force was set up. The task force came back. People aren't really happy with the task force because most residents are saying we don't want it at all. What uh what is your view on data centers within the county? And then what do you want to see be done?

SPEAKER_03

I am against data centers. Now you have to understand. Yeah, I straight up, I said it a year ago. I'm still saying it. You gotta understand, my Bachelor of Science degree is in computer science. So I don't make this statement lightly. And yes, we saw this day coming 30 years ago, 30 plus years ago. And my concern is there's no regulation. It's the wild, wild freaking West. And until we get some regulation in place, no, I don't trust big business. Because big business never does right by the people. It's all about the bottom line, making money, paying dividends to their investors and their directors. What about the middle class people who can't invest in your company and influence how you think? What about poor people that ain't even on their radar screen? And we have poisoned enough of our people. We have created enough cancer clusters, and this county has enough superfund sites. We don't need any more. We have enough closed landfills. Y'all, they ain't mountains, them ain't foothills. Those are dead landfills that have been covered up with dirt that the county permitted. Prince George's County has been the mid-Atlantic trash can for far too long. Enough is enough. Stop it. We have out in Brandywine, the power plant that creates enough toxins in this county. Yes, I am a military veteran. My last assignment of duty was at Andrews Air Force Base, and we know Andrews Air Force Base has put enough PFAS in the water streams in Prince George's County that we cannot get rid of. We don't need any more to the data centers. Take that, take it somewhere else. We got enough cancer clusters in this county that people say there's no explanation for. But not only is there no explanation, we ain't got no way to treat it. We got people dying. Because we're chasing revenue. And oh, by the way, newsflash, we ain't getting no revenue from there either. Qualified data centers get a tax exemption.

SPEAKER_04

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

State level and county level. The law's been passed. So parking planning now has created this fast track for the data centers to get approval. And the county council said we ain't gonna tax you. Why are we bringing this here now? What good is this gonna do?

SPEAKER_02

Also, a major corporation can make Google a few more million dollars.

SPEAKER_03

And Pepco, SMECO don't have the infrastructure. I already got people screaming, my life bill went up to$900, and they say it's because of the weather. Well, you throw the data centers in there, your$900 life bill going to$1,200. You ready? Are you ready? No. We cannot afford it.

SPEAKER_02

No. Wow. I'm so I'm so glad to hear you say that. And Tanya, I want to thank you so much for staying over time with us. There's so much more. I I am definitely would love to talk talk to you about. So you're gonna definitely have have to come back. So when you say clear your calendar, we're gonna make some more dates because I definitely have to have you back. Uh please can you tell the viewers um uh not just how they can can follow you, stay in contact with you, but also what they can can do to support uh you getting on the ballot in November as well.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. First thing first, and don't thank me because I was long-winded. So it's my fault, I'm still here, not yours. So the other thing is if you want to support me first and foremost to get me on that ballot in November, I need your permission in the form of signatures on petitions. And we are out and about around the town making it happen. So if you see one of my folks, they got that clipboard in their hand, please sign. Please sign. They'll have buttons on, they have my t-shirt on. We will be today at 2 o'clock, we'll be at PJ's Coffee House in Bowie. I'll be there. So come on out and say hi. Yes, I'm going to a data center meeting here shortly. No, it's not a protest, it's a meeting. But come on out to Riverdale, I think it's Riverdale Heights, Volunteer Fire Department. Come on out, I'll be there for a little bit. I'll be out in Brandon Wine at the Aquatic Center tonight at 8 o'clock. Come on out. My folks are out collecting signatures and we'll have more dates and we're announcing them as they come, but right now we're chasing voters down. I need your permission first and foremost. Secondly, we do need money to make this happen. So please, please, please consider donating to my campaign. There is a donate button on my website, tanyasweat.com. Please consider donating. The address is also there. You can mail in your check or your money order. The other thing is if you need to get in contact with me, again, my website is tanyasweat.com. I am on every social media platform. On Facebook, I am TanyaSweat PG on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and soon coming on neighborly, I'm Tanya Sweat PGC. Check me out. Um, I'm animated. I have fun doing what I do, but most of all, I love my people. I love all my people. And I love French George's County. I chose to live here with my family for a reason. So I'm gonna keep fighting to make us as strong and as wealthy and as healthy as we can be. And with your help, we we can make it happen.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. I love it, I love it. Thank you, thank you so much. And and you all, all the links um uh to what Tanya just talked about will be in the description below. So please give those a check out. And remember, this is a podcast. So write us five stars. Like, share, subscribe, hit that notification button so you don't miss a single episode that comes out every Wednesday. And with that, you all, I will see you next time on the Left Handed Leftist podcast. Have a wonderful rest of your day.