*Trailer* Unplanned & Underserved: Changing D9's Future w/ Tamara Davis Brown

This is the trailer the full episode that will be posted on 4/22!

In this week's episode of the Left Handed Leftist, host Carlos Childs is joined by Tamara Davis Brown candidate for Prince George's County Council District 9. We discuss the lack of healthcare access, data centers, policing and more. Tamara also discusses her experience with the county's planning and growth and years of advocacy. 

Tamara Davis Brown:

• Campaign website
• All Politics Is Local
• Prince George's County Bus Service Survey

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But as we see now, housing developers are coming in, buying up properties and turning it into kind of urban sprawl. What is your view on kind of what's been happening within the housing market within your district? And also, are you um supportive or against the residential development that's been happening?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

So in three words, I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Three bold words. Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Okay, listen, Carlos, I'm one of those persons that moved out here really for the rural nature of I I live in Clinton, Maryland, but I'm in the southern part of Clinton, Maryland. So if you're familiar, if you've ever been to Miller's Farm, I'm just down the street from Miller's Farm. I can I can literally walk to Mirrell's Farm, but I wouldn't risk my life walking down that two-lane road now because it's just like people are going 50 miles an hour. There's no sidewalks, no shoulder, nothing. But the reason that I hate it is because when I I literally moved out here, and I I unfortunately, I think I spoke this into existence. I said, I'm gonna make sure that I patronize these farms. At the time, there were three working farms. It was not just the Millers farm. It was the Mills Farm, the Parker family farm, then they actually have their name on the road. And then there was the um what they call Cherry Hill Farm, which was owned by the Gallaghan family. And I said to myself, I'm gonna make sure I come to these places weekly, you know, go often, get my fresh vegetables, fruits. And the Gallahan family at Cherry Hill Farm, they actually had apple and peach orchards. So they had really fresh off-the-vine type of vegetables. Miller's Farm has gotten a little bit more commercial. They ship some of their stuff in. They still do farm a lot of, particularly in the fall and winter seasons, harvest, you know, the collard greens, the yams, and all that. But the other farms have stopped. They I won't, well, one sold. They sold and they built houses on it, the property. And the other farm, they have not, they my understanding is that they still have operations in Virginia. So they still have a farmstead, but they use it like for storage. But the mainland is now a big community called Hill and Trade, which is also in Clinton. And in fact, they used to sell berries. And so when you drive in that community, there's Strawberry Lane, Strawberry Hill, something, strawberry, you know, so the streets are actually named after uh, you know, berries and things like that. But, you know, why I hate it is because, you know, we have a two-lane road, Carlos, north to south, and all of this development is coming out on these two-lane roads. You got, you know, um, Hill and Trade probably has about three, 300, 300 or 400 homes. Um, my community, which is an older community built back in the 60s, has about 400 or so homes. But they're getting ready to build right across from Millas Farm um townhouses. And, you know, that's a lot. They want to put like 1,700 townhouses up. Where the airport, it used to be an airport, an old airport called Hyde Field. And so they want to put 1,700 houses there. And everything is coming out on these two-lane roads. And it's like, no, we cannot continue to grow like this at this capacity. We have to fix the infrastructure. And that's one of the things that I have been doing for decades, Carlos. I think what distinguishes me from the other candidates that are running in this race, and they're like nine Democrats and one Republican running, I think it's like 10 people running because it's an open seat. You know, it's always open seat, open season, is what I say. And so, but what distinguishes me from the other candidates, Carlos, is that I have consistently and been at the forefront of land use and development here in District 9. Barna, no one, there's no other candidate that can say that they have consistently been either fighting development, trying to work with the developers to get some community benefits, to get some infrastructure improved, and some of the promised infrastructure that we're getting has is a direct result of my advocacy along with my neighbors. I don't proclaim to be the champion of everything, but I have been at the forefront and brought our neighbors along to help either fight the development or um or at least try to get some community benefits. They also wanted to put apartments at the airport. Yep. They wanted to put apartments there, big five, I think like five stories, six story building of apartment units. And we said absolutely not. That's a non starter.