# Live Prince George's County Executive and District 6th Candidate Forum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZK7_MtImow

[00:01] And uh the first two I think once we uh.
[00:05] the community saw what was going on,
[00:07] they asked us to host it again.
[00:11] So we're here tonight because of popular demand for the community.
[00:16] So we have opened up our doors for those who may have missed it to get a chance to ask the questions and things of that nature.
[00:22] So, we welcome you to the W because we really want to live out the title of our name, uh, a community church and we want to be here for the community of West Failia because we love being here and we love the people of West Failia and we want to thank all the candidates who are here tonight.
[00:37] Some I see again.
[00:40] I thank you so much.
[00:43] As well as for our uh moderator, facilitator on tonight.
[00:45] Welcome.
[00:47] And I know we're going to have a wonderful and fruitful night.
[00:50] So, let us pray.
[00:52] Gracious God, we thank you for this uh opportunity again where we can meet uh the candidates up front and in person.
[01:00] I thank you for those who are already here and and maybe even those
[01:02] who should come later because we all understand the importance of leadership in uh this uh county and in this district.
[01:09] God, I pray that you will uh impart in the people of that have gathered uh questions that will be relevant and effective to guide their vote to do your will.
[01:21] I pray, oh God, that you will impart wisdom and insight in the heart and the mind of the candidates that they will uh articulate their answers in a way that will confirm what what it is that the members of the community need to know so that we can fall in line with the great things that you have for Prince George's County and this district.
[01:42] God, we just want to surrender this night to you.
[01:44] God, we don't want to tell you how to uh move.
[01:46] We just want to ask you to move in a mighty way.
[01:48] In Jesus name we do pray.
[01:51] Amen.
[01:53] I'm gonna turn it over to uh Reverend Banks uh who will lead you from here.
[01:57] Thank you, pastor.
[01:59] Good evening, everyone.
[02:01] Um thank you all for coming out uh to this forum where our
[02:03] candidates have graciously allowed to come out, been agreed to come out again um to talk to us about their position.
[02:11] Um so we do have a few ground rules.
[02:14] I just want to go over those very quickly.
[02:16] Um, so we have our candidates here.
[02:18] We are expecting one more District 6 candidate to come.
[02:20] So if you see him, come in and take a seat.
[02:21] He's just running a little late, but he's on his way.
[02:25] Um, please know that we are live on YouTube and Facebook.
[02:28] So a whole lot of people are listening right now.
[02:31] You may not see them in the seats, but they are listening and we can tell um how many people are viewing live.
[02:37] Um, this will also be available later if you want to take the link and share it with your family and friends in the Prince George's County.
[02:45] Um, you can go to our Facebook page or and our YouTube page and just pick it up right there and share it or just watch it again if that's what you like to do.
[02:53] So, uh, we have our moderator, Miss Johnson, who has graciously agreed to moderate.
[02:58] And, um, every candidate will have two
[03:04] minutes, two minutes to answer each question.
[03:06] We extended it because we we have the time.
[03:09] So, we're going to let you talk a little bit longer.
[03:10] So, two minutes and each candidate will have two opportunities throughout the forum to rebut something else they heard.
[03:17] So, it's a forum, not a debate.
[03:18] But if they hear something that another candidate said, and then they think, "Oh, I already spoke, but I want to respond to that."
[03:26] They get two opportunities to do that throughout the night.
[03:28] Okay?
[03:31] And then after all the questions have been asked, many most of the questions were submitted by members of the community online.
[03:37] So we have those questions going first, but then afterwards we will have uh Mike Runner who is going to come and um let you all ask your questions as well.
[03:48] So if you have a burning question, you'll have your opportunity at the end.
[03:50] Does anybody have any questions before we get started?
[03:52] Okay.
[03:53] Yes, ma'am.
[04:00] who was invited as uh speakers as candidates.
[04:03] Every candidate who is
[04:06] registered for a district 6 council person or Prince George's County Executive was invited.
[04:14] Every person who was registered to be on the ballot has been invited.
[04:19] Not just once, but twice.
[04:21] You know, we send a reminder to those who haven't replied who hadn't replied yet.
[04:26] We sent a reminder.
[04:26] Hey, we're still having this.
[04:29] So yes, every single person was invited more than once.
[04:32] Okay, over to you, Miss Johnson.
[04:35] Okay, good afternoon.
[04:35] Uh, thank you all for attending.
[04:37] Uh, my name is Cesaly Johnson and I will be moderating u, and ask and moving forward.
[04:43] So, want to allow each candidate to go ahead and have their opening statement.
[04:49] So, we will start with Miss Sweat and move on down.
[04:53] Thank you so much.
[04:55] Thank you.
[04:57] Good evening everyone and thank you to Westfailia Christian Community Church for having me back once again.
[05:01] I am Tanya Sweat.
[05:04] You will not see my name on
[05:07] your June 23rd ballot because I am running for county executive as an independent.
[05:14] I am here to ask your permission to be on the ballot in November so that every position will have two candidates that will give you a choice because that is what democracy is about.
[05:31] It's about giving you a choice.
[05:33] I'm running because like many of us in Prince George's County, I want to see change.
[05:40] And I've grown up hearing people say, "Be the change you want to see."
[05:45] So I couldn't sit on the teachings, the experience, and the blessings and not share them with you.
[05:55] So what are those?
[05:56] I'm a 29-year attorney, graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1994 with a bachelor of science degree in computer science.
[06:05] I also graduated from
[06:08] The University of South Carolina School of Law in 1997 with my jurist doctorate degree.
[06:13] I was commissioned in the United States Air Force through the the graciousness of an Air Force ROTC scholarship and served in the United States Air Force.
[06:23] My last assignment was right here in Prince George's County at Andrews Air Force Base.
[06:27] After leaving the Air Force, I went to work in the federal government as a federal financial and banking regulator.
[06:37] In that job, before I left federal service, I managed the entire nation's uh examination program for fair lending for credit unions, and I worked with the other banking regulators to help write the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
[06:59] So, I know what's going on in our economy and I want to help you and help us be a better Prince George's County using those skills and qualifications.
[07:12] Thank you.
[07:19] Thank you so much, Mr. P.
[07:31] My name is Joel R. Peebles Jr.
[07:34] Uh I am so honored to be up here with such an illustrious group of individuals who want to work for the county.
[07:40] I am your candidate for District 6, Prince George's County Council.
[07:44] Uh excited to be here.
[07:45] And may I have the question again, please?
[07:47] No, we just introduction.
[07:50] Okay, perfect.
[07:52] So again, my name is Joel R. Peeles Jr.
[07:55] Uh I am running because I have over 10 years of experience when it comes to legislation.
[08:00] And I started off uh in the Maryland General Assembly as a legislative aid under Senator Muse uh of the 26th district.
[08:07] I then metriculated to the House of Representatives where I worked under now minority whip Katherine Clark as a legislative aid.
[08:11] I then went
[08:13] and started a development firm and a nonprofit that deals specifically with civic engagement and civic education,
[08:20] which is probably my crowning achievement because I was able to uh bring the art of campaigning, uh the art of legislative research and writing, uh the art of actually being in a legislative body and passing those initiatives.
[08:32] I was able to bring that to a lot of our Prince George's County constituents and give them firsthand knowledge on how the legislative process works.
[08:40] Afterwards, I metriculated to the Prince George's County Council, uh, where I served in a number of positions, including a policy director for District 7, uh, ATL large, uh, C, uh, excuse me, an ATL large, uh, chief of staff, uh, for the Calvin Hawkins office, and then as a legislative drafter who drafted over a dozen pieces of bills and legislations for our sitting officials.
[09:02] And I would like to say with that, quite often we see our elected officials take credit for bills.
[09:06] Uh but when you look at the legislative draft request that they send through, quite often they would be about two sentences for a
[09:13] 10-page bill.
[09:15] Uh and it shows you where that work lies, where the research lies, where the knowledge lies.
[09:19] And that is the role that I served in.
[09:21] And so now that I'm sitting here speaking to you, I want to say that not only am I the most experienced candidate for District 6 County Council, I have no allegiances.
[09:29] I don't owe anyone.
[09:31] I haven't taken money from anyone who's expecting me to do anything.
[09:32] I am here to serve you point blank and period.
[09:35] No one else.
[09:38] And my goal with that is to clean up our budget and have budget accountability and to work with our county executive to do so.
[09:43] The second portion is to bring a good level of community-based development to our community.
[09:48] And the third part of that is to work on our public safety by utilizing some of the policy tools that we see in Baltimore and in New York that have bought uh violent crimes down uh 60% within the last four years.
[10:04] And so those are my goals and I'm looking forward to working with you all.
[10:07] Thank you, sir.
[10:11] Hello.
[10:11] My name is Marcelus I'mma stand
[10:13] Up.
[10:17] My name is Marcelus Cruz and more than a candidate.
[10:17] I'm a child of God.
[10:21] I'm also a husband.
[10:25] I just uh I have he's going on five months now.
[10:29] Uh a young a young man we just had over 16 years.
[10:33] We tried and finally God blessed us.
[10:35] Uh also my mom lives in Largo, Maryland.
[10:39] She's aging in place.
[10:42] She's over 80 and she was snowed in and that burned me up.
[10:51] With that being said, I believe most people feel unseen, unheard, and blocked from opportunity.
[10:57] I believe that this county has more than what we're giving it.
[11:03] We have a county that is being managed without a vision.
[11:07] So, what do I bring to the table?
[11:10] I'm a product of this county.
[11:12] I've worked with and for government innovating different
[11:15] sectors of the government.
[11:17] Just me and two others built a visa passport system between our government and another.
[11:22] I have been working with young people most of my life for over 30 years, taking them around the world building churches and homes and schools.
[11:31] We helped raise $6.6 million for the homeless veterans right here in the DMV area.
[11:37] As well as we did a bone marrow drive where we found two matches in our black community.
[11:45] I received the presidential lifetime achievement award on civic and service from Biden for all the work that I've been doing.
[11:53] But this is not about me.
[11:55] This is about you.
[11:55] This is about what we know and feel and see that needs to happen in our county.
[12:03] It's a better way.
[12:06] I come out of technology and I also have been writing public policy when it comes to workforce development, when it comes to uh programs in our schools and returning
[12:16] citizens.
[12:19] I believe there's a better way.
[12:20] Thank you.
[12:24] Thank you sir.
[12:25] Good evening everyone.
[12:25] Thank you for coming out.
[12:27] This is the definition of accountability.
[12:29] We speaking to the people, okay, the questions that you have.
[12:32] My name is Billy Bridges.
[12:33] I'm the Democratic candidate for Prince George's County Executive.
[12:35] This is my third run for this office and I'm doing so out of divine intervention.
[12:39] I am a lifelong Christian.
[12:41] I am the father of two, a grandfather of three Air Force veteran uh where I had training in accounting, finance, auditing and law enforcement.
[12:46] I'm a 28-year employee at the Prince Ro County Public School System where a classroom teacher uh professional educator and IT specialist and this administration worked also.
[12:53] My campaign is based on governing with a Christian spirit to improve our health care, safety, schools, and wealth because these are all the areas that we have in mind daily as we step out of our houses or we wake up each day.
[13:07] I am a self-funded candidate, which means I take no money from anyone.
[13:10] I none of my three campaigns have I taken any because I want to make sure I'm transparent with you all.
[13:14] You all can see that no strings attached.
[13:15] There are no u secrets hiding
[13:18] and so forth for you.
[13:19] I want to be transparent with you about everything so you know what's going on.
[13:22] And I believe that uh the author of all government is God Almighty.
[13:24] So I don't know how anyone can govern without God inspiration.
[13:27] Okay.
[13:27] To do what we have to do.
[13:29] And I believe that also that if we step up, do what we have to do, we can help our fellow men.
[13:34] My formal training, I have a a BA in political science, masters of public administration.
[13:38] I have a masters in pastoral counseling.
[13:40] I have a master in leadership with emphasis in emergency management.
[13:44] I want to make sure that we get to all of our people.
[13:46] And if we go to my website, all of the questions that you're going to have tonight, I think I said the last time we're here, they're answered.
[13:51] I tried to put them in categories.
[13:53] So if you whether it be about transportation or whether it be about healthcare, uh, safety or anything else, I put it in categories for you because I think we have to come with solutions and not just political statements.
[14:00] Thank you.
[14:04] Thank you.
[14:04] Okay, so what we're going to do here, they've answered the first two questions.
[14:06] So questions three through seven are all the same for the candidates running for county executive and also the candidate running for
[14:19] District six.
[14:21] So I'm going to ask the questions and I'll ask each one of you to answer.
[14:23] We'll start with Miss Sweat and then we'll move down and then this next question we will start with Mr. Peoples and we'll do it that way.
[14:32] Okay.
[14:32] So are we ready?
[14:36] So many residents believe there is a lack of affordable housing in Prince George's County.
[14:41] Do you agree?
[14:44] And if so, how do you plan to address it?
[14:47] Absolutely.
[14:49] There's a lack of affordable housing.
[14:51] And I say that because what is affordable for me may not be affordable for you.
[14:55] And what I know right now is we have many seniors who are aging in place.
[15:02] Taxes are high.
[15:05] Some of them still have mortgages and they're living on fixed incomes.
[15:07] It's too costly.
[15:11] We have young families and the average age now of a firsttime home buyer is 40.
[15:19] But we have individuals under the age of 40
[15:21] who want to buy a home and they can't afford to buy a $400,000 town home.
[15:28] We have single individuals who want to buy.
[15:35] We have disabled individuals in the county.
[15:38] We have immigrants in the county.
[15:41] I mean, this county is so diverse.
[15:44] We can't just use the term affordable.
[15:47] What we need is incomebased housing.
[15:51] And that doesn't mean you get a voucher or you're on section 8.
[15:54] We just need to make sure we have diversified housing within the county so that anybody who wants to live here can afford to live here.
[16:05] How do we do that?
[16:08] First of all, we need to talk to these developers that we've given permits to to build.
[16:09] They're building what they want to build because they're going to maximize their profits.
[16:14] They're not building what we need.
[16:16] And I've actually had a county council member tell me in a budget meeting, they don't want to build
[16:23] affordable housing.
[16:25] Well, I don't want to do business with them, and I don't understand why the county is.
[16:31] We need to recruit those developers and builders who will build incomebased housing so that everybody can claim their constitutional right to live here in Prince George's County.
[16:44] The other thing I will do is go through HUD and any other agency that wants to give Prince George's County a grant to remodel and renovate pre-existing homes and make them affordable for those of us who need housing here.
[17:02] Thank you.
[17:03] Yes, I I do believe that there's a shortage of affordable housing.
[17:07] And this is actually the perfect case study for how policy issues evolve over time.
[17:12] Because let's take this back 10 to 15 years ago when the current county leadership and developers met and learned that major development projects only occur in places that have a certain
[17:24] level of income and a certain level of roofs.
[17:28] Because of that, we need to build more roofs and streamline our development process.
[17:31] We haven't been able to streamline our development process, but what we did do is attempt to build more roofs.
[17:36] However, it has become a point that now it's oversaturating and the community doesn't want to see it because it's majority town homes and we continuously see the prices rises for reasons that happen inside of the county uh like development issues like sur uh search charge fees, but things that happen outside of the county like tariffs that are being implemented on the federal level that makes the importation of supplies a lot more expensive.
[17:59] So how do we combat this?
[18:02] The we have to understand that the legislative uh the legislative body's role is to supplement issues when they occur.
[18:07] We should not and let's be clear, I sit with developers and I'm not development friendly.
[18:10] I am completely against data centers.
[18:12] But I do understand developers have a job to provide for themselves, provide for them family.
[18:17] That's their role is to build and profit of that.
[18:19] And as a government, I'm tired of us trying to step in the way and say, "Well, don't profit, just
[18:24] give back to the community.
[18:26] No, that's the government's role.
[18:27] The government role, the government's role, especially the legislative body, is to look for areas where we can circumvent some of the cost that the constituents are going to feel.
[18:36] Instead of spending 39,49, $59 million and sending that to nonprofits that only service parts of the community, we can use that to build a fund.
[18:44] And that way, we can make sure that when developers come in, we give them initiatives.
[18:47] You hire Prince George's County workers, you bring down prices to this level, and we will feed into you for the amount that you give back to the community.
[18:55] I am an incentivebased candidate.
[18:57] I do not want to give developers anything, but I do understand that they have to make money.
[19:01] So, my job as your district 6 council members to make sure that the government stands in the way of the cost that is being by our constituents, which allow them to not afford houses.
[19:14] Thank you, Mr. Cruz.
[19:16] I come at this uh from the view of vision.
[19:20] Where there's no vision, things just
[19:25] happen.
[19:26] First of all, we have old development uh plans.
[19:29] And then you put on top of that zoning, old zoning laws so that we can't build the way we want.
[19:39] Then I look and say, what is the vision?
[19:43] How many people have been over to the Nat Stadium?
[19:45] Have you seen that?
[19:48] You seen that development?
[19:50] That is an ecosystem that keeps the money in the area.
[19:53] That's walkable commerce.
[19:55] You got mixed use housing there.
[19:58] You got condos that people can afford.
[20:02] It is time for us to take on a different vision.
[20:05] My vision is to make Prince George's County the innovation technology hub for the world.
[20:09] And to do that requires us to look at things differently and give our agencies new ways, restructure this government and bring in new revenue.
[20:20] Because a lot of what you're seeing is we don't have the
[20:25] enough money. Developers come in.
[20:28] Whoever's in office want to look good.
[20:30] So they go ahead and allow them to go
[20:32] ahead and build. And then you see all
[20:34] these homes with a gas station. I guess
[20:37] that's the grocery store. I guess that's
[20:40] retail. I guess that's everything for
[20:42] us. You don't see a lot of our
[20:44] businesses with storefronts in this
[20:47] county. It is time for a new vision. And
[20:51] that's what I want to bring to the
[20:52] office. The county executive is more
[20:55] than someone who manages the job. It's
[20:58] someone who casts vision so that the
[21:00] agencies as well as the county council
[21:03] can know where we're headed. Thank you.
[21:06] >> Thank you, Mr. Bridges. Thank you. Uh
[21:10] let me say I I was born and raised in
[21:12] Mississippi. Uh I'm a child of the civil
[21:14] rights era. So I'm a very big fan of our
[21:17] civil rights leaders and also our
[21:20] leaders in black history. I believe in
[21:22] empowering the voters. If we come from a
[21:24] position of beggars, we can't do
[21:26] anything. This is why I mentioned about
[21:28] creating the citizen investment bank in
[21:30] Prince George's County where the
[21:31] citizens can invest their own money for
[21:33] any and every development project
[21:35] including affordable housing. If we have
[21:37] an office of suburban and urban
[21:39] planning, we know what we need. We know
[21:42] where it needs to be. We're not worried
[21:44] about Mr. Developer coming to get in
[21:45] here. And also things like permits.
[21:47] We're issuing permits with no ending
[21:49] dates. We need to make sure permits have
[21:50] a a deadline, maybe two years, and you
[21:52] have to reapply again because when they
[21:54] don't do that, it messes up our
[21:56] communities from safety from schools and
[21:58] everything else. So, if we can actually
[22:00] have the development process where we
[22:03] are putting the money there, you're
[22:04] creating generational wealth because
[22:06] each time the mortgage is paid, you're
[22:07] getting a little bit of that back. You
[22:09] decide the interest rates. You hold
[22:10] those mortgages. We don't even let the
[22:12] banks get involved in that situation
[22:13] because you are organization, not
[22:16] county, but you're individuals and
[22:18] you're investing your monies into
[22:19] stores. And I know we're talking about
[22:20] affordable housing, but it's everything.
[22:23] So, we have to make sure that we are con
[22:25] producers and no longer consumers
[22:26] because if we don't, we're going to be
[22:28] back in the same situation four years
[22:30] from now, eight years from now. We're
[22:32] going to be asking what happened because
[22:34] you didn't take control. We have to make
[22:35] sure that we're in charge of our own
[22:36] destiny. Thank you.
[22:38] >> Thank you. Before we move forward, Yes,
[22:40] ma'am.
[22:41] >> I actually want to use one of my
[22:42] rebuttals.
[22:44] I heard a couple of things that I think
[22:46] we need to clarify.
[22:49] First, on incentive based development.
[22:53] We need to be careful about that because
[22:56] we're paying for that right now. Um,
[22:59] what many of you don't understand is the
[23:01] number of municipal bonds this county
[23:03] carries because we've given incentives
[23:05] to developers and now we're paying the
[23:07] taxes to pay off the municipal bonds
[23:11] because we had to borrow the money to
[23:13] give those incentives. So, we need to be
[23:16] very careful about incentives that we
[23:18] give to developers to build houses.
[23:21] There are incentives that don't cost us
[23:25] an additional tax burden, such as
[23:27] employment tax credits.
[23:30] We didn't do that when we were building
[23:32] houses in Prince George's County. We
[23:34] literally took out municipal bonds to
[23:36] put in sewers, to put in public water,
[23:39] to put in sidewalks. And now, if some of
[23:42] you live in new houses, look at your tax
[23:45] bill. It has a special assessment on it.
[23:48] That's to pay back the bond where the
[23:50] county borrowed the money. before you
[23:51] ever sign the contract. So, we have to
[23:54] be very careful about the incentives
[23:56] that we give for commercial business.
[23:58] They already making money and when they
[24:01] sell, they going to make more. Um, there
[24:05] was also discussion about the area
[24:07] around that stadium. We need to be
[24:09] careful about that too because DC pushed
[24:12] out poor people to redevelop that area
[24:15] and a lot of those poor people had to
[24:17] come to Prince George's County and they
[24:18] struggling to make it here. Some of them
[24:20] moved out to Charles County and now
[24:22] Charles County is complaining about them
[24:24] being out there. So, if we start tearing
[24:26] down all of our older homes to build new
[24:29] walkable communities, where are the
[24:31] people living there going to go? We have
[24:33] co-ops around um Northwest Stadium.
[24:38] Those that was lowincome housing
[24:40] developed by the federal government
[24:42] during the civil rights era. If we push
[24:45] out our elders, because many of the
[24:47] people living in those cooperatives are
[24:49] 80 plus years old, where are they going
[24:51] to go? So again, all these things sound
[24:54] nice, but we got to think about what
[24:56] we're doing and be very strategic when
[24:59] we implement these plans.
[25:02] >> Thank you.
[25:02] >> And if I may, if I may.
[25:04] >> Yes, sir. I I agree with many much of
[25:08] what was said, but we have to be very
[25:10] careful of using umbrella terms to def
[25:13] defer us from using reasonable tactics.
[25:16] When we say incentive based, the reason
[25:18] why we have to be incentive based, and
[25:20] you guys can look at it, go to the
[25:21] Merlin National Capital Park and
[25:22] Planning Planning Board and see how many
[25:24] designated site plans are on that
[25:26] agenda. See how many times they have to
[25:28] cancel meetings because there's nothing
[25:30] on the agenda right now. go look at the
[25:32] review process hearing and see how many
[25:34] designated site plans are on that
[25:36] hearing. When we talk about incentive
[25:38] base, there's a blanket coverage of it
[25:40] because the issue that we have is
[25:41] developers don't want to come here. So
[25:44] when we're talking about incentive base,
[25:45] yes, we do need to give incentives. But
[25:47] let me be very clear, those incentives
[25:49] should not be so that there can be
[25:51] corporate greed with our development.
[25:52] Every incentive that I am stating is an
[25:55] incentive that is tied to hiring in
[25:57] Prince George's County, building in
[25:59] Prince George's County, and serving
[26:01] Prince George's County. You don't attack
[26:03] developers by demanding that they give
[26:05] back to the community after they built.
[26:07] You tell them that if you come here, we
[26:09] are going to help you as long as you're
[26:10] helping the community. And I want to be
[26:12] very clear on that point because yes,
[26:13] the umbrella term of uh of of of
[26:17] enticing developers to come here can be
[26:20] dangerous. However, there are schemes to
[26:22] where we don't line the pockets of
[26:24] council members and developers, but
[26:25] instead make sure that the community is
[26:27] taken care of. And that is my plan in
[26:29] the legislative branch in Prince
[26:31] George's County Council.
[26:32] >> Thank you so much, Mr. Peoples.
[26:36] Okay, so our next question is a two-part
[26:39] question and this will start with Mr.
[26:41] Peoples. How would you encourage
[26:44] economic growth in the county? Do you
[26:47] believe the sphere is good for PG
[26:51] County? Do you believe data centers are
[26:54] good for Prince George's County?
[26:58] So, no. Uh, with the sphere, I'm not
[27:00] going to necessarily attack the sphere.
[27:01] I understand the need, even though the
[27:04] Las Vegas numbers don't necessarily
[27:06] reflect what we want here. But what I
[27:08] will say is that I'm not going to just
[27:10] step in the way of any type of
[27:11] development that can grow Prince
[27:12] George's County. However, that has
[27:14] nothing to do with my plan for
[27:15] development in Prince George's County.
[27:17] And before we get into that, I do want
[27:18] to say at this point in time, I am no on
[27:21] data centers. Period. You will not build
[27:23] a data center in Prince George's County
[27:24] and have my vote on it until you give us
[27:26] hospitals with reasonable call times to
[27:29] be seen by a doctor until you build and
[27:31] fix our roads and infrastructure so
[27:33] people can travel. So, until you give me
[27:35] the county that I'm happy to live in,
[27:36] I'm not going to give you a data center
[27:38] that you can happy to profit from. But
[27:40] moving back now when we're talking about
[27:42] uh reasonable development, I went out to
[27:44] Orlando, Florida and sat down with some
[27:45] business owners who've taken our town
[27:47] center complex, but instead of focusing
[27:49] on retail and dining, fast dining, they
[27:52] focus it on family center. Yes, there
[27:55] are some issues with that because we do
[27:57] see some of those businesses fizzle out
[27:59] and then we see some of those businesses
[28:01] actually succeed. But the positive part
[28:03] about that is is that if we focus on
[28:05] development in that center, we can make
[28:07] up for the 4,000 5,000 person gap that
[28:09] we're going to see in our student youth
[28:10] employment program this year. I want to
[28:12] be very clear that this development not
[28:14] only in other jurisdictions where
[28:16] they're tourist jurisdictions, which we
[28:17] can build off from DC, we actually can
[28:19] do it because DC is a hot tourist area
[28:21] and we can build off of it since we have
[28:23] connected transit. We can build these
[28:25] things because they have entertainment
[28:27] that is not seen in most of the places
[28:29] in this country, especially in this
[28:30] region. Will it be tough? Yes. Will
[28:32] there be some fails? Yes. But if
[28:34] successful, we have seen in other
[28:36] jurisdictions just based off of tax
[28:38] revenue 250 million to$500 million
[28:41] impact. And while we're sitting here
[28:43] looking at a 2027 fiscal year budget
[28:46] that is supposed to be around a 300
[28:48] million, one of these complexes, if
[28:51] planned right, successfully, and with
[28:53] community backing and support, can
[28:55] offset that with just one. And my plan
[28:57] is to build multiple of them within the
[28:59] next 20 years.
[29:01] Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Mr. Cruz,
[29:04] >> uh, the sphere. That wouldn't be in my
[29:07] plan. I'm not going to attack it. But
[29:09] let's just think about this for one
[29:10] second. If we were a family with
[29:12] children, right? The children are
[29:14] municipalities. Right now, we're focused
[29:17] on one child, and that's the harbor
[29:19] area. And when we place stuff there,
[29:23] that money doesn't circulate in the
[29:24] county. That dollar is not happening and
[29:27] making it things work for you.
[29:30] The point here is having a vision and
[29:33] I'm going continue to come back to it.
[29:34] It's time for us to have a vision and an
[29:37] innovation technology vision hub for the
[29:40] world for me looks like yes more
[29:43] walkable communities because the dollar
[29:47] circulates more and longer in our
[29:49] community. We have to get back to that
[29:53] as well. So economic growth for me I
[29:55] believe it is time for us. We're not
[29:58] going to build our way and then all of a
[29:59] sudden have all the money that we need.
[30:01] So, we have to bring a new enterprise
[30:03] into this county. And I happen to be in
[30:06] the area where money is just moving
[30:10] really fast. Technology.
[30:13] I'm a no for data centers. I'm a big N
[30:16] O, but I'm a yes for bringing in an
[30:19] enterprise of cloud computing. How many
[30:22] people make money from your modem router
[30:24] at home? Probably nobody. But what if I
[30:27] told you you can have a device similar
[30:29] to it in your home and make up to 500 a
[30:32] month, make up to 6,000 for the year for
[30:36] cloud computing? Everything that we do
[30:38] on our cell phone is cloud computing,
[30:40] banking,
[30:42] reservations.
[30:44] What if I told you you can be a part of
[30:46] a decentralized cloud computing and make
[30:48] up that money? Guess what? Now your
[30:51] property tax is taken care of. I didn't
[30:53] have to promise you I was going to take
[30:55] care of it. it was taken care of. And
[30:57] yes, our government can bring in more
[30:59] money so that now we can now handle the
[31:02] developers the way we need to because we
[31:04] don't have enough money too. We're
[31:06] coming from a a position of weakness.
[31:09] Thank you.
[31:13] There is great wealth in Prince George's
[31:15] County and this is where I get back to
[31:17] empowering us. We talk about things like
[31:19] the sphere and data center. We don't own
[31:21] that. And I know many of you are
[31:23] familiar with uh sharecropping.
[31:26] Sharecropping means that you you can use
[31:28] the beautiful things. You can use it,
[31:29] but you don't own it. So you can go and
[31:31] use the spear. You can spend your money
[31:33] there, but you don't own it. If they
[31:35] decide to do something that we don't
[31:36] like, then we have to go out to court or
[31:38] protest or whatever. But if you own it,
[31:40] you have a say in what goes on. And so
[31:42] therefore, when we talk about uh urban
[31:45] and suburban planning, we're not talking
[31:47] about data centers coming because our
[31:48] urban and suburban planning board will
[31:50] not allow that. Yes, we have to work
[31:51] with parks and planning and so forth to
[31:53] get some things coordinated, but we will
[31:54] not look at things like the spear and so
[31:56] forth. They came here looking for us.
[31:58] Apparently, we didn't go looking for
[32:00] them that I know of. And so,
[32:01] consequently, we need to have our own
[32:04] set of economic development projects set
[32:06] up with urban development planning so we
[32:08] know what we need, where we build,
[32:11] making sure that we have all of our
[32:12] needs addressed and cared for. If we
[32:14] don't, we're going to continue to be
[32:16] sharecroppers. We're going to continue
[32:17] to let these people come and laugh at
[32:19] you behind your back because they know
[32:20] they can come to Prince George's County
[32:22] and do what they like. Thank you.
[32:24] >> Thank you, Mr. Miss Sweat.
[32:28] >> When we talk about economic growth,
[32:32] you got to understand economics.
[32:34] And the only way the government grows
[32:37] literally is through taxation. Just I'm
[32:39] just going to be honest with you. Right
[32:41] now, Prince George's County only has two
[32:43] taxation revenue streams.
[32:46] real estate taxes
[32:49] and employment taxes.
[32:52] Our commercial businesses, the majority
[32:54] of them in this county don't pay real
[32:56] estate taxes. We're not making money off
[32:58] of National Harbor because National
[33:00] Harbor is sitting on a long-term tax
[33:02] abatement
[33:03] and is privately owned.
[33:06] So, I do not support the sphere because
[33:09] again, it's coming in on privately owned
[33:11] property that is already under a tax
[33:13] abatement. We've already committed to
[33:16] invest funds in that thing, our tax
[33:19] dollars, and it's not going to get here
[33:22] until 2032.
[33:24] So, we're gonna be waiting in six years
[33:26] before we see a dime of sales tax from
[33:29] the ticket sold because that's all we're
[33:30] going to get. Data centers has always
[33:34] been a no for me. Prince George's County
[33:36] has been the trash can for the
[33:37] Mid-Atlantic region for far too long and
[33:40] we need to stop taking everybody else's
[33:43] trash and environmental toxins. It's
[33:45] killing us. We do have unusable land or
[33:49] land that has been marked condemned in
[33:52] this county right now and we could
[33:54] actually use it to make money because we
[33:56] can't sell it. All those old landfills
[33:59] that we can't use anymore, we've covered
[34:01] them up with dirt and they look like
[34:02] mountains because the grass is growing
[34:04] on them. They're not mountains. Those
[34:06] are landfields. They're dead. But we can
[34:09] take that land and actually get ground
[34:12] lease money from it and we can also tax
[34:16] that to raise our revenues.
[34:19] So I would use that as a a quick starter
[34:23] for our economic growth. And the other
[34:26] thing Prince George county has that we
[34:28] don't use well is that beltway.
[34:31] How many truck stops, rest areas do we
[34:34] have on the beltway for those who are
[34:37] traveling through Prince George's
[34:38] County? That is lost dollars to us every
[34:44] single year. So if we bring a rest stop
[34:47] or truck stop in northern Prince
[34:49] George's County because there's a lot of
[34:51] empty land in Laurel, we can get money
[34:53] from tourism in other areas that doesn't
[34:56] necessarily come from our pockets.
[34:58] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat.
[35:00] >> And if I may, just as a building point
[35:02] on that aspect because I agree with u
[35:05] what was just said, but there are things
[35:08] that are evolving now that we have to be
[35:10] careful from. The county executive and
[35:12] the county council promised you guys
[35:13] they wouldn't raise your property taxes
[35:15] because that's the tax that you're
[35:16] focusing on. But within the last fiscal
[35:18] year, they've raised your
[35:19] telecommunications tax, your power tax,
[35:22] and I forget what the third tax was that
[35:23] was passed in the 27 fiscal year budget.
[35:26] But they raised three taxes, different
[35:28] taxes within the last fiscal year
[35:30] because they told you we wouldn't raise
[35:31] property taxes, but they left it at that
[35:33] because that was one of their main
[35:34] sources of revenue for the county. So,
[35:37] yes, this is true that our main revenue
[35:39] sources do come from income tax and
[35:41] revenue tax. However, there are other
[35:43] taxes that are now moving. And let's
[35:45] just be real. The same county council
[35:47] that just passed a resolution to go to
[35:49] the PMJ to go to the public service
[35:52] commission and fight to bring our uh our
[35:54] power um our power costs down. Also just
[35:57] passed the power tax to help them
[35:59] supplement the hundreds of thousands and
[36:01] the millions of dollars that they're
[36:02] spending on things that we as a county
[36:04] do not did not approve of as
[36:05] constituents. So while yes, those two,
[36:07] just to repeat one more time, yes, while
[36:10] income tax and property tax are the
[36:12] number one and two revenue sources for
[36:14] the county, they are slowly moving up
[36:16] other taxes to creep into that to
[36:17] distract you by saying we didn't move up
[36:19] our property taxes.
[36:22] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. And would you
[36:24] like to on that, Mr. Cruz? Um, this is a
[36:29] passive
[36:30] uh
[36:33] I'm sorry.
[36:35] Right now we have a passive
[36:38] income way of bringing in income. It's
[36:42] built on our property tax, income tax.
[36:46] Now fines have gone up. And I just want
[36:49] to add this. In that budget, they went
[36:52] from 1.11 billion in property tax to
[36:55] 1.22 22 billion. Okay. They also went
[37:00] from 929
[37:02] million to 1 billion in income tax that
[37:06] they are saying is going to come in in
[37:09] the next physical year. And we know that
[37:11] foreclosures are up and we know that
[37:13] people have been laid off. So we have a
[37:16] deficit on our horizon.
[37:21] This is why I believe that it is time
[37:23] for us to bring in a new enterprise,
[37:26] something new, something that we all can
[37:29] benefit on. Uh Billy said earlier,
[37:31] something that we can own. And what I'm
[37:34] talking about, we can mostly own and
[37:37] partner with another company and have
[37:41] our own and put ourselves on the map.
[37:43] Become the first county that don't need
[37:45] data centers anymore, but now we're
[37:48] using the technology that the big boys
[37:51] are getting and using. And now you are
[37:55] making money. Our businesses are making
[37:58] money. Now we're getting liquidity to
[38:00] them. Our churches are now making money
[38:02] as well as now we're bringing in more
[38:05] income now into our county treasury
[38:09] without raising taxes.
[38:12] I want you to know that this is actually
[38:14] happening right now. A lot of people are
[38:16] signing up for this, but this can become
[38:18] a county enterprise within three to six
[38:22] months. If you want to know more about
[38:24] it, let's talk about it because I'm
[38:26] doing town halls on this. Thank you.
[38:28] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz. So, we're going to
[38:31] move to our next question and that will
[38:33] start with Mr. Cruz. On June 3rd at the
[38:37] Maryland Board of Public Works meeting,
[38:40] the treasurer specifically mentioned $10
[38:43] million of Maryland taxpayer money lost
[38:46] due to non-use and lack of return on
[38:50] investment of the Largo Civ Civic Plaza.
[38:54] What are your thoughts on how to move
[38:57] forward with the blocked off plaza in
[39:00] front of the government building and the
[39:03] associated cost, Mr. Cruz?
[39:06] >> Well, I just was breaking down how I
[39:09] would bring in money tomorrow. Before I
[39:12] get into that,
[39:14] when I look at the budget, because
[39:16] that's where everything is,
[39:18] the executive has gone up 35%. Did you
[39:22] know that?
[39:24] 35%.
[39:26] Where are money? Where's the Where is
[39:28] the money going?
[39:31] I have not seen any new revenue come in.
[39:34] I mean, you have you all?
[39:38] And we have all these projects that
[39:40] we're saying that we're going to do that
[39:42] we never get done.
[39:45] And then during election year, you hear
[39:47] stuff like, "Oh, this new grocery store
[39:49] is coming. Oh, this is coming." And,
[39:50] "Oh, that is coming." And I don't see
[39:52] any shovels.
[39:56] For me, when I hear all these plans, I I
[40:00] my ears close up because
[40:03] I've worked with and for government and
[40:05] I'm also a businessman. I've created
[40:07] jobs.
[40:08] And the only way you grow is you go
[40:11] after something that can bring in
[40:13] revenue or you're going to provide a
[40:15] service that brings revenue. This is a
[40:19] passive economy. We have to move to a
[40:22] production economy.
[40:27] Right now, our businesses, we have over
[40:30] 18,000 businesses. They work outside the
[40:33] county.
[40:35] Our government doesn't spend a whole lot
[40:37] of money inside the county. And we go
[40:41] and eat and play where? Outside the
[40:44] county.
[40:46] So all of these plans, I guess I mean I
[40:48] could go into answering that, but my my
[40:51] point here is I come out of a sector and
[40:54] we have the opportunity right now to
[40:57] bring in real money and then we can talk
[40:58] about what we we'll we'll do with that
[41:00] land. We'll talk about every project
[41:02] that we want to get into because now
[41:05] we're bringing in the income
[41:08] and we're not allowing I'm sorry I gotta
[41:11] stop.
[41:11] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Bridges.
[41:15] Thank you. Uh after the third one, I
[41:18] make it a point as a Christian not to
[41:20] ever denigrate any other candidate and
[41:22] so forth uh or other politicians, but I
[41:24] heard that particular complex was
[41:26] actually dedicated to Mr. Johnson,
[41:28] former county executive. If that be the
[41:30] case, that's a problem. Uh but yet
[41:32] because of political games in this
[41:34] county and what they're doing, we get
[41:36] left in the situation. We had something
[41:38] in the military called precinary
[41:40] liability. That means if you spend money
[41:42] or is spelled and spent in a wrong in an
[41:45] improper fashion, you can be liable for
[41:47] that. So whoever decided they want to do
[41:49] this, they need to go back and find out
[41:51] now how are you going to repay the
[41:53] government for what you spent that money
[41:55] on. And in my two 2018 campaign, I made
[41:58] sure I mentioned something called Prince
[41:59] New Prince County Plan, which is still
[42:00] in effect now. It's a living document.
[42:02] It keeps growing. People can add to it.
[42:04] It belongs to you. You can add to it,
[42:06] take away from it. And in that plan,
[42:08] there was something called office of
[42:09] inspector general, which I made sure it
[42:11] was something that we had to have
[42:13] independent office, not part of
[42:15] government, independent of government.
[42:17] What it does is if citizens see
[42:18] something like that on the county
[42:20] council's uh docket to approve something
[42:22] like that before it even happens, before
[42:24] something even gets built, they can go
[42:26] and make a complaint to an inspector
[42:27] general. We can get that investigated.
[42:29] And if there's liability for that, we
[42:31] need to make sure those people who
[42:32] thought it was okay to do that for
[42:33] political favors to make sure they're
[42:35] going to pay the county back that money.
[42:36] Thank you.
[42:37] >> Thank you, Mr. Bridges. Miss Swag,
[42:41] just so we're clear what we're talking
[42:43] about.
[42:46] Next to the Wayne Curry building, there
[42:48] was a park. It was commissioned under
[42:51] county executive also.
[42:54] It was paid for by $10 million from the
[42:57] stadium authority.
[42:59] The construction was completed in
[43:01] December after Miss Also Brooks had
[43:05] began her transition to the Senate.
[43:09] When current county executive Bray Boy
[43:13] came into office,
[43:15] that park was closed off by fence and
[43:18] remains closed off to this day.
[43:22] There is no access.
[43:24] The intention for that park was to
[43:27] create a place where we could have
[43:29] outdoor concerts. There is a playground
[43:32] on it where the children could play. Um
[43:35] there are park benches and tables and
[43:38] umbrellas for county employees to eat
[43:40] their lunch and rest from uh during
[43:43] their breaks from their work.
[43:46] What will I do with it? Open it.
[43:50] I'm not going to name it what people
[43:53] rumor it's going to be named. That ain't
[43:55] happening, Captain. But we gonna use it.
[43:59] I don't care whether I don't like it. I
[44:02] don't care if I don't like the color. I
[44:04] don't care if I don't like the design.
[44:06] The bottom line is that park was legally
[44:09] created and paid for with our tax
[44:13] dollars.
[44:14] For me to be elected as your county
[44:16] executive and become a Mrs. Trump and
[44:20] decide because I don't like it. I'm
[44:22] gonna shut it down. Is wrong.
[44:25] It's unethical. It's illegal. That is
[44:28] public property. And if I'm elected to
[44:32] be your next county executive because we
[44:34] don't have the money to take it down, to
[44:37] demo it, to donate the stuff to the
[44:40] schools. If it's still there when I get
[44:43] inaugurated,
[44:44] the fence coming down, y'all going to
[44:47] tell me what to name it. and we gonna
[44:49] use it.
[44:50] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat.
[44:52] Okay, our next question is about uh
[44:56] education.
[44:58] Prince George's County Public Schools.
[45:01] Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Peebles. You wanted
[45:03] to do a rebuttal. I didn't see you, sir.
[45:05] >> No, it's perfectly because that's really
[45:06] a county executive candidate question.
[45:08] So, I was like in my seat at the same
[45:10] time like, am I supposed to answer this?
[45:12] Um, so what I what I'll do is take a
[45:15] short excerpt to build upon uh what my
[45:18] fellow candidate said uh in terms of
[45:20] some civic education instead of giving
[45:21] my opinion on it because I know my
[45:23] roles. I'm supposed to be I'm running to
[45:24] be a legislator, not an executive that
[45:27] actually has to enforce what the
[45:28] legislative body passes. So when it
[45:30] comes to this, I agreed. I remember
[45:32] working in the Wayne Curry building in
[45:33] 2023 and coming down to the first floor
[45:36] and seeing the sign that said this civic
[45:38] plaza was supposed to be built. I
[45:39] immediately had an issue because I had
[45:41] just come from a budget meeting where
[45:42] they were saying that we had a $80
[45:43] million budget deficit and I said why
[45:46] are we paying for this? I was then after
[45:48] doing some research I found out that it
[45:49] came from the stadium authority. As said
[45:51] what a lot of people don't know is that
[45:52] when it comes to the Maryland general
[45:53] assembly during their budget process
[45:56] once sin to die which is the end of
[45:58] session starts to get close there is a
[46:00] lot of money that lobbyists and these uh
[46:04] delegates and senators have to hurry up
[46:06] and find places to put it. And we have
[46:08] gotten those calls as people who have
[46:09] done community based development where
[46:11] we'll get a call from a senator or a
[46:12] lobbyist and be like, "Hey, look, I
[46:13] might have $300,000. Do you think we
[46:15] could build this, this, and this?" those
[46:16] things happen. And what it is is it's
[46:18] not necessarily a negative because it is
[46:20] our legislators trying to get us wins.
[46:22] Any win. And as me and my wife say it
[46:24] all the time, a win is a win. And so
[46:26] when we look at the stadium authority
[46:28] giving us the money to build this, that
[46:29] is a win because we're bringing some
[46:31] type of infrastructure to our community.
[46:34] To close that, you without any plan, you
[46:37] are now saying that not only we not
[46:39] going to use it, we have to find a new
[46:40] way to finance this. And right now we
[46:43] have a county council who just got
[46:44] reprimanded by the governor and by the
[46:47] general assembly about how they're
[46:48] spending money. So now to look at these
[46:50] individuals to now gain more money to
[46:53] fix that. As a council member candidate,
[46:55] I have no trust that they can. And I
[46:57] would ask you to vote for someone who
[46:59] actually will do something with the
[47:02] civic plaza or find revenue that doesn't
[47:05] put our budget in a tail spin to rectify
[47:08] in the way that they see fit. Thank you.
[47:10] >> Thank you, Mr. peoples.
[47:14] And again, the next question is about
[47:16] education. Prince George's County public
[47:19] schools have historically ranked near
[47:21] the bottom in Maryland. Recent reports
[47:24] show the districts still scoring below
[47:27] the adequate threshold and ranking among
[47:29] the lowest performing systems in the
[47:32] state despite some recent improvement.
[47:36] What specific measurable action will you
[47:39] take to improve academic outcomes,
[47:43] teacher quality, accountability, and
[47:46] student transportation?
[47:49] How will you ensure those changes
[47:51] actually translate into better results
[47:54] for students within the next three to
[47:57] five years?
[47:59] I believe we start with Mr. Bridges.
[48:02] >> That is kind of my wheelhouse there. uh
[48:04] 28 years in the Prince George's County
[48:06] public school system. I've seen it from
[48:07] top to bottom. The system needs to be
[48:09] reorganized. All the issues that were
[48:11] mentioned there, I address them also in
[48:13] my Prince George's County plan from
[48:14] reading being the first focus. Reading
[48:16] is no longer the focus. We're focused on
[48:18] other things. Central office totally
[48:20] disconnect between the school. We have
[48:21] to reorganize how our central office is
[48:23] done. We have to reorganize how our
[48:24] budget is done to centralize budgeting
[48:26] because as someone mentioned up here
[48:28] trying to spend money at the last minute
[48:29] from the legislature and so forth,
[48:30] school systems are doing the same thing.
[48:31] They're giving them a budget and they're
[48:33] trying at the end spend our money for
[48:35] stuff they don't really need because if
[48:37] they realize next year they're not going
[48:38] to have it. So we need to do centralized
[48:40] budgeting whereby we tell them this is
[48:41] what you have but you're going to ask
[48:43] for requests to spend each of that any
[48:44] of that money. We need to make sure our
[48:46] classroom sizes are smaller. When I was
[48:48] in a classroom we were told we're going
[48:49] to go down gradually class size. It has
[48:51] not gone down. It stays stagnant. I got
[48:53] got more. We need to make sure that our
[48:54] special education is self-contained
[48:56] whereby those students can achieve in an
[48:58] environment that's best for them. We
[49:00] need to make sure for transportation.
[49:01] The bus drivers talk to me all the time.
[49:03] They told me they simply wanted to be
[49:05] paid as full-time employees. So, they
[49:07] come here, get their uh CDLs, and the
[49:09] county is paying them as part-time
[49:11] employees two hours in the morning,
[49:12] maybe two hours in the afternoon. Who
[49:14] does that in the middle of the day? What
[49:15] can you do? They simply wanted to be
[49:16] paid as full-time employees, but someone
[49:19] has thought it would be a good idea to
[49:21] change the bell schedule, do little
[49:23] crazy things like that because people
[49:24] are fighting battles that adult among
[49:26] adults that are affecting children and
[49:27] staff members. So if we can organize our
[49:29] school systems making sure that we have
[49:31] those reading as our primary focus which
[49:33] mean a reading recovery teacher in every
[49:35] school making sure that we have uh
[49:37] librarians that's full-time in every
[49:38] school because anything that support
[49:40] reading unlike the current
[49:41] administration uh in the school system
[49:43] are talking about certain programs
[49:44] specialy programs we can't afford them
[49:46] we need to have anything and everything
[49:47] that encourages students to achieve
[49:49] thank you
[49:50] >> thank you Mr. Bridges Mrs. What?
[49:55] As a PTA mom,
[49:58] I discovered our government was broken
[50:01] because I started looking into our
[50:03] education system trying to understand
[50:06] why we stay at the bottom of our
[50:09] rankings as been pointed out.
[50:12] What do we need to do first? We got to
[50:14] fix our government. We got to change our
[50:17] government leadership because we need
[50:20] leaders who understand that as public
[50:22] servants, government's not going to make
[50:24] you rich. Government work was never
[50:28] intended to make you rich. If you're
[50:30] smart with your investments, if you're
[50:33] smart with your retirement plan, you'll
[50:35] be okay, but it's not going to make you
[50:37] a millionaire. The problem right now
[50:39] with our school system is the people at
[50:40] the top want too much money.
[50:44] We ran out a superintendent who led us
[50:46] to the modest improvements last school
[50:50] year. And in running him out the door,
[50:52] we had to pay him $850,000 to go.
[50:57] Then we brought in an interim
[50:59] superintendent and we were paying him
[51:00] over $300,000 to be here this school
[51:03] year. He's now,
[51:06] it looks like been made the permanent,
[51:09] that's what they call him,
[51:10] superintendent. And he's probably the
[51:13] contract that he has right now. We're
[51:15] too topheavy in Prince George County
[51:17] public schools. Mr. Bridges mentioned
[51:20] central the central office. There is no
[51:21] central office because the school system
[51:23] is decentralized
[51:26] and we have all these little fictims and
[51:28] it's costing us a lot of money and that
[51:31] money needs to go back to the classroom.
[51:34] If we get rid of all of these extra
[51:36] administrators who work from home and
[51:38] aren't in the classroom supervising our
[51:41] instructors, we could put that money
[51:43] back where our children could benefit
[51:45] from it. That would then help us get
[51:48] measurable outcomes and pay our bus
[51:51] drivers a full-time salary. We could
[51:53] also go to the federal government and
[51:56] ask them to allow us to create an
[51:58] apprenticeship for our seniors who will
[52:00] be 18 at graduation and allow them to
[52:02] drive part-time. Give them CDLs. We have
[52:06] CTE. We want them to go to work. We need
[52:09] to start that right now while they're in
[52:11] high school. That would also help with
[52:14] giving more money to improve teacher
[52:17] salaries and improving the quality of
[52:19] our education.
[52:21] Thank you, Miss W. Mr. Peoples.
[52:25] >> So, this is another area where I feel
[52:27] like I have to distinguish the roles
[52:28] between the legislative branch and the
[52:30] executive branch because the the
[52:31] executive branch has a lot more sway
[52:33] when it comes to uh uh how the budget
[52:37] for Prince George's County Public School
[52:39] System is utilized as they work with the
[52:40] superintendent and their staff. Where
[52:42] the legislative branch comes in is
[52:44] really just passing the budget where
[52:45] we're mandated by the state to give a
[52:47] certain amount to our education process
[52:49] despite the fact that if you agree that
[52:51] it's too little or it's being misused,
[52:53] it's not used right. And I say that
[52:54] because my wife uh she's been a teacher
[52:56] for seven years now, but three of those
[52:58] years was at Lewisdale Elementary right
[53:00] here in Prince George's County,
[53:01] Maryland. The stories she would come
[53:03] home and tell me of youth not eating
[53:05] when they went home, so she would have
[53:07] to buy extra snacks just to have in her
[53:09] classroom so that these kids eat were
[53:12] atrocious. The way that she would tell
[53:14] me that uh uh these children are
[53:17] especially in a place like Louisville
[53:19] where it's mainly Latina and Latino. It
[53:21] was scary to find out that a lot of
[53:23] these kids had literally just crossed
[53:24] the border and got to where they are and
[53:26] they were just thrown into school barely
[53:28] speaking English and this is the system
[53:30] that we're asking to raise our next
[53:32] generation. It first starts for the
[53:34] legislative branch with one making sure
[53:36] that we're allocating more than enough
[53:38] than it needs. But then the second thing
[53:39] that the legislative branch did, and I
[53:41] was on the phone with someone on the way
[53:42] up here, the county council has not kept
[53:45] the office of accountability and um
[53:48] ethics to the right track. We are
[53:51] letting so many things slip through the
[53:53] cracks and acting like it doesn't
[53:54] happen. I'm not going to call any names,
[53:56] but the direction of the office of
[53:57] accountability and ethics is not doing
[53:59] its job. And as a council member, not
[54:01] only will I make sure that there's
[54:02] adequate funding, I will make sure that
[54:04] the office of ethics and accountability
[54:07] runs a fine tooth comb through our
[54:09] Prince George's County public school
[54:10] system. Audit and get every single
[54:12] person who is utilizing this program for
[54:14] selfish gain out of here and let's
[54:16] replace them with people who are
[54:17] actually servicing the community.
[54:18] Because just like me and my brother talk
[54:20] about it, we talk about I think it's the
[54:21] Plato's model of society where the
[54:23] guardians who are the leadership of
[54:25] society are supposed to be unpaid and
[54:27] trained from youth to only care about
[54:29] the community. That's what a elected
[54:31] official is supposed to do. If you're
[54:32] coming to Prince George's County to be
[54:33] an elected official to get paid, know
[54:35] you have an enemy with me.
[54:37] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Mr. Cruz
[54:42] once again misappropriation of money and
[54:45] a lack of money and a lack of
[54:47] accountability.
[54:49] And I come back to a vision. The vision
[54:52] is innovation technology hub for the
[54:55] world. Well, what does that look like in
[54:57] education? And I come from this from a
[55:00] unique perspective because I've been in
[55:02] our school system for 16 years in
[55:05] technology innovation as well as
[55:07] teaching. So the first thing that I
[55:10] would do once elected is pass the
[55:13] Prosperity Community Cloud Act. I work
[55:16] with my brother right here and now we
[55:18] have new income coming in because that
[55:20] only takes about three months to get
[55:22] started. All right. The next thing I
[55:24] would do is sit down with our
[55:27] superintendent and hopefully we will be
[55:30] able to put in who we
[55:32] someone that aligns with the vision and
[55:35] where we need to go. I want to put a
[55:38] workforce development program and
[55:40] there's already federal dollars for this
[55:43] workforce development program as a
[55:45] second pathway into our education
[55:48] system. I currently have a pilot program
[55:50] called the prepared professional
[55:52] allowing young people to get
[55:54] certifications as early as sixth grade
[55:57] all the way through and where STEM and
[56:00] STEAM are standard where companies we
[56:03] have over 300 companies following the
[56:05] kids and giving them afterchool programs
[56:08] as well as jobs once they of age. The
[56:12] point that I'm making here, it is time
[56:14] for a new vision and and bring our
[56:16] schools from being the bottom and we can
[56:19] do that in a year. The bottom line is
[56:22] when you engage a kid and they feel seen
[56:26] and you help them find their purpose,
[56:29] you seen a transformation in our
[56:32] education system and they start coming
[56:34] home excited. They're ready to go and
[56:36] they're ready to learn and you see
[56:38] grades go up. you see reading and math
[56:41] scores go up. Today I spoke at a school
[56:43] that we are in and Mason who was at the
[56:47] bottom was valictorian today.
[56:54] >> Thank you Mr. Cruz, Mr. Bridges.
[56:57] >> Oh, you've already Okay, my apologies.
[56:59] Okay. All right. So, do we have any
[57:02] rebuttals to that before we move on? So
[57:05] the next question um I believe this
[57:08] applies to all Mr. Poples. Yeah. Um
[57:12] do you support what's your idea of
[57:15] having an independent
[57:18] uh auditor inspector general for Prince
[57:21] George's County?
[57:24] Why would you or why would you not
[57:26] prefer have one?
[57:28] I support it.
[57:31] We should have one.
[57:33] The only concern that I have is I would
[57:36] hate to see the IG or the auditor in
[57:40] Prince George's County go the way of the
[57:42] IG and the auditor of the federal
[57:44] government. Again, everything is perfect
[57:46] until you add people to it. So, it
[57:48] depends upon who your county executive
[57:50] is and who your uh county council
[57:53] members are as to how effective the IG
[57:57] or the auditor can be. We've had an
[58:00] auditor. Well, we had We don't have one
[58:03] right now because the county council
[58:04] won't hire one. Again, here you go.
[58:07] People get in the mix. But what I will
[58:10] tell you is if you elect me to be your
[58:12] your county executive, the first thing
[58:14] I'm going to do is request an audit
[58:17] and we cannot do it in house because
[58:19] we've not had an audit in this county in
[58:21] over 25 years.
[58:24] We're going to have to ask the state or
[58:26] possibly
[58:29] the federal government to come in and do
[58:31] that audit. We have no idea what our
[58:34] finances in this county really look
[58:36] like. And I will tell you just from the
[58:39] little bit of information I get in my
[58:41] litigation practice, we're in deeper
[58:44] debt than the county is acknowledging.
[58:49] Correcting or balancing a structural
[58:51] deficit is done every year.
[58:53] Why? Because we start with a deficit. We
[58:56] have employees.
[58:57] We have no revenue. We got to pay them.
[59:00] We got to provide their benefits. We got
[59:03] to pay the taxes for them because yes,
[59:05] we do pay employment taxes too to the
[59:08] state and the federal government. We
[59:10] don't have that money at the beginning
[59:12] of the fiscal year. So, every year we
[59:14] start with a deficit. To say I corrected
[59:17] a structural deficit is a
[59:19] misrepresentation.
[59:20] All you did was balance the budget. But
[59:23] we don't just have a structural deficit
[59:25] in Prince George's County. We have a
[59:27] lingering deficit because we have
[59:30] multi-millions of dollars of debt that
[59:33] we owe to Wall Street.
[59:37] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat. Mr. Peoples.
[59:40] >> Yes.
[59:44] >> No. So, let me be real with I had to put
[59:47] the microphone down because I knew in my
[59:49] mind this whole time I was going to say
[59:50] something that
[59:52] challenges the current system and the
[59:55] reason why I am for it and yes the
[59:56] county executive and to be honest with
[59:58] you I think it should be independent of
[59:59] the county council or the county
[01:00:00] executive I think it should be the state
[01:00:02] level I think that's where I identify if
[01:00:04] I was drafting a bill right now I would
[01:00:06] put it towards the state level because
[01:00:07] federal government sways too much I can
[01:00:09] trust the general assembly to a degree
[01:00:11] to a degree u but the issue that I have
[01:00:13] with it is why I need an auditor
[01:00:14] happened when I was working in the in
[01:00:17] the legislative branch and not in the
[01:00:18] administration when I was working in the
[01:00:20] legislative branch and I saw council
[01:00:22] members during election season utilizing
[01:00:26] county material, laptops, cameras,
[01:00:31] pictures, printers, all of that stuff to
[01:00:34] support candidates.
[01:00:37] >> And let me say this, I saw them support
[01:00:41] these individuals with county material
[01:00:43] from your taxpayer dollars. And when
[01:00:45] that information got reported, do you
[01:00:47] know what happened? There was an email
[01:00:49] sent out to the entire administration as
[01:00:51] well as county staffs that said, "Please
[01:00:53] don't do this anymore."
[01:00:56] Now, we talk all the time about our
[01:00:58] civil our our justice uh our our our
[01:01:01] criminal justice initiatives and how
[01:01:03] we're trying to help people who have may
[01:01:05] have fallen by the the the stray. I
[01:01:07] didn't know that that went on to council
[01:01:10] members and their staff as well. These
[01:01:12] are government officials here. To me,
[01:01:14] that causes for an immediate pause on
[01:01:16] any financial dispersement and an
[01:01:18] immediate audit. And the fact that I
[01:01:20] have not seen that happen in my three
[01:01:22] years of experience in the Prince
[01:01:23] George's County Council.
[01:01:25] Yes.
[01:01:28] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Mr. Cruz,
[01:01:34] >> in my vision, I say yes.
[01:01:37] For me, I don't come at it uh from the
[01:01:41] negative. I come at it from the positive
[01:01:44] because in anything that you are running
[01:01:47] and you have to manage and cast vision
[01:01:50] for you need to know where the dollars
[01:01:53] are going and you need to understand
[01:01:56] where your pain points are and then
[01:01:59] restructure. So that's how I come at
[01:02:02] this. We need an audit period and what
[01:02:05] is wrong with Prince George's County can
[01:02:07] be fixed with what is right in it. So we
[01:02:10] have a lot of good people. I want to
[01:02:12] hire from within. I want to bring people
[01:02:15] with from within
[01:02:17] to come and help audit
[01:02:21] and get us on the right track. That's
[01:02:24] why I want to uh have the audit for
[01:02:26] restructuring.
[01:02:28] The other thing is um
[01:02:32] what is government?
[01:02:34] I think sometimes we just get misplaced
[01:02:36] on what government is. Government is
[01:02:39] pretty straightforward. It's services.
[01:02:43] That's government. That's it.
[01:02:46] It's services. And the county executive
[01:02:49] when it comes to government is managing
[01:02:51] those services and casting a vision so
[01:02:54] that everyone knows where what you're
[01:02:57] going to do. And that's what I want to
[01:02:59] bring to this office. It is time for us
[01:03:02] to know where the where we're going.
[01:03:05] I don't hear where we're going. What is
[01:03:07] the what is the vision for this county
[01:03:09] right now?
[01:03:12] No one knows.
[01:03:15] We have to have a vision. And so that's
[01:03:18] where I come at this. So yes, a nod.
[01:03:23] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Bridges.
[01:03:27] >> A lot of great information here. The
[01:03:29] eight eight years ago when I mentioned
[01:03:30] the office of inspector general, my plan
[01:03:32] was again, as you said, Mr. but not to
[01:03:35] have the county executive appoint that
[01:03:36] person. And I'm a little skeptical most
[01:03:38] people about the general assembly
[01:03:39] because I've written a lot of emails to
[01:03:41] those guys. All I get is autoresponders.
[01:03:42] Okay. And then and the fact that they're
[01:03:44] rushing to send monies out that they
[01:03:45] have excess, that's a little bit of a
[01:03:47] problem also. And with the office of
[01:03:49] inspector general, I believe it has to
[01:03:50] be some kind of federal connection
[01:03:51] because we do have title one funds in
[01:03:53] this county for different things and so
[01:03:54] forth. So it's better to have some
[01:03:56] federal connection. not necessarily
[01:03:58] federal government controlling, but it's
[01:03:59] so independent that the state government
[01:04:01] nor the county government can have any
[01:04:03] sway over what that inspector general
[01:04:05] does. And I going to say something I
[01:04:06] know my colleagues have heard me say
[01:04:07] before and I hate to repeat it again,
[01:04:09] but I have to say this that figures
[01:04:11] don't lie, but liars figure. So you can
[01:04:13] make numbers say anything that you want
[01:04:15] to, but you got to understand what was
[01:04:17] the purpose behind it. What was the
[01:04:18] intent? So consequently, we need to have
[01:04:20] that office of inspector general to step
[01:04:22] in and even before you have to go in
[01:04:24] just for an audit purposes. I mentioned
[01:04:26] earlier if someone has a complaint about
[01:04:27] something they see some legislation
[01:04:28] about to pass that they know it's a
[01:04:30] wastel they need to be able to step in
[01:04:31] the inspector general now investigate
[01:04:33] that right now because we need to make
[01:04:34] put a stop to it before because after
[01:04:36] the fact it's too late to deal with
[01:04:38] those kind of things and if we use an
[01:04:39] office inspector general properly again
[01:04:41] we want our uh government officials to
[01:04:44] govern in fear and I say that understand
[01:04:46] if you do wrong you're going to be
[01:04:47] accountable for it if they govern with
[01:04:49] some lax attitude that they can do what
[01:04:51] they want they're going to do what they
[01:04:52] want but if they govern in fear I
[01:04:54] guarantee you we we have a better
[01:04:55] outcome.
[01:04:56] >> Thank you, Mr. Bridges.
[01:04:58] And so, do we have any followup with
[01:05:01] that? Okay. Uh, so the next question
[01:05:03] we're going to start with Mr. Peoples,
[01:05:05] and this is the last question for all,
[01:05:07] and then it's a separate for district 6
[01:05:10] and for the county executive
[01:05:14] um candidates. This question is, how do
[01:05:16] you plan to address the rise in property
[01:05:19] taxes
[01:05:22] and utility costs for residents
[01:05:25] and seniors?
[01:05:29] So, that's a that's really a three-layer
[01:05:31] question. Let me do the best that I can
[01:05:33] in like the minute and a half, two
[01:05:34] minutes that I have. Let's start with um
[01:05:37] the first one is the rising cost for I
[01:05:39] apologize. What was the first one again?
[01:05:41] >> Property taxes.
[01:05:42] >> Property tax. So the good part about
[01:05:43] this is that they've pulled the whole
[01:05:45] stick carrot and stick with us, right?
[01:05:47] So a little bit of good news followed up
[01:05:48] with a lot of bit of bad news. The good
[01:05:50] news is it doesn't seem like they're
[01:05:52] going to be trying to raise property
[01:05:53] taxes for the foreseeable future because
[01:05:55] the community has already said we're not
[01:05:57] going for that. You will get voted out
[01:05:58] the moment you do that. The problem that
[01:06:01] we have that is that now both in the
[01:06:02] general assembly and in the county, we
[01:06:04] have seen them try to find any other
[01:06:06] fund or tax to raise to supplement the
[01:06:08] fact that they're not raising property
[01:06:09] taxes. So let's be real here. The battle
[01:06:12] has stretched from property taxes to
[01:06:14] telecommunications taxes to income taxes
[01:06:17] uh to to power taxes. We have to make
[01:06:20] sure that we have an eye on the budget.
[01:06:22] And that only helps even as a council
[01:06:24] member. I am only as good as the
[01:06:26] constituents are educated. This budget
[01:06:28] book is 600, 700, 800 pages long. This
[01:06:31] big. And mind you, the county council
[01:06:33] passed that when they got the book 20
[01:06:35] minutes before the hearing, but we're
[01:06:36] not going to talk about that right now.
[01:06:38] But when it comes to this giant budget
[01:06:39] that we have to read through, and I will
[01:06:41] do my due diligence as a your council
[01:06:43] member to make sure you have that
[01:06:44] information, we have to look at all
[01:06:46] taxes, not just property taxes. And the
[01:06:48] way that I'm planning to fight that is
[01:06:50] by making sure you're as educated as
[01:06:51] possible to come up to the Wayne Curry
[01:06:53] building and fight that. And I vote no
[01:06:55] on your behalf. Then when it comes to uh
[01:06:59] seniors, when it comes to our senior
[01:07:01] living, I'm tired of seeing I was there
[01:07:03] when certain council members were
[01:07:04] fighting for the senior property tax
[01:07:06] credit and the homestead tax credit for
[01:07:08] people to apply for both. They passed
[01:07:09] the bill even though they knew they
[01:07:10] didn't have the money in the budget,
[01:07:12] then bought you back three months later
[01:07:13] and said, "Well, we're not going to do
[01:07:14] it right now. We'll do it in a few
[01:07:15] years." Now, that small group has the
[01:07:17] majority, and when they allocated $39
[01:07:19] million in the budget, it wasn't to the
[01:07:21] seniors. It was to nonprofits to cater
[01:07:23] to certain parts of the of the county.
[01:07:24] Let us be very clear, we have a lot of
[01:07:26] these things on the books to fix right
[01:07:28] now from the legislative department. We
[01:07:30] just need people with integrity.
[01:07:33] >> Thank you,
[01:07:35] Mr. Cruz.
[01:07:38] >> Um,
[01:07:40] for me, I mean, listen, I'm in agreeance
[01:07:43] with everything that we we're all
[01:07:45] saying, but for me, we got to bring in
[01:07:48] new revenue. It's just and we have to do
[01:07:50] an audit of the revenue that we
[01:07:52] currently have. I'm looking at the
[01:07:55] budget as we speak. It's in front of me
[01:07:58] and and my team has highlighted I have a
[01:08:02] a guy he's got his PhD in economics and
[01:08:05] we have highlighted all of the areas by
[01:08:09] the numbers what's happening and it's
[01:08:11] crazy and it's hiding of money. You
[01:08:14] you're you can see it for me the only
[01:08:17] way we get out of so let let me go back
[01:08:21] to what Peoples was saying. They did not
[01:08:23] raise property tax. However, they're
[01:08:25] saying that they're going to receive
[01:08:27] more property tax because more people
[01:08:29] will be in the county to pay property
[01:08:32] tax. That's what they said. Okay? And
[01:08:35] that's what they said for income tax.
[01:08:37] More people will be come in the county
[01:08:39] and work. And that's how they balance
[01:08:41] the budget. We all know that those
[01:08:44] chickens are coming home to roost.
[01:08:47] That's not going to happen. So, the only
[01:08:49] way we get ahead of this is we bring in
[01:08:51] a new enterprise. And I'mma bang that
[01:08:54] until the the cows come home. We have to
[01:08:57] bring in a new enterprise. And we have
[01:09:00] to bring in and and do some of the
[01:09:02] things that Tanya was talking about
[01:09:04] earlier.
[01:09:05] We have to get after the revenue and
[01:09:08] then figure out where this money is
[01:09:11] going because by the time you figure out
[01:09:12] where the money is going, it's too late.
[01:09:15] So, uh what was it? the senior citizens.
[01:09:18] I would love for the senior citizens to
[01:09:20] be and that's who we've been trying to
[01:09:22] sign up uh as fast as we can to be a
[01:09:25] part of this program and we place a lot
[01:09:28] of the importance and priority on them
[01:09:31] so that they don't have to pay property
[01:09:34] tax. That's what this program will do
[01:09:36] for them. They won't have to pay
[01:09:39] property tax. And as the program moves
[01:09:41] on, you can get a second device and
[01:09:43] actually start, you know, making real
[01:09:45] income. Thank you.
[01:09:46] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz.
[01:09:48] >> May I have one moment of rebuttal? I'm
[01:09:49] Thank you so much for pulling this up. I
[01:09:51] I'm honestly distracted right now
[01:09:52] reading this.
[01:09:54] >> For my opinion, they are inflating the
[01:09:57] general fund revenue sources.
[01:10:00] >> This and I I want you to understand what
[01:10:01] it means
[01:10:02] >> to say that they closed the budget
[01:10:04] deficit. It means that they have to plan
[01:10:06] either by cutting resources, cutting
[01:10:08] programs, firing people to make up for
[01:10:10] the money that we lost. They said that
[01:10:12] they closed the budget without doing it.
[01:10:14] But when I'm looking at it specifically
[01:10:15] from the fiscal year 2026 budget, the
[01:10:17] proposed budget, and then what was
[01:10:19] actually passed, they have you're
[01:10:22] talking about a massive increase on
[01:10:24] multiple of these revenue sources. That
[01:10:27] is extremely scary because if these
[01:10:29] sources don't produce the way that they
[01:10:31] are, our budget deficit doubles and
[01:10:33] maybe even triples, which it will.
[01:10:35] That's that's alarming. Okay.
[01:10:37] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Mr. Bridges,
[01:10:41] >> the numbers will always get you. I spent
[01:10:44] a number of years auditing and you you
[01:10:46] people can try to hide things but you
[01:10:47] just really can't hide it. First I want
[01:10:49] to say with the seniors, okay, it is
[01:10:50] definitely one of my goals to make sure
[01:10:52] that 60 age 65 there is no more property
[01:10:54] tax. Now ask how are we going to do
[01:10:56] those kind of things? Even with the
[01:10:58] utility cost right now, we need to be
[01:10:59] some supplements on that because our
[01:11:01] school system budget and I've mentioned
[01:11:03] this before. We went from 1.2 billion to
[01:11:05] over two billion in a span of about 10
[01:11:07] years. Someone needs to show me where
[01:11:09] did that money go because we don't have
[01:11:11] e x number of schools built. We don't
[01:11:14] have smaller class sizes. We don't have
[01:11:15] all the things that we should have for
[01:11:17] that kind of increase. So with that
[01:11:18] money, we need to actually go back redo
[01:11:21] that school system budget. We're going
[01:11:23] to have additional monies now that we
[01:11:24] can actually make sure work toward that
[01:11:26] senior uh property exemp tax exemption
[01:11:28] and also to make sure with the utility
[01:11:30] cost and so forth to make sure we get
[01:11:31] some supplements for right now because
[01:11:33] I'm a big uh proponent of making sure
[01:11:35] that we as a co-op as citizens can tell
[01:11:38] the utility companies. I'm not sure how
[01:11:39] legal that might be, but it's a plan
[01:11:41] that we can actually get the monies
[01:11:43] together to say, okay, based on your the
[01:11:45] size of your house, thousand square
[01:11:47] foot, maybe it's a $50 utility cost,
[01:11:50] 2,000, maybe it's 100 and so forth. just
[01:11:52] number basic numbers and we gather that
[01:11:54] money as a county and tell the utility
[01:11:55] Pepco Smecko whatever this is what we're
[01:11:58] willing to pay you just upfront for
[01:12:00] utility costs for our county yes there
[01:12:01] are going to be some outliers who
[01:12:02] actually use more and those people can
[01:12:04] actually be identified who are using
[01:12:05] more than typical usage okay but we have
[01:12:08] to do things from a power standpoint if
[01:12:11] we come from a beggar standpoint we're
[01:12:13] going to always be in a beggar
[01:12:14] standpoint thank you
[01:12:16] >> thank you Mr. bridges. So, what we're do
[01:12:19] do you need a rebuttal?
[01:12:23] >> Okay, Miss Sweat.
[01:12:24] >> We started with Mr. Peoples.
[01:12:29] The benefit of being in the government
[01:12:31] for 29 years.
[01:12:35] Um,
[01:12:37] I don't laugh at Mr. People. I laugh
[01:12:41] with you because you have to leave laugh
[01:12:43] to keep from crying sometimes when you
[01:12:46] read government budgets. The first thing
[01:12:48] I want you all to understand is that
[01:12:49] budget is a plan until the revenue is
[01:12:53] realized
[01:12:54] and the expenses are accounted for.
[01:12:58] It's just numbers on paper. So yeah,
[01:13:01] they play with the numbers. Yeah, they
[01:13:03] fudge the numbers. What I want to see
[01:13:05] are the county's financial statements. I
[01:13:07] want to see the revenue we actually
[01:13:09] brought in and what we actually spent
[01:13:11] and what we spent it on. Because when
[01:13:14] you have 60,000 houses in foreclosure,
[01:13:18] you ain't getting the property taxes. So
[01:13:20] that's hurting your revenue.
[01:13:23] When we have
[01:13:25] housing sales being cut in half, monthly
[01:13:29] housing sales have gone down 50%.
[01:13:33] So that means we have a lot of vacant
[01:13:35] houses for sale on the market in this
[01:13:38] county. You not getting property taxes
[01:13:41] until those houses are sold
[01:13:45] because people walk away from them
[01:13:46] homes.
[01:13:48] So I need to see what the revenue is
[01:13:50] that we collected this fiscal year and
[01:13:53] the county doesn't always tell you that.
[01:13:55] So how do you deal with that? Property
[01:13:57] taxes. First of all, the homestead tax
[01:13:59] credit and the senior tax credit
[01:14:01] conflicted because you can't have more
[01:14:03] than 20% discount on your taxes. That
[01:14:05] ain't county law. That's state law. So,
[01:14:07] first of all, we got to go back and deal
[01:14:09] with the general assembly and get them
[01:14:10] to rewrite the state tax code to help us
[01:14:13] out. As a lawyer, I understand that. I'm
[01:14:16] willing to advocate for that for you.
[01:14:18] And as a former rag writer and policy
[01:14:22] writer, I'm willing to sit down with the
[01:14:23] general assembly and help them rewrite
[01:14:25] the laws to help us out if they let me
[01:14:28] to deal with utility costs. That's
[01:14:31] controlled in large part by private
[01:14:33] entities, Pepco and SMECO, but we can do
[01:14:36] things in this county to get them to
[01:14:38] incentivize us like using our unused
[01:14:41] land. And all of that works for seniors,
[01:14:43] too.
[01:14:44] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat.
[01:14:46] Okay. So, the last question that we
[01:14:48] have, we have one just for uh district
[01:14:51] 6, the candidate that's running for
[01:14:53] district 6 county council, and then the
[01:14:56] other question is for the candidates who
[01:14:59] are running for county executive. So,
[01:15:02] Mr. Peoples,
[01:15:05] here's your question.
[01:15:10] Okay,
[01:15:13] I had it. Okay. Um, when you are elected
[01:15:18] as a county council member,
[01:15:22] um, your job is to initiate new
[01:15:25] legislation.
[01:15:28] What would be your first bill on the
[01:15:31] table and why?
[01:15:34] >> I love this question. It was asked last
[01:15:36] time I was here. Uh my first piece of
[01:15:38] legislation, my first measure in the
[01:15:40] county council is to remove and to work
[01:15:43] with the general assembly to make sure
[01:15:44] it's legal, but to remove the authority
[01:15:47] to choose nonprofits to fund from the
[01:15:50] county council and establish it within
[01:15:52] the office of procurement with oversight
[01:15:56] separate from the county executive and
[01:15:58] only the legislative body has a
[01:16:00] legislative right to amend within the
[01:16:02] laws that the state allow us to. I am so
[01:16:04] tired of this back and forth. my three
[01:16:06] years on the county council, I've
[01:16:08] literally watched all sides who have
[01:16:09] come into power and leave power dictate
[01:16:12] where money goes to nonprofits and what
[01:16:14] services are being used. Meanwhile, I'm
[01:16:16] in the community and so many of our
[01:16:18] vendors, so many of our business owners
[01:16:19] are saying that they don't have a fair
[01:16:21] crack at it. And it's because, let's be
[01:16:23] real now, there is a priority list based
[01:16:26] on who the council me certain council
[01:16:28] members are associated with. And that
[01:16:30] just should not be our choice because
[01:16:32] that is what's making the council
[01:16:33] members now go into park and planning
[01:16:35] and move 29 here, 36 here, so forth and
[01:16:38] so on because they want to fund their
[01:16:40] groups and send them the trips to Puerto
[01:16:41] Rico. And so because of that, I as a
[01:16:44] council member, the first measure is to
[01:16:47] make sure that we do not choose who gets
[01:16:49] the money from nonprofits, from non-EP
[01:16:51] departmental grants and project charges
[01:16:53] that will go to the office of
[01:16:54] procurement. We can even move the whole
[01:16:56] grant office from the county executive
[01:16:58] Wayne Curry building and put it in the
[01:17:01] Merlin or excuse me, put it in the
[01:17:02] office of procurement and have it run
[01:17:04] through there. And I'm excited to work
[01:17:05] with the county executive to do that. Uh
[01:17:08] I am excited to work with my fellow
[01:17:09] colleagues and do that. But it is time
[01:17:11] that we make honest decisions in the
[01:17:14] county council and stop making decisions
[01:17:16] that personally elevate individuals.
[01:17:21] >> Thank you.
[01:17:23] This question will start with Mr. Cruz.
[01:17:26] Um,
[01:17:28] this question is about ethics, more
[01:17:31] specifically nepotism and political
[01:17:34] cronyism.
[01:17:36] Would you support a policy prohibiting
[01:17:39] the hiring of immediate family members,
[01:17:42] campaign staff, or close friends in your
[01:17:46] office? Why or why not?
[01:17:51] family. Uh, I would support uh campaign
[01:17:54] staff. I mean, that's a tough one. Like
[01:17:56] I just told you, I have a a guy, his
[01:17:58] name is Boaz, and he has his PhD in, you
[01:18:03] know, he's an economist, and I would
[01:18:05] want him in in in that office with me.
[01:18:09] But when it comes to hiring people who
[01:18:12] lack,
[01:18:17] >> y'all know what I'm saying?
[01:18:19] >> Finish it.
[01:18:19] >> Well, you want me to
[01:18:22] they have no business being in that in
[01:18:24] that position.
[01:18:27] I I I think that's inappropriate.
[01:18:30] Uh and I believe that hiring your family
[01:18:33] is inappropriate
[01:18:35] because how do you deal with that?
[01:18:37] I believe it is time for us to have
[01:18:39] accountability in our government. I
[01:18:43] believe in Prince George's County. I
[01:18:46] believe that we can be that shiny county
[01:18:49] up on the hill for the nation to go,
[01:18:53] "Wow, they're doing it. They're making
[01:18:56] it happen." This is why I'm pushing what
[01:18:58] I'm pushing. And I'm not pushing ideas.
[01:19:01] I'm pushing a real plan, something that
[01:19:03] we can execute on, something that we can
[01:19:07] then bring our quantum computer behind
[01:19:09] our cloud infrastructure and now be the
[01:19:12] first county that now sits for that half
[01:19:17] a trillion dollar uh new deal that's
[01:19:20] coming with quantum computing
[01:19:22] infrastructure.
[01:19:24] I'm talking about the future where our
[01:19:25] kids can have prosperity, where we can
[01:19:28] truly build wealth and we can transform
[01:19:31] our education system and we can stop
[01:19:34] being the county that is being felt
[01:19:37] because trust me, we are being feliced.
[01:19:40] We're we are leasing everything.
[01:19:44] We don't own anything and we let the
[01:19:46] state dictate everything to us. It is
[01:19:50] time to transform this county. You put
[01:19:53] me in office, it's going to happen.
[01:19:54] Thank you.
[01:19:55] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Bridges.
[01:19:59] >> I'll try to keep this really short. Uh
[01:20:01] I'm agreeing with everyone else. Uh the
[01:20:03] Bible is no e avoid the appearance of
[01:20:05] evil. So consequently, we need to make
[01:20:08] sure that there any affiliated with any
[01:20:11] campaign organization on the HR
[01:20:12] application because from appointment
[01:20:14] standpoint, it should never happen. But
[01:20:15] even when they fill out that HR
[01:20:17] application, should be a question on
[01:20:18] there, are you affiliated with any
[01:20:19] political campaign? and they should be
[01:20:21] answered yes or no to that and the no
[01:20:23] answer should you know give them an
[01:20:25] opportunity but the yes total
[01:20:27] disqualification this is where the
[01:20:29] office of inspector general comes in
[01:20:30] because you as citizens may know things
[01:20:32] that we don't know that person might lie
[01:20:34] on that application and we don't know
[01:20:36] but if you know then you let us know in
[01:20:38] turn or I'm sorry not let us know let
[01:20:39] the attorney general know and that
[01:20:41] person can in turn be removed and repay
[01:20:43] the county for any funds they may have
[01:20:44] received in salary for working that way
[01:20:46] thank you
[01:20:47] >> thank you Mr. Bridges, Mrs. Sweat,
[01:20:51] >> as far as a policy to prohibit nepotism
[01:20:54] and cronyism. Absolutely. Yes.
[01:20:59] And when you talk about uh prohibiting
[01:21:01] campaign staff from working in the
[01:21:03] government,
[01:21:05] that's problematic because I don't care
[01:21:07] what government you look at, that's
[01:21:09] where your chief executive gets his or
[01:21:12] her staff from.
[01:21:14] Because when you're running for office,
[01:21:16] generally what you do is go out and
[01:21:18] recruit those who have the skills,
[01:21:21] qualifications, and experience to run
[01:21:24] your campaign. And when the campaign's
[01:21:26] over, you shut it down. But now you need
[01:21:29] help running the government because no
[01:21:31] woman or man can do it alone. So you go
[01:21:34] back to those people who demonstrated
[01:21:37] their skills, qualifications, and
[01:21:39] experience on the campaign trail, and
[01:21:42] you hire them to work in government.
[01:21:44] Generally, those people are not family
[01:21:46] members. They're not your best friends.
[01:21:49] They might be your sorority sister,
[01:21:51] fraternity, brother, but they got the
[01:21:53] qualification, skills, and experience to
[01:21:55] do the job. You've looked at that
[01:21:57] resume. You've vetted them thoroughly to
[01:21:59] make sure they can do what they say they
[01:22:02] can do. The problem in Prince George's
[01:22:04] County is not the campaign staff. We
[01:22:07] take our CA we I use that loosely. Some
[01:22:12] take their campaign staff from
[01:22:13] government employees.
[01:22:16] That's unethical. In the federal
[01:22:18] government, the Hatch Act says
[01:22:21] government employees cannot campaign for
[01:22:24] a political candidate while on duty.
[01:22:28] And even if you do it in your free time,
[01:22:30] because you can do it in your free time,
[01:22:32] this is still America. You still have
[01:22:34] the right to do that. But in your free
[01:22:37] time, you cannot disclose that you work
[01:22:39] for the federal government. We've gotten
[01:22:41] it backwards and twisted in Prince
[01:22:43] George's County, and we need to fix
[01:22:45] that. When I learned that many of the
[01:22:48] campaign staff running around with these
[01:22:50] t-shirts on actually earning my tax
[01:22:53] dollars to do that, I was utterly
[01:22:56] appalled. That's abuse, number one, and
[01:23:00] it's waste of our tax dollars. So yes,
[01:23:03] we need to put policies and ordinances
[01:23:05] in place to prevent that from happening
[01:23:08] any further.
[01:23:10] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat.
[01:23:11] >> Yes, sure, Mr. Peles.
[01:23:13] >> This is not my question. I just want to
[01:23:15] give a little piece of information
[01:23:16] because it segueed because I talked
[01:23:18] about the grants thing being my first
[01:23:20] bill.
[01:23:21] Please go look at who's the new grants
[01:23:24] officer in the county council for the
[01:23:26] county administration and see who
[01:23:27] they're related to because the new
[01:23:29] grants person who's putting all of this
[01:23:31] money in the pockets of nonprofits
[01:23:33] they're associated with is a family
[01:23:35] member of a high ranking council member.
[01:23:37] Please do your research and find out
[01:23:39] who. Thank you very much.
[01:23:40] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. So now we're
[01:23:43] going to open it up to you all to ask
[01:23:46] any questions that you want to ask um
[01:23:50] for some of the time that we have. So
[01:23:51] I'm going to come down and use my
[01:23:53] microphone and uh if you have a question
[01:23:57] just raise your hand and I'll come to
[01:23:58] you and so hopefully that they can
[01:24:01] answer the questions.
[01:24:06] >> Uh good evening everybody. Hello. Um,
[01:24:11] my question is, so forums like this
[01:24:13] often have low candidate participation,
[01:24:16] low public turnout, or sometimes both.
[01:24:19] What do you think elected officials and
[01:24:21] candidates are getting wrong when it
[01:24:23] comes to community engagement? And what
[01:24:25] would you do differently to get more
[01:24:26] people involved?
[01:24:32] >> Thank you for that question. You know, I
[01:24:34] learned along the way of this campaign
[01:24:35] this year, Democratic Central Committee
[01:24:38] has a great deal of influence of what
[01:24:40] happens at these kind of events and so
[01:24:42] forth. They need to do more. So, we need
[01:24:44] to find out who your central committee
[01:24:45] person is, making sure they're doing
[01:24:47] what they need to do. And as I said at
[01:24:49] the beginning here, this is
[01:24:50] accountability. We have candidates at
[01:24:51] times who don't want to show up because
[01:24:53] they don't feel comfortable getting
[01:24:54] questions from you. They prefer to talk
[01:24:55] to you and tell you what they're going
[01:24:57] to do rather than get the questions. So,
[01:24:58] that's a a integ problem with me with
[01:25:01] the candidates, okay? Because
[01:25:01] accountability doesn't start when you
[01:25:02] get in office. Transparency doesn't
[01:25:04] start when you get in office. It starts
[01:25:06] before you get in office. So them not
[01:25:08] coming out. The the host here, you've
[01:25:10] done all you could. You've sent out the
[01:25:12] information. We shared the information.
[01:25:13] And those that come will come and those
[01:25:15] online will see what they see. But
[01:25:16] sometimes people have their minds
[01:25:18] already made up. But we just want to
[01:25:19] make sure we get out here and come. And
[01:25:20] I make sure that I've come to every
[01:25:21] forum, every HOA, every association,
[01:25:23] anything that's been invited to. If I'm
[01:25:26] invited, I make sure I show up. Thank
[01:25:28] you.
[01:25:31] I guess we'll continue to follow the
[01:25:33] order that we started. Um,
[01:25:37] and I'm going to get emotional here,
[01:25:39] okay? Because I've studied this
[01:25:42] question, that very question for five
[01:25:45] years.
[01:25:47] And the conclusion that I've come to is
[01:25:49] Prince George's County is in what we
[01:25:51] call a condition of learned
[01:25:54] hopelessness.
[01:26:02] And the only way to fix that is one to
[01:26:06] educate us about the power that we have
[01:26:09] because we've surrendered our power to
[01:26:12] the Democratic Party. And I don't mean
[01:26:15] that as a negative.
[01:26:18] I say that because the Democratic Party
[01:26:20] is the primary party, not just in Prince
[01:26:23] George's County, but in the state of
[01:26:26] Maryland.
[01:26:27] We've given our trust to a political
[01:26:30] party and we've stopped engaging
[01:26:34] civically in our government.
[01:26:37] We trust what they tell us.
[01:26:40] I had a senior tell me today a council
[01:26:43] member told him who to vote for and
[01:26:45] that's who he was going to vote for.
[01:26:48] And I had to ask him why.
[01:26:51] Because the people you've been voting
[01:26:53] for for years now have gotten you into
[01:26:57] this position.
[01:26:59] And if you keep voting for them, it's
[01:27:01] not going to change.
[01:27:05] And so we become hopeless.
[01:27:08] And the political pundits say we're
[01:27:10] apathetic because only 20% of us show up
[01:27:13] on election day.
[01:27:16] There are 669,455
[01:27:21] Prince Georgians who register to vote
[01:27:25] and only about 155,000 of us show up
[01:27:30] during any election cycle to cast a
[01:27:33] ballot. That's heartbreaking to me.
[01:27:37] And I am from South Carolina. I know
[01:27:39] about civil rights. I have family
[01:27:42] members who were lynched. I'm not gonna
[01:27:44] beat you with the history because it
[01:27:46] really is not about the history. What I
[01:27:48] need for us to understand in this
[01:27:50] election is it's about our present and
[01:27:53] it's about our future. And if we don't
[01:27:55] show up this year, that baby's going to
[01:27:58] lose.
[01:28:00] My 14year-old baby is going to lose.
[01:28:03] your babies are going to lose. Because
[01:28:06] when we sit up here and talk about the
[01:28:08] fleecing of this county, when we talk
[01:28:11] about the fact that we're suffering
[01:28:12] through a 21st century land grab because
[01:28:15] we're enticing businesses to come who
[01:28:18] see us as a cash cow and our elected
[01:28:20] officials are not protecting us from
[01:28:23] that,
[01:28:24] we put them back in office. That is
[01:28:27] going to continue.
[01:28:29] And my biggest fear, my biggest concern
[01:28:32] is because I'm one of the ones who can
[01:28:34] put my house on the market, I can afford
[01:28:37] to leave.
[01:28:39] What happens to my community that can't?
[01:28:50] >> Oh, are we done?
[01:28:56] >> Okay. Um, Mr. people's reference the
[01:28:59] office of integrity and compliance
[01:29:03] but he he was referencing that but he
[01:29:05] was naming the office of ethics and
[01:29:08] accountability. So office of ethics and
[01:29:11] accountability has oversight with over
[01:29:15] the uh government and integrity and
[01:29:18] compliance is over the schools or the
[01:29:22] yeah the school. So I will offer this to
[01:29:26] you Mr. Peebles because the council is
[01:29:30] the entity that has influence over both
[01:29:33] of those offices. So based on your
[01:29:37] knowledge of how they are performing or
[01:29:41] not or not performing uh recently we had
[01:29:44] an exit of the um director of the office
[01:29:48] of integrity and compliance with no
[01:29:51] public acknowledgement. We don't know
[01:29:54] really what happened other than what's
[01:29:55] being said in the street. And so, how
[01:29:57] would you address um empowering and
[01:30:01] improving those two um entities?
[01:30:08] >> Uh so, the first part of that is not
[01:30:10] necessarily in my hands because it's
[01:30:13] leadership that is elected. I I tell
[01:30:16] constituents all the time when I'm going
[01:30:17] out to earn their vote. I as one council
[01:30:20] member can do everything. It takes a
[01:30:23] vote of six. Um and if I we don't have
[01:30:26] that six, I can put every major measure
[01:30:29] that makes you happy as constituents
[01:30:31] forward and if we don't have the six, it
[01:30:32] gets shot down. I tell everybody,
[01:30:34] there's a bunch of people who do support
[01:30:36] my campaign who are not in my district.
[01:30:38] And I tell them, I don't necessarily
[01:30:39] want to tell you who to vote for. I just
[01:30:41] have been fortunate enough to meet
[01:30:42] people and know their integrity levels
[01:30:44] based on what I know and my interactions
[01:30:46] with them so far. And with my knowledge,
[01:30:48] my firsthand knowledge of it. This is
[01:30:50] the candidate who I would say a vote for
[01:30:52] them is a vote for me. It starts with
[01:30:54] the leadership we choose. And it also
[01:30:56] starts and this kind of blends into the
[01:30:58] first question. We have to stop in
[01:30:59] Prince George's County making elections
[01:31:01] uh popularity contest. Who's coming to
[01:31:04] my door? Who's giving me what? Who?
[01:31:06] Because you would be surprised at how
[01:31:08] many people say, "I want to support you,
[01:31:09] but I need to know what you're doing for
[01:31:10] me first." That's backwards because if
[01:31:13] you're betting it on that, then we're
[01:31:14] lining up the pockets of a few without
[01:31:16] taking care of the many. And that is not
[01:31:18] what government is supposed to do. But
[01:31:20] when it comes to actually getting that
[01:31:21] majority and and and going through with
[01:31:23] a fine tooth comb, here is what matters
[01:31:26] the most. And it is the fact that you
[01:31:27] have no allegiance but to the community.
[01:31:30] Because that means once you go through a
[01:31:31] fine tune comb, even once you find out
[01:31:33] that your best friend embezzled a best
[01:31:36] friend in government embezzled $300,000,
[01:31:38] you don't stop just because you love
[01:31:40] them and they're your best friend. You
[01:31:41] say, "I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have
[01:31:42] done it in the first place." Me and my
[01:31:44] wife has have a saying, and this may be
[01:31:45] inappropriate, but I'm going to say it.
[01:31:46] Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
[01:31:49] And in government, we have to be elected
[01:31:51] officials that stand in front of that
[01:31:52] and say, "No matter how much we bonded,
[01:31:54] no matter how much we formed, no matter
[01:31:56] you you've endorsed me, you've supported
[01:31:58] me, no one is safe from mismanagement of
[01:32:01] funds in our government." And that is
[01:32:03] the pledge that I give to you is to work
[01:32:05] with these agencies structurally to make
[01:32:07] sure our paths are correct, our
[01:32:10] strategies are correct, and then to make
[01:32:12] sure that we leave no stone unturned.
[01:32:18] I I just wanted to um
[01:32:22] we've gotten used to mediocrity
[01:32:26] and we've also gotten used to a title.
[01:32:30] If a title or an a certain office was
[01:32:34] going to fix all of this these issues,
[01:32:36] we wouldn't be sitting here tonight
[01:32:38] complaining.
[01:32:40] It is time for results. True results.
[01:32:44] And it's time for us to look elsewhere.
[01:32:48] You can't ask someone who's been molded
[01:32:51] by a system to then go in and reform the
[01:32:54] system because that's all they know is
[01:32:56] the system.
[01:32:59] It is time for you to hire someone
[01:33:01] outside the system who's worked with the
[01:33:04] system, understand the system,
[01:33:06] but know how to now reform and get it
[01:33:09] moving. I'm g say this last thing
[01:33:13] right now. Before
[01:33:16] President Donald Trump, everybody would
[01:33:19] say government moves slow. This
[01:33:21] government, this federal government is
[01:33:23] moving like this. It's moving fast. Why?
[01:33:27] Because they brought in likeminded
[01:33:29] people and they are moving and they had
[01:33:32] a plan and they're going for it. It is
[01:33:35] time for us as voters to do the same in
[01:33:38] Prince George's County.
[01:33:41] Hire out. you you already see what we
[01:33:43] have. So if they get back in, it is us.
[01:33:48] It is our fault. You have candidates who
[01:33:51] are ready to make it happen. And let me
[01:33:53] tell you something. If I win,
[01:33:55] everybody's coming with me. I've already
[01:33:57] talked to Tanya. I've talked to Billy.
[01:34:01] I've talked to Greg
[01:34:04] because it's going to take us all.
[01:34:07] Thank you.
[01:34:12] Good evening. Uh my name is Jonathan G.
[01:34:15] I'm Prince George's County resident,
[01:34:17] born and raised in DC, moved here. Um
[01:34:20] I'm a firm believer in a lot of the
[01:34:22] things that you say as far as
[01:34:23] transparency go. Um I'm I'm I believe
[01:34:27] that um numbers don't lie, people do.
[01:34:30] Even if you lie and put them numbers in,
[01:34:32] it's going to all come back with the
[01:34:34] right account and get a hold to it. Now,
[01:34:36] when I look at it, my question is always
[01:34:39] is about the school system and about the
[01:34:41] nonprofits, too. As you know, I run a
[01:34:43] nonprofit. Never got a dollar from the
[01:34:45] county, but it hasn't stopped me from
[01:34:46] doing what we do. We feed
[01:34:50] close to Christmas time, you know, we
[01:34:52] feed close to 500 people. Christmas,
[01:34:55] maybe 500. Thanksgiving, we give out
[01:34:57] coats. We do that's what we do. But I'm
[01:34:59] a big advocate of gun violence and I
[01:35:01] find it mostly with the young people.
[01:35:04] Now, when I look at it, when I look at
[01:35:05] the school budget, we're not getting the
[01:35:08] dollars for our numbers. We spend
[01:35:11] $22,000 a year per student.
[01:35:14] $22,000
[01:35:16] per year. That's a quarter of a million
[01:35:18] dollars, over a quarter of a million
[01:35:20] dollars if they go 12 years in the
[01:35:23] public school system. We're not getting
[01:35:26] the dollars for we are not getting the
[01:35:28] results for the dollars that we spent.
[01:35:31] And then when we look at it, if you're
[01:35:33] not reading on the third grade level, by
[01:35:35] the time you pass the 12th grade, you're
[01:35:37] four to five times more likely to end up
[01:35:39] either on welfare or incarcerated.
[01:35:42] Those are the numbers. 60 to 70% of the
[01:35:45] students, male students in Prince
[01:35:46] George's County are not reading on the
[01:35:49] third grade level. Now, I go along with
[01:35:52] Mr. Cruz on that one aspect. My question
[01:35:54] is always, what is the plan? How do we
[01:35:59] fix that? When I first heard those
[01:36:01] numbers when I was doing my research on
[01:36:03] gun advocacy and stopping the gun
[01:36:05] violence, I say, "Well, if we can get
[01:36:07] these kids to read, we can change a lot
[01:36:10] of that."
[01:36:12] But so my question is, what is the
[01:36:13] advocate to bring up those scores to
[01:36:16] where we can see the results? Cuz if we
[01:36:19] paying over a quarter million dollars
[01:36:21] for them to go to school
[01:36:24] as far as taxpayers go, then we have to
[01:36:26] pay to incarcerate them. So we talking
[01:36:29] about over a half a million dollars.
[01:36:32] Those are just the numbers. That's not
[01:36:34] something that I'm making up. And then
[01:36:36] when we look at my other question is we
[01:36:38] got over 800 acres in the next two years
[01:36:42] that's going to be available as far as
[01:36:45] in industrial commercial space. We
[01:36:48] talking about the old Landover Mall
[01:36:50] area, the Northeast Stadium area, Old
[01:36:53] FedEx, and we talking about Six Flags.
[01:36:56] All of that's going to be open. My
[01:36:59] question is, what is the plan? We looked
[01:37:02] at Jack Johnson and I don't have no fond
[01:37:04] memories of him or whatever, but I
[01:37:06] haven't seen no meaningful development
[01:37:10] happen in this county since he been
[01:37:12] gone.
[01:37:15] Thank you for that question.
[01:37:18] First of all, we're living with the
[01:37:21] remnants of that meaningful development
[01:37:24] from the time of Jack Johnson. Because
[01:37:27] when I talked about those municipal
[01:37:29] bonds that were taken out, it was around
[01:37:32] that time that the county council
[01:37:34] decided to stop charging developers
[01:37:37] those impact fees that the state says
[01:37:40] you should charge to build the
[01:37:42] infrastructure, to build new schools. we
[01:37:45] started borrowing it. That's why your
[01:37:47] taxes keep going up because we've been
[01:37:50] continuing that pattern over the last 25
[01:37:53] years.
[01:37:55] Education, you're absolutely 100%
[01:37:58] correct, sir. And I'm going tell you one
[01:38:01] of my biggest beefs, if you will, with
[01:38:04] our school system.
[01:38:07] We need a courageous superintendent
[01:38:11] who's willing to stand up and say, "I
[01:38:15] understand how minority children learn,
[01:38:20] and it ain't common court."
[01:38:23] Federal law and state law will allow us
[01:38:27] to create our own curriculum to meet the
[01:38:29] needs of our children in our public
[01:38:32] school system and continue to get the
[01:38:34] federal and state grants as long as we
[01:38:37] can justify the need for a different
[01:38:40] curriculum. We were too lazy in Prince
[01:38:44] George's County to do that.
[01:38:47] We just did the easy thing to keep
[01:38:51] getting the money.
[01:38:54] We need more tactile learning in our
[01:38:56] schools. We need more sensory learning
[01:38:59] in our schools, not just visual and
[01:39:03] auditory,
[01:39:04] especially African-American boys. My
[01:39:07] mama was a public is a retired public
[01:39:09] school educator. So, I grew up learning
[01:39:11] this. I have a brother with special
[01:39:14] needs. I have a sister with special
[01:39:15] needs. I've had a son, 24, living on his
[01:39:18] own in Pittsburgh. He was a straight A
[01:39:21] student. So, I understood this when I
[01:39:23] had him. For little boys, you all need
[01:39:26] activity. You like to touch things. I
[01:39:30] watch my two-year-old son tear things up
[01:39:32] and rebuild them. Where do we do that in
[01:39:35] our schools? We don't. We expect our
[01:39:38] little boys to sit at a desk for six and
[01:39:39] a half hours a day and listen to
[01:39:41] somebody talk at them. We want our
[01:39:44] little boys to read English literature,
[01:39:46] Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Y'all ain't
[01:39:48] interested in that. I got my son
[01:39:51] interested in reading by telling him to
[01:39:52] read what he liked. So, he read comic
[01:39:55] books and he still reads to this day. We
[01:39:59] have to change how we teach our young
[01:40:02] men and our black men will thrive and
[01:40:05] succeed, but until we get the right
[01:40:08] leader as superintendent, we can't make
[01:40:10] that happen.
[01:40:11] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat. So, if I can just
[01:40:14] I'm so sorry. I know we're running over
[01:40:16] time, but I want to echo one sentiment
[01:40:17] because at one point in my life, I was a
[01:40:19] person who did not like reading. And do
[01:40:21] you know what my parents did? Instead of
[01:40:22] me take instead of taking me to Barnes &
[01:40:24] Noble or necessarily instead of just
[01:40:26] being in the general book sections,
[01:40:28] romance, comedy, whatever the case may
[01:40:29] be, they took me over to the manga
[01:40:31] section and the comic book section. And
[01:40:33] now, let me tell you this, anybody who
[01:40:34] knows me, I have my book bag in the car
[01:40:36] because I keep it everywhere for when I
[01:40:38] get bored. There are three there are
[01:40:39] three novels in there about four graphic
[01:40:42] novels and five comic books currently in
[01:40:44] that bag right now that I'm reading. And
[01:40:46] that is what changed my trajectory from
[01:40:47] a kid who did not like reading to a kid
[01:40:49] who now has his own li or to an adult
[01:40:51] now who has his own library. So I want
[01:40:53] to echo that sentiment. If you are a
[01:40:54] parent, please, please, please, if your
[01:40:56] child doesn't like reading, find the
[01:40:58] things that they do like reading and
[01:41:00] then have them grow from there. On to
[01:41:02] the education piece. I do want to say
[01:41:05] that as a county council member, again,
[01:41:06] we are very limited of what our role
[01:41:08] actually allows us to do. But if I could
[01:41:10] say what I would like to do, I speak to
[01:41:11] too many young individuals who say
[01:41:13] college isn't it isn't a guaranteed get
[01:41:16] a quick job and be able to make money
[01:41:18] like it used to be. Now, um especially
[01:41:21] going to some of these H.B.CU where they
[01:41:22] have the model of if you you get I mean
[01:41:26] I I got mine so you get yours. My little
[01:41:28] brother, he just graduated from Brown
[01:41:29] University. He's going to UVA law in the
[01:41:32] spring. Jeremiah Peeles, his educational
[01:41:35] background going from Landon High School
[01:41:37] to Brown University was completely
[01:41:41] different expectation. Those teachers
[01:41:43] will fight tooth and nail to make sure
[01:41:44] you don't get anything under a seat.
[01:41:46] Meanwhile, here we have teachers who not
[01:41:48] only won't work with students, but will
[01:41:49] easily push them out. And then these are
[01:41:51] the same students who are saying, "Well,
[01:41:52] go ahead and build a career." And
[01:41:54] instead of seeing a career, they're on
[01:41:55] TikTok and Twitter and seeing people
[01:41:57] make millions of dollars acting a fool.
[01:41:59] And so now they're like, "The best way I
[01:42:01] have to make money is to go act a fool."
[01:42:03] And I'm telling you now as parents
[01:42:06] or what my plan would be if I could talk
[01:42:09] to the school board, talk to the
[01:42:10] superintendent, it is find a way to get
[01:42:11] our trades, our workforce, and our
[01:42:14] funneling channels back into school to
[01:42:16] give these kids a easy route to making
[01:42:18] money as soon as they graduate.
[01:42:19] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. We are getting
[01:42:21] close to time, so we have one more
[01:42:23] question. We're going to take one more
[01:42:25] question,
[01:42:26] two more questions, and then we're going
[01:42:29] to close out. Okay. All right.
[01:42:33] >> Hello. I just want to thank you all for
[01:42:35] this. This has been amazing. You all
[01:42:36] have been amazing. My name is Wendy
[01:42:38] Bland. I have been living in PG County
[01:42:42] almost my entire life. I um live off of
[01:42:46] Lotsford Road um right across from the
[01:42:48] county building in Woodview uh town
[01:42:50] homes. Been living there for 22 years.
[01:42:53] the last five years we have just
[01:42:56] received a lot of the um folks from the
[01:42:59] voucher program and has negatively
[01:43:02] affected our community tremendously. The
[01:43:05] first thing that the county executive
[01:43:07] did was I think said she was going to
[01:43:10] send the um solicitation out for 5,000
[01:43:13] more recipients. So, I would like to
[01:43:16] know what you all would do with the
[01:43:18] program to ensure that it has some
[01:43:20] oversight and some prerequisite for
[01:43:23] people that are coming into it.
[01:43:27] Oversight is the key word.
[01:43:30] I don't know when the last time you
[01:43:32] tried to call our housing office, but if
[01:43:34] you get an answer in a person in a body,
[01:43:36] tell them sweat still waiting on a call
[01:43:38] back.
[01:43:40] That's the biggest problem. It's
[01:43:42] oversight
[01:43:43] number one.
[01:43:46] Number two, we do have residents in this
[01:43:49] county who honestly cannot afford to
[01:43:52] live here.
[01:43:54] No fault of their own necessarily.
[01:43:58] So, we have to figure out a way to
[01:44:01] support them just like we support
[01:44:03] everybody else.
[01:44:05] But in supporting them,
[01:44:08] I will revive social services and family
[01:44:13] services because we don't invest in them
[01:44:16] anymore. And we have families in crisis
[01:44:19] who need that support and that help. We
[01:44:23] talk about our kids being out all hours
[01:44:26] of the night. We got people who had
[01:44:28] children and don't understand what it is
[01:44:29] to parent. Well, with family services,
[01:44:32] we can do those educational type
[01:44:34] activities and support our families
[01:44:36] through their trying times and then
[01:44:38] maybe cut down on some of the
[01:44:39] foolishness in your community.
[01:44:41] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat. Would anyone else
[01:44:44] like to respond?
[01:44:49] I
[01:44:49] >> say once again, Miss M is right about
[01:44:51] the oversight portion, but we also again
[01:44:53] when we get back to our suburban and
[01:44:55] urban planning, we need to understand
[01:44:56] what we need to have, where we need to
[01:44:58] have it. And I'm again with a law
[01:44:59] enforcement background. I mentioned
[01:45:00] about transferring our police to public
[01:45:02] safety. We need to have community uh
[01:45:04] oversight or community view of
[01:45:06] everything. That means with our law
[01:45:08] enforcement coming in there, okay, you
[01:45:09] know, uh cleaning up what needs to be
[01:45:11] cleaned up, but also setting the right
[01:45:12] examples, okay, of mentoring our
[01:45:13] children and uh youth and so forth. And
[01:45:15] even piggy back into the other question
[01:45:16] gentleman had about the school system.
[01:45:18] He's exactly right. Uh everything all
[01:45:20] ties together. I know we talked about
[01:45:21] different topics, but when I said
[01:45:23] healthcare, safety, schools, and wealth,
[01:45:25] everything ties together. We cannot
[01:45:26] leave one out. So when you play with
[01:45:28] numbers saying that the student based
[01:45:30] budgeting, it started out as
[01:45:31] school-based budgeting, but somebody
[01:45:32] thought it didn't sound right, so they
[01:45:33] switched it over to student based
[01:45:34] budgeting. We need to have a a method
[01:45:37] that we look at community schools where
[01:45:39] we have all the wraparound services,
[01:45:40] okay? We need to embrace the families,
[01:45:42] okay? And same thing about our
[01:45:43] communities, okay? When we embracing
[01:45:44] those family, those children in your
[01:45:46] neighborhoods, they go to somebody's
[01:45:48] school and those problems just migrate
[01:45:50] all over. So if we have uh law
[01:45:52] enforcement involved there as public
[01:45:54] safety, we can all I'm sorry, excuse me.
[01:45:56] Thank you, Mr. Bridges.
[01:45:59] >> For me, it's all about vision. It
[01:46:02] everything is about vision. If you think
[01:46:04] about it, we're just placing things in
[01:46:06] places and with no plan. We're just
[01:46:09] trying to get things done. Um Wayne
[01:46:13] Curry, from what I understand from my
[01:46:15] research, was the last visionary for the
[01:46:17] county. That's what I was told. He had
[01:46:21] the vision for the harbor. He had the
[01:46:23] vision for uh Woodmore. and then
[01:46:26] everybody else just built on it. Nobody
[01:46:28] else came with a vision is what I'm
[01:46:31] getting at. I'm ready to cast a 10year
[01:46:34] vision where we structure correctly.
[01:46:38] This government has to be restructured.
[01:46:40] It's not set up for where the economy is
[01:46:44] going and where it is currently.
[01:46:47] We have a massive restructuring that has
[01:46:49] to take place.
[01:46:51] the prepared professional program I told
[01:46:53] you about earlier that I'm the founder
[01:46:56] of. What it does is it takes vocational
[01:46:59] schools and it takes trade and I'm out
[01:47:04] of time.
[01:47:04] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz.
[01:47:06] Do you have any Thank you. Um, this is
[01:47:09] going to be our last question from the
[01:47:11] audience before we do our close out with
[01:47:13] each candidate.
[01:47:18] >> Good evening.
[01:47:20] The FY27 adopted county council budget
[01:47:24] allocated 39 million from the park and
[01:47:27] planning funds and 25 million FY26
[01:47:32] which critics argue diverts dedicated
[01:47:34] land use tax resources away from the
[01:47:37] designated use and it risks severe
[01:47:40] fiscal strain on park and planning by
[01:47:42] FY29.
[01:47:45] How will you use your office to ensure
[01:47:48] strict adherence to the commission's
[01:47:50] state charter? Good faith collaboration
[01:47:53] with park and planning in the community
[01:47:55] and restore financial integrity and
[01:47:58] transparency to county governance.
[01:48:03] >> This is a county council question. So,
[01:48:04] I'm so glad that you asked this. Uh, so
[01:48:06] let's be very clear right now because
[01:48:08] it's all about tracking the money. that
[01:48:09] 20 that 36 million I believe it was in
[01:48:12] the budget and then 39 excuse me and
[01:48:14] then there were two other or three other
[01:48:16] bills and resolutions in the 20125 end
[01:48:19] of session beginning of 2026 session
[01:48:21] that I think we're over 100 million at
[01:48:23] this point that's been reallocated from
[01:48:24] park and planning whose job is to
[01:48:26] literally be the first line of defense
[01:48:28] for our development process. You know
[01:48:30] that we're supposed to go through a park
[01:48:31] and planning uh a board a planning board
[01:48:34] hearing then we're supposed to go to a
[01:48:35] review process. There are a bunch of
[01:48:37] bells and whistles. Once it's concluded
[01:48:38] from there, then it goes to the district
[01:48:40] council in Prince George's County
[01:48:41] Council. We're going to lose lawyers.
[01:48:44] We're going to lose uh uh appraisers.
[01:48:46] We're going to lose people do
[01:48:48] applications. We're going to lose all
[01:48:50] these individuals. And guess where the
[01:48:51] money is going? The council chair just
[01:48:53] passed an initiative project on child
[01:48:56] care funding. Now, this is something
[01:48:57] that is needed. However, you cannot put
[01:49:00] a band-aid over an open wound and expect
[01:49:03] it to heal. You must first clean up the
[01:49:05] problem, heal the problem before you
[01:49:07] then begin to build and to elevate. And
[01:49:09] the problem that we have here is that 30
[01:49:11] that 39 36 million all went to
[01:49:14] nonprofits to fund those programs as
[01:49:17] well as to fund other nonprofits that
[01:49:18] they're associated with. And again, I go
[01:49:20] back to my main point. The first bill
[01:49:22] that I'm putting through is to take that
[01:49:24] process out of the county council's
[01:49:25] hand, put in the office of procurement,
[01:49:27] and make it separate from even the
[01:49:28] county exe have some type of state
[01:49:30] oversight.
[01:49:34] Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Miss what?
[01:49:37] >> I support Mr. People's answer because
[01:49:40] the county council is primarily
[01:49:41] responsible
[01:49:43] for the park and planning budget,
[01:49:45] parking planning oversight, district
[01:49:47] council responsibilities.
[01:49:51] The county executive though working with
[01:49:53] the county council as a check balance
[01:49:55] can make requests
[01:49:57] and I will make requests.
[01:50:00] One of the requests that I would have
[01:50:02] made if we're going to deal with child
[01:50:04] care, go to the park and recreations
[01:50:07] division within the park and planning
[01:50:10] commission for Prince George's County
[01:50:12] and ask them to put more child care in
[01:50:14] our recreation centers.
[01:50:16] That's I mean that's that's low hanging
[01:50:18] fruit. You don't tax the businesses, the
[01:50:23] sinful businesses that we don't want.
[01:50:25] You don't add an extra tax on them to
[01:50:27] give out vouchers. just go to the
[01:50:29] agencies we already have and ask them to
[01:50:31] provide the service. Children get to go
[01:50:34] to our parks and wrecks for free anyway.
[01:50:36] All you now do is ask parents to pay
[01:50:38] just a little bit of money to make sure
[01:50:40] we can pay the staff to supervise them
[01:50:42] until parents come get them. And then
[01:50:45] you got to go to USDA to make sure we
[01:50:46] got the food to feed them while they're
[01:50:48] there. I mean, it's a simple answer, but
[01:50:49] when you don't understand how the
[01:50:50] government works, you come up with crazy
[01:50:52] ideas.
[01:50:53] >> Okay. Thank you for that, Miss Sweat.
[01:50:56] And so we want to thank you all. And now
[01:50:58] we're going to come to the closing of
[01:51:01] the forum where we're going to allow
[01:51:03] each candidate two minutes to do their
[01:51:06] closing statement. Um and we are going
[01:51:09] to start with Miss Sweat.
[01:51:14] Government
[01:51:18] has a purpose and the purpose of
[01:51:20] government is to maximize human
[01:51:23] potential and protect human rights.
[01:51:28] That's what we're supposed to do. And we
[01:51:30] do that in a number of ways.
[01:51:34] When John F. Kennedy did his
[01:51:37] inauguration address.
[01:51:39] He said to the people, "Ask not what
[01:51:42] your government can do for you.
[01:51:45] Ask what you can do for your government.
[01:51:52] I'm asking right now
[01:51:55] that the people of Prince George's
[01:51:57] County sign a petition to allow me to
[01:52:00] run as your next county executive as an
[01:52:03] independent.
[01:52:05] I do that for my government because my
[01:52:08] government is broken
[01:52:11] and I want to help fix it.
[01:52:14] But more importantly, I do that for my
[01:52:17] people because my people are suffering
[01:52:21] at the hands of a broken government.
[01:52:27] I want us all to do better and be
[01:52:30] better.
[01:52:31] I want to help us maximize our efforts.
[01:52:37] I want us to succeed at whatever it is
[01:52:39] we want to be. I want us to thrive
[01:52:43] from the cradle to the grave.
[01:52:47] Government cannot bring in these centric
[01:52:52] business ideas. It's a public entity.
[01:52:56] That's what private enterprise is for.
[01:53:00] One of our biggest problems in
[01:53:01] government right now is we've allowed
[01:53:03] private enterprise to come in and build
[01:53:08] the taxpayers
[01:53:09] from the federal level all the way down
[01:53:12] to the local level.
[01:53:14] We have to stop that. And I suggest we
[01:53:18] stop that by taking back the power in
[01:53:21] our elections and putting in elected
[01:53:25] officials who care about the people.
[01:53:28] Thank you. hearing me. I look forward to
[01:53:31] seeing you on the trail and please see
[01:53:33] me in the back if you wi if you're
[01:53:35] willing to sign the petition.
[01:53:37] >> Thank you, Miss Sweat. Mr. Peoples,
[01:53:43] this is probably my fourth forum in my
[01:53:45] first uh political campaign. I will say
[01:53:49] it seems as though every time I do a
[01:53:51] forum, the numbers get shorter. Uh the
[01:53:55] response to the community gets shorter.
[01:53:58] But I understand because of some of the
[01:54:00] c we've only had we've never had no any
[01:54:02] more than three candidates from the
[01:54:04] district 6 race. Although we have about
[01:54:05] seven or eight on the ballot between
[01:54:07] Democrats and Republicans. We've only
[01:54:09] had about three show up max at a forum.
[01:54:12] And this is the lowest and it's just
[01:54:13] one.
[01:54:15] But that's not the reason why I'm
[01:54:16] running. I am running because
[01:54:20] my appointed official and I respect her
[01:54:22] as an individual
[01:54:24] and I celebrate her courage to step into
[01:54:29] the limelight, but it is a shame that a
[01:54:31] person with no legislative experience
[01:54:33] whatsoever
[01:54:35] with specific just ties with people is
[01:54:38] put in one of the most pivotal districts
[01:54:40] in Prince George's County to lead us
[01:54:42] forward.
[01:54:45] I want to be extremely clear and my team
[01:54:48] will tell you this. I have no ambition
[01:54:50] to be a career politician. Shout out to
[01:54:52] all the people that do. You have a
[01:54:54] strength that I don't even think I
[01:54:55] won't. But I will say this,
[01:54:59] I don't like being taken advantage of. I
[01:55:01] like to see a plan and I like to see
[01:55:03] people with integrity lead that plan.
[01:55:05] And when I saw that a person appointed
[01:55:09] that has no experience, that has never
[01:55:11] stood up and explained the state of our
[01:55:13] county or our district, who has not
[01:55:15] proven knowledge on any fine items of
[01:55:19] our district, stand up and say, "I am an
[01:55:22] experienced candidate who will fight for
[01:55:24] you. It makes my stomach curl because
[01:55:27] district 6 will not fall by the wayside
[01:55:29] because we continue to ignore these
[01:55:31] campaigns." I told Bishop and Coast to
[01:55:33] my parents before, I don't know if a lot
[01:55:35] of people are going to come out to this
[01:55:36] election because Donald Trump or Barack
[01:55:37] Obama isn't on the ballot. That's the
[01:55:39] only thing that seemed to keep people
[01:55:41] out in Prince George's County out until
[01:55:43] individuals like the ones that are
[01:55:44] sitting up here next to me and myself
[01:55:45] decided to get out in the community and
[01:55:47] tell people your vote matters. You would
[01:55:49] be so surprised how many local local
[01:55:51] elections were decided by one vote,
[01:55:54] which means that I give you all a call
[01:55:56] of action. Don't let it stop at this
[01:55:58] forum. Post it online. Text all your
[01:56:01] friends who you know who live in your
[01:56:02] districts. Get the word out that we need
[01:56:04] experience, leadership with integrity in
[01:56:07] the Prince George's County Council. And
[01:56:09] that comes with a vote for Joe R.
[01:56:10] Peoples Jr. for district 6.
[01:56:13] >> Thank you, Mr. Peoples. And now we'll
[01:56:16] have Mr. Cruz.
[01:56:26] County Executive is more than someone
[01:56:28] who manages the county. It's someone who
[01:56:31] cast vision.
[01:56:34] My vision is to make Prince George's
[01:56:35] County the innovation technology hub for
[01:56:39] the world.
[01:56:41] My vision is to bring prosperity and
[01:56:44] transform this government to where the
[01:56:48] economy is right now. We have a passive
[01:56:51] economy in this county. That means it
[01:56:54] sits on the back of homeowners, workers,
[01:56:58] a little bit of retail sprinkled in
[01:57:00] there,
[01:57:02] but you don't get anywhere with that. I
[01:57:04] want to move to a production economy.
[01:57:08] And what's in my background that says
[01:57:10] that I can do this, that I can innovate
[01:57:12] and make our services better? Well, I've
[01:57:15] worked with and for government
[01:57:18] and I've worked with a lot of our
[01:57:20] elected officials writing policy and I
[01:57:23] have several bills ready to go. I have a
[01:57:25] plan. I'm not talking about ideas.
[01:57:29] I'm telling you right now in the first
[01:57:32] 100 days we will see a a major
[01:57:35] turnaround. My prepare professional
[01:57:37] which I was about to bring up. It takes
[01:57:39] trade it and it takes vocational schools
[01:57:42] and it brings it into one and it
[01:57:45] transform it from blue collar to white
[01:57:47] collar. My own niece went through it and
[01:57:50] became a veterinarian
[01:57:53] and be but she first became a
[01:57:55] veterinarian assistant. I needed to know
[01:57:56] that this is really what she wanted to
[01:57:58] do.
[01:58:00] It is time for us to think forward and
[01:58:04] bring people in who know how to do it
[01:58:06] and who doing it right now. I'm in
[01:58:09] schools right now.
[01:58:13] And it's time to bring in a new
[01:58:14] enterprise
[01:58:15] where we all can share and benefit.
[01:58:19] Where our senior citizens like my mom
[01:58:22] can live in peace.
[01:58:25] Where your property tax is already taken
[01:58:27] care of. I don't have to promise you I'm
[01:58:29] going to cut your taxes. It's already
[01:58:30] taken care of. My name is Marcelus Cruz
[01:58:34] and I need your vote. Thank you.
[01:58:37] >> Thank you, Mr. Cruz.
[01:58:40] Mr. Bridges.
[01:58:42] >> Thank you once again everyone for coming
[01:58:43] out and thank you West for offering this
[01:58:45] one more time for us. My friends, it's
[01:58:47] all about mission. Dr. Martin Luther
[01:58:49] King Jr. reminded us correctly that
[01:58:52] justice denate is justice denied. When
[01:58:55] eyes are closed to the health care needs
[01:58:58] of the poor, the at risk, and the
[01:59:01] elderly, we are denying them their
[01:59:02] healthcare justice. When we
[01:59:06] ignore the safety issues in our
[01:59:07] community with the broken roads, uh,
[01:59:09] crime and abuses of government, we are
[01:59:12] denying public safety justice. When we
[01:59:15] close our ears to the screams of the
[01:59:17] children in school who simply want a
[01:59:18] safe environment to learn, we are
[01:59:20] denying them the educational justice.
[01:59:22] And when the economic needs of the poor
[01:59:26] and the working class are ignored, we
[01:59:28] are not we are denying them their
[01:59:31] economic justice. So once again, it's
[01:59:33] all about improving our health care,
[01:59:36] safety, schools, and wealth with a
[01:59:38] Christian spirit because without a
[01:59:39] Christian spirit is not going to happen.
[01:59:42] If you'll go to bridgesfor us.org, I
[01:59:44] want you to look at all plans because
[01:59:46] you have to have a plan. If we don't
[01:59:47] have a plan, all we have are ideas that
[01:59:49] are floating. We need to have a
[01:59:51] consistent plan. So if you go there,
[01:59:53] look at the consistent plan and if that
[01:59:54] be your your choice. Once again, it
[01:59:57] doesn't have to be about me, but if you
[01:59:58] want to vote for Billy Bridges, I'm
[02:00:00] ready to serve for you. Thank you.
[02:00:04] >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much to
[02:00:07] all the candidates. Um this is our
[02:00:10] closing session, so feel free to uh if
[02:00:13] you want to talk to them, have a
[02:00:14] conversation, feel free to. But I want
[02:00:16] to thank you all for attending this
[02:00:18] forum today. And I'm going to pass the
[02:00:21] mic over to Miss Banks. Reverend Banks.
[02:00:26] >> We just want to thank everyone on behalf
[02:00:28] of Westfailia Christian Community Church
[02:00:30] for just coming out this evening and
[02:00:32] supporting this event. This was your
[02:00:34] event. It was for you and I hope you
[02:00:37] enjoyed it and got what you needed from
[02:00:38] it. We want to certainly thank Miss
[02:00:40] Johnson who served as our moderator this
[02:00:43] week who volunteered to serve. And so
[02:00:45] thank you. And thank you for all the
[02:00:47] candidates who came out. Um, again, it
[02:00:50] was good to see you all again and thank
[02:00:51] you for being willing to serve, willing
[02:00:54] to work hard, and willing to listen to
[02:00:56] the people. So, um, we just want to let
[02:01:00] you all know that there will be a meet
[02:01:01] and greet in the back. If we could just
[02:01:03] kind of head out that way and head to
[02:01:04] the fellowship hall, if you'd like to
[02:01:06] shake hands and ask more questions, uh,
[02:01:08] we will give you time to do that. But
[02:01:10] before we head out, we just want to end
[02:01:12] in a moment of prayer.
[02:01:15] God, we just thank you. We thank you for
[02:01:17] this moment in time, oh God. We thank
[02:01:19] you for bringing us together, Lord God,
[02:01:22] so that we can be the community that you
[02:01:24] have called us to be, Lord God. We just
[02:01:27] pray in the name of Jesus, oh God, that
[02:01:29] you would just bless everyone here.
[02:01:31] Bless us, oh God. Strengthen our hearts
[02:01:33] and strengthen our minds, oh God, that
[02:01:35] we might spread the word and share the
[02:01:38] videos that people can make up their own
[02:01:41] minds about who they would like to vote
[02:01:43] for and why. God, we pray that you would
[02:01:46] lead us in your way, lead us in the
[02:01:48] right direction, God, that our community
[02:01:50] might be blessed, our people might be
[02:01:52] blessed, and that Prince George's County
[02:01:54] be will be the great county, God, that
[02:01:56] we know you want to make it to be. We
[02:01:58] just thank you for all things in Jesus
[02:02:00] name we pray. Amen.
[02:02:01] >> Amen.