All Politics Is Local - Maryland
A Podcast to educate and inform a younger generation of voters beyond the ballot box about local civic matters in the state of Maryland and Prince George's County.
All Politics Is Local - Maryland
Councilwoman Roxy Nedebumadu
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In honor of Women's History Month, I sat down with Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem, Roxy Nedebumadu.
In November 2019, Roxy made history by being the youngest woman elected to serve the City of Bowie, MD as Councilwoman and the first African American woman to represent District 4 in the City.
We discuss her background, vision for the City of Bowie, the largest municipality in Prince George's County, and why Millenials and Gen Z'ers should become more involved politically in their communities.
Hi, welcome to another edition of All Politics is Local with me, your host, Tamara Davis Brown. I am so excited today on this episode to bring a guest, a young millennial. She'll let us define. I I can never get those generations correctly, but she is the city councilwoman for District 4 for the city of Bowie. And she's also Mayor Pro Tem. And we have with us Councilwoman Roxy Ndebu Madhu. So welcome, Councilwoman. We're so glad to have you again. As I indicated, um uh my daughter was the inspiration for this podcast. She said if you wanted to reach a younger generation, we're not reading emails, we're not doing all this other stuff that you're doing. That's your generation. Start a podcast and start to interview people our age and get them more active and involved. The whole purpose of the podcast is to move our millennials, Gen Zers from just the ballot box to actually action. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about who you are, um, who you represent in the city of Bowie, what are some of your um plans politically, um, some of your platform that you hope to accomplish while you are um city councilwoman in the city of Bowie. So we'll just jump right in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Welcome.
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, Tamara. And I'm so it tickles me that your daughter found me. And I have to ask you one day in more detail how, what made her even come across my profile? Because I find that so fascinating. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend this, spend morning with you on this Saturday. And just thank you for all that you're doing to mobilize and energize Gen Z and millennials and exennials and everybody else that's out there. Um, okay, a little bit about myself. Where does my story begin so, so, so long ago? I am the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant who came here many, many, many years ago and had me. Um, I was born at Prince George's County Community Hospital, so I've been a Prince Georgian for literally all my life. I spent a significant amount of time in Nigeria growing up because that's where my mom is from and that's where my dad lived at the time. And we still have a significant part of our family that's still there. However, I spent my time going to school in Hyattesville, that's where I started my education, and then I ended up going to Bowie High School after that, and then I graduated from Largo High School. So bred and raised in Prince George's County, but then after high school, I started my career, or if you would say my matriculation into college at Morgan State University because I had this burning desire to be a nurse. I wanted to take care of people. My mother was a nurse. I came from a family of kind of healthcare practitioners, if you will, in different regards, and business people. And so I started at Morgan State University. But when Morgan lost accreditation, I was like, oh, it's time to get my bags and let's get up out of here because this degree is not gonna mean anything. And so I left. I transferred to Howard University at that time and continued my studies, but this time in healthcare sciences, because I had learned I didn't want to work in a hospital all day. I just didn't want to do that, and I learned that that wasn't for me after going through clinicals. So transferred to Howard, and that's when I switched to my major, and I started pursuing more of this business track, if you will, because I was just more fascinated by that. Upon graduating from Howard, it hit me that I didn't really want to go into business the way that most traditional people would, like a comms major or like management, that type of thing. I wanted to actually go into technology because when you grow up in Nigeria as well, you see a significant lack of infrastructure and you see how there's a significant lack of access to opportunity, and technology has that opportunity to bridge that gap. So I pivoted, I started my career at Microsoft. After I left Microsoft, I was there for quite some time. I went to Twitch, which is an Amazon-owned company, an online streaming platform, and I wanted to continue this theme of serving. And so I went into trust and safety because I had this superwoman power thing going that I wanted to defend democracy. So I went into trust and safety combating online harms, where I'm getting ready to leave that company now and start my own. So it's been quite a journey. I'm still in my 20s. I feel like I've lived a whole life. Um, but I'm just getting started.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. So that that is a fascinating, um, fascinating story. So shout out to Howard. I'm a Howard Law graduate.
SPEAKER_01You know. You know. Okay, sorry.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, so yeah, very, very fascinating. So you are you are a true Prince Georgian. Yeah, you were born and raised, and um that's that's excellent. I guess with respect to Twitch, because I think I just saw that um when I read your bio um reread it recently, that platform deals with trying to ensure, because you hear a lot about um particularly girls and high school girls having self-esteem problems, mental health issues, suicidal thoughts as a result of of things that they view and see on social media. Is that what you mean by um harms in social media and what you were covering in that aspect? And um if if not ex explain it and then explain what you plan to do with your own business now that you're gonna be a startup doing that.
SPEAKER_01So, yes, that's a component of it. It's a harm is external and internal. However, I'm I just want to flag that I'm not speaking on behalf of Twitch. I'm not a spokesperson for them, so all of my thoughts are my own. But essentially, when I talk about combating online harms, I mean about I I I'm talking about everything that deals with safety on the internet. So that's talking about government and government relations and government takedowns, that's talking about misinformation and disinformation, that's talking about community guidelines and content guidelines. So when you're uploading things to a service or when you decide to use a service, there are a set of community guidelines that you can send to. And so what happens is that if you violate those community guidelines, the social media platform can suspend your account or actually outright ban you. And so my team focuses on things like that. Part of it is also, I don't necessarily know that I think the industry is as proactive. And when I say proactive, I mean doing deep dive research into how social media platforms affect children or how they affect just mental um mental behavioral aspects. I don't necessarily think there's a social media platform out here that's as proactive in that area. So I hope that we get to that as a future state that platforms are proactively looking at what are the mental health impacts of this particular algorithm or this particular policy or this particular product feature. But I don't think the industry is there yet by any means necessary. As it pertains to my own business, I honestly got tired in corporate America of people kind of wanting to dictate my impact level or wanting to tell me how to make an impact or how to contribute. And I found that when you work for corporate entities, it's kind of like they want to contain you and restrict you and confine you in these boxes and tell you what your contribution or what your persona should be because they want you to fit into a mold. And that's been something I've struggled with my entire life. And so I got tired of that, quite frankly. And there was a problem that was always near and dear to me that evolved as a solution over time when I decided to pivot. So my company does two things. We're a digital innovation consultant firm, but we also plan on launching a product in years to come. The product aspect of it is a personal development tool on the front-end facing side. And the back-end-facing side of it is an HR management tool that helps enterprise companies be able to manage and build better teams, but also learn when something is going wrong from the insights, the scrubbed insights that they're getting from the professional development of the end user to be able to proactively mitigate that and allow people to flourish in a way that they can flourish. And it allows the company to be able to leverage their unique talents and their unique gifts to comprise better teams and give them better opportunities, quite frankly. Because the reality is everybody doesn't want to be promoted, everybody doesn't want to get to C-suite, and everybody doesn't want to be a manager. So, how can you carve out a space to allow them to contribute in a way that's most meaningful for the company, but also most meaningful for them? And then if there is a sense of a HR violation or a violation or any sort of retaliation that might be going on, it allows the the HR management tool, it allows them to be able to see that, to be able to mitigate it and provide a better experience for the employee. So that's the product side of it. Yeah, that's the product side of it. The other side of it is really helping people think about brand experience a little bit differently. People talk a lot about brand marketing and customer marketing and sales funnels and sales cycles and all those other great buzzwords. However, they don't think about the holistic experience that a consumer, and we're all consumers, that a consumer has from the introductory, the introduction to the product to the end of the product and how they infuse it in their life. They just think about it from an isolated perspective of how do I get you to buy this thing right now? And what do I need to do to market to you so you get you to buy this thing? But they're not thinking about the holistic cycle. And so when we think about um digital innovation, it's infused in every aspect of the journey for the consumer, and that's what we want to focus on.
SPEAKER_00Okay, wow, that's interesting. Well, congratulations on uh stepping out on faith and starting your own business and and really um making an impact. Um I I can see where that is definitely needed in the um technology world and HR world, and I wish you much success on that. But let's pivot and let's talk about why you decided to run for office, uh, what what galvanized you, what you know, what was that triggered that said, hey, I I want to run to for office and and become city councilwoman for District 4 of the uh city of Bowie. First, tell us and tell those who are listening what communities within the city of Bowie does District 4 cover?
SPEAKER_01So District 4 covers South Bowie, Pointer Ridge is another big pocket and everything south of um Mitchellville Road, 301 and 214. So that's my population. It's kind of like the newer areas of Bowie, if you will. So you have like the Bowie Town Center, that's District 3. So behind the Bowie Town Center going towards 301, that's all District 4.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um so if you think about the Wawa and the new development that's coming up on um is off of 301, that's in my district that's coming online. And so I would like I would say it's kind of like the newer areas of Bowie, if you will. That's pretty much District 4. But in terms of why did I run for office, wow. So I have to give credit where credit is due, because I wasn't one of those kids that said, I'm gonna be president of the United States one day. No, that wasn't me. Um, I was much, I was living my best life when I was younger to some degree. I was at the Go Go's, um, down in Sutland. I was not thinking about how I might be the most buttoned-up A student so that I can be president of the United States one day. No. I was at Microsoft actually sitting in a boardroom. I had a mentor at the time, his name is Fred Humphries, and I will always pay credit to Fred Humphries because Fred was a big part of my life. Fred said to me one day, he was like, Roxy, I think you should run for office. And I looked at Fred just like I'm looking, you know, I was like, Fred, are you okay? I don't think they never elect anybody like me. Like, I'm a little out there. Like, it's got gold nails, look at all the books behind me, bright orange. Like, I'm a little out there. So I was like, are you sure? He was like, you know, Roxy, you're kind of outspoken. You know, you care a lot about advocacy because of how you grew up. Like, there's a lot there. I think you should run for office. And I was like, I don't know about all that. So when someone puts a bug in my hair, I'm gonna do my due diligence. So I did. I went to www.runforoffice.org. I put in my address and I said, What am I even able to run for? Like, where do I even start? How do I find out? So I went to that website. On that website, it listed a city council race that was coming up. And I was like, hmm, this is interesting. But the crazy part about it, it was nearing the end of August. So I was like, yo, this election is in November. We're already at the end of August, getting into September. That's a little quick. And there are a lot of people in this constituency. You're talking about an upwards of like 25,000 people. So in my in District 4, in the city of Bowie, I really would tell you it's above 70,000. But so I said, you know, this is a pretty short amount of time. So what I did was I spoke to, I met this young man. His name is Brandon Cooper. Brandon later on in this story became agreed to become my advisor.
SPEAKER_02And no, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01So Brandon, I'm like, Brandon, I don't know. Brandon's like, Roxy, you should run. Just go ahead and do it. The worst that's gonna happen is that you're gonna lose. And I was like, that's true. But at the end of the day, I'm still gonna have a job. I'm still gonna be a better person. I would have learned so many things about what's important to people. Who do I have to lose? So I did it. I filed to run for office around September 7th. We launched a campaign September 15th, and the election was November 6th. So we ran for about, I want to say about 45 days, somewhere around there. And the crazy part about it is that I ran against four other people and won by 16 votes. One by 16 votes. Nuts, crazy. Because we didn't expect to win whatsoever. Like, I mean, I was one of the, I was the second to last person that registered for that race. And was running against other people that had been running for an entire year. So to go back to your question, what made me decide to run was my mentor. Because my mentor saw something in me that I didn't see in myself that I didn't think was going to be relatable to people. So that was the first thing. The second thing was when I thought about his suggestion, and I thought about how passionate I was about defending democracy, protecting community, preserving community, but also at the same time making sure that communities like ours have opportunity and have access to opportunity. I was like, you're right, there is no better person for this. And honestly, if people don't resonate with me, then that's fine. At the end of the day, I still have me. I still told my story. I still owned my narrative and I told people what it was that I wanted to do for them. And if they resonated with that, I loved it. If they didn't, then I also loved it for them. Because that means that they chose the best person for the job at that time and what the job needed. So that was the reason why I ran.
SPEAKER_00Great, great, great. Interesting story. Interesting story. So what do you think did resonate with voters? What what was it in your platform? What was it that you spoke passionately about that did resonate with voters as you knocked on doors or as you talked to people, you know, in the shopping center, you know, at the Wawa, um, where where wherever you met them? Um, what was it about what you said that you think actually won the voters over?
SPEAKER_01I think the first thing was it was authenticity. I think when people knew that they were voting for me or when they met me, they knew that they were getting me. They knew that they weren't getting a seasoned or a politician or political operative, if you will. They knew they were getting somebody that had understand experiences, had been through things that was at least going to try an unconventional approach to bring solutions to the forefront because I was not the typical norm, if you will. Right. And so I think the authenticity piece was what was what resonated with them. And I'll tell you really briefly a quick story and then I'll I'll get to the other part of the question. I remember when I sent out my my last mass text, no, it was a second to last mass text. I said to people, I was like, hey, my name is Roxy, I'm running for office, new generation, new voice. Um, I really hope to earn your support. And if you want to learn more about me, please go to my website. I've recorded this video, but I've also listed out the things that I care about and that I think need to change in our community. I had an I had a woman who text me back who said, How dare you violate my privacy and text me on my cell phone? You politicians are getting out of control. What's wrong with you? And my heart was broken. I was like, oh my gosh, how can someone think of me this way? So I text her back because I responded to all the text messages. I literally respond to everything if I see it. So I text her back and I said, ma'am, I can assure you, number one, I can't even see your actual phone number. I'm using a system. And number two, I work a full-time job and I'm running for office. I got into the late really, really, I got into the race really, really late. But I really wanted to be able to use the resources at my disposal, at my disposal, to make sure you knew who I was and reach you where you were. But it was never my intent to violate your privacy because I can assure you I can't even say your phone number. And she was just like, wow, the fact that you took the time to respond to me and really be truthful and explain. I've gone to your website. Thank you for helping me, right? So the day of election, I go to the booth and she walks up to me. She said, Do you remember me? I said, No. Can I remember you? Because I don't know if this is a trick question here. So she said, I'm the woman you were texting who got upset that you text me and I just voted for you. Oh, we took a picture, it became a story, and all this other stuff.
SPEAKER_00That is a fabulous story.
SPEAKER_01It was the authenticity piece of being honest and just not ignoring somebody, not saying, Oh, people are gonna be angry, let them be angry. No, telling the truth and meeting them where they are. The other things that I think people really resonated with was the stuff that we were trying to do around technology and for children and bring communities together. The stuff that we were looking to do around the budget. I am a fiscal conservative through and through and through. Um I've learned that from my own ascension to from poverty to what you would call the top 10%. I've learned that ascension. And I've learned how things are set up for it to be a barrier for you to be able to get there. It's like the higher and the higher and the higher you go, the more hurdles and hurdles and hurdles present themselves. The more, the more areas that pop up and things of that sort that make it harder for you to get there, make it harder for you to pay your bills, make it harder for you to be able to provide new things. And the last thing that I would ever want to do on earth is tell people that I'm gonna continue to raise taxes to provide services and duplications that are already offered in other areas. That's not helping people, one, leverage their resources and have access to their money. That's me asking them to give it to me. And I don't I don't believe in that. And so for me, it was around balancing the budget and making sure that our budget continues to stay in a fiscally strong state, but also being like conservative and really being able to assess where there's duplication, being able to assess where we're spending unnecessary money so that we don't ask our presidents to pay for inefficiency. And then I think the last piece was around small businesses. My mom was a small business owner, she owned dollar stores when we were growing up. Um, when she was becoming a nurse, we had a dollar store in Glen Arden. We also had a dollar store in Camp Springs. So I'm very familiar with permitting processes and also just the struggles and how difficult it is for small businesses when you have larger corporations that are looking to monopolize and go into franchisees in the name of doing it for small businesses, but that's not what the actual experience becomes. And what ended up putting my mother out of business was a Dollar Tree. A Dollar Tree came around the corner and ended up putting us out of business because we couldn't compete with them anymore. They had access to larger manufacturers, they had different manufacturing relationships that a small business owner couldn't get. And the relationships that we had were in DC, if you guys are familiar with what is now union market, that used to be a warehouse area for small businesses to go and get merchandising. That's not that anymore because that those costs have gone up and those larger corporations have come in. And so those are the things that I said that I wanted to change for my community. Now I know that it was difficult in the beginning because COVID hit and we had to legislate through COVID and make sure that we were making sure that the community was safe from a health perspective and also from a financial perspective when different things were hitting us, because we had to figure out how to provide vaccinations for our community and figure out how to partner with the state. But I believe in this short amount of time, I would say within this two years, because I'm gonna give a year to COVID, within this two years, that I've been able to deliver on the things that I said that I was going to do. And one that remains to be seen, which is the budget, which I promise you would get done this April. Um and I think I've been able to deliver, and that's probably why they voted for me.
SPEAKER_00Excellent, excellent, excellent. I love that story, love that story. And also tell me um your term began when, and is it is it it's a four-year term, and so it ends when?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so my term began in November of 2019. That's when I was 26, is when I first won. Term ends this year in November. I do plan on running for re-election. Um and so we serve four-year terms. So it ends this year in November, and the election is the um, I want to say I think it's November 6th or 7th of this year.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So um you mentioned being a fiscal um conservative, so let's uh let's um get the the elephant in the room. Uh you're a young black woman and you are a registered Republican. So tell us, um you you spoke a little bit about being a fiscal um conservative, but tell us what resonates with the Republican Party and why you did decide to um register, you know, run as a registered Republican.
SPEAKER_01So there was a point in my time when I was a Democrat, when I was younger. And I think for me, I was that because I felt like people always told me that I was. Every time I meet somebody, they automatically assume that because I'm black, that I'm a Democrat. Right. And when I got out of college, I started to research for myself to figure out. I think I had a sh a pre-life crisis. I can't call it a midlife crisis. I haven't reached the middle of my life, but I had a pre-life crisis where I was like, what is my identity? Like, who am I? What am I? Like, what is what is this? Like, I had two jobs when I was in college, I had an internship trying to get into corporate America. Like, what am I? Like, what am I doing? And so I started looking up values and solutions and legislation. And I looked up the Republican Party and I looked up the Democratic Party. I looked up, I took all types of tests where it's it asked you, what do you care about, what do you not care about, things of that sort. And I found out that I actually was much more aligned with conservative values than I was with democratic values. But there was a caveat to that. Let me tell you the caveat. Because I think today we are so quick to tribalize people. And I see it too because I, and as being a Nigerian, we have different tribes in Nigeria. You have Alza, you have Yoruba, you have Egbo, we're all tribalized and compartmentalized. And if you're with this tribe, it means this. And if you're with that tribe, it means this. But that's not what modern day politics means to me. Just because I'm a registered Republican does not mean that I resonate with every Republican value. And so for me, it was the value, it was the premise of the Republican Party that I aligned with, which was around businesses and small employees, fostering small business and creating an incubation for small business. It was around the mechanisms of opportunity, how you go about providing opportunity. It was around certain legislation. I studied healthcare. I understand the healthcare laws, I understand providing insurance for everybody. We studied that very copiously for a lot of years. And it was the way that they went about the solutions and the embracing of opportunity, the embracing of achievement, the reminding people that you can succeed, you can have the quality of life that you dream of, and everybody's quality of life does not look the same. And what frustrated me is I started to become a little bit more aware, and I'm not a spokesperson to get anybody here to join the Republican Party. Make your own decisions because you're your own individual. But my frustrations, it almost felt like the Democratic Party started telling me how I needed to be. There were so many caps and so many ceilings around certain programs that weren't as empowering anymore. It was if you stayed in this particular box and bubble and you had access to this. And if you stayed over here, you had access to that. And if you got over here, you stopped getting access and we didn't help you as much. And then we kind of placed the burden on you instead, and that dynamic started to shift. And so I think as my circumstances in life started to shift, my awareness level started to shift, but my values were always there. I've always had the same values. Those values never strayed away because integrity is important to me. But I think where most people get confused when it comes to my persona and my political, I guess you would say, affiliation, is that I am very much so aligned on certain social issues. And I don't even want to call them social issues, because to be honest, Tamara, I find that term to be very demeaning. Because certain things are not social issues. You talk about abortion and healthcare, those are not social issues. Those are essential issues that are an integral part of how you survive in this world because they're essential to your life. But as somebody who got pregnant at a very young age, faced sexual assault at a very young age, and actually got pregnant and had an abortion because of that traumatic experience. There are certain things that I'm aligned with and there are certain things that are I'm not aligned with because I speak from a place of experience. I don't speak from a place of what I think the universe should be doing. I speak because I live this. I lived domestic assault with my mother. We lived that life. I lived poverty. I lived not having health care. I didn't have health care until I turned, I want to say almost like 20. So when I first got access to healthcare before that, I was going to the hospital and everything that happened to me got placed on my bill. And so when I turned 18, my credit score was already a 480. I was already starting at a disadvantage. I paid for my college. I did that. I wasn't even able to take out loans. And when I got to the point that I did, I was able to take out loans, I couldn't even really get grants. So I had to take out loans. But the interest rate was so freaking high, and the institutions kept raising my tuition price that I couldn't even barely keep up. And so I had to have multiple jobs to try to alleviate the cost. And so I think for me, it does not make sense to have similar voices in the same room. My values are aligned with the Republican Party. I believe I belong in those rooms for the black community because those voices are not as prevalent on that side. So I believe I belong there for that reason because of my values and because the way I approach solutions, it's always going to be at promoting opportunity and allowing people to live the quality of life that they dream of because you are deserving of that. And that's the promise of the Constitution. That's why it's there. That's the purpose of it. And so that's the purpose that I'm living in.
SPEAKER_00Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
SPEAKER_01You better.
SPEAKER_00I like that. That that I I'm I hey, if I was living in District 4, that would resonate with me. It really would. It really would. I I um enjoy that perspective and I understand that perspective, and I and I I see it. Excellent.
SPEAKER_01And that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party doesn't have some good solution. I'm all for bipartisanship. There's nothing that boils my blood more than partisanship. When people say, Oh, I can't work with you because you're a Democrat, oh, I can't work with you because you're a Republican.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01There's nuance to everything. Everything is not black and white. And so I think, in order for us to have the solutions that are most reflective of America, it has to come from Democratic and Republican places because at the same time, that's reflective of our. Constituency. We're not a monolith.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. Yeah, no, I I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. One thing that I've learned about you, and this again, this is my first time meeting you, my first time talking to you, but you don't like to be put in boxes, whether that's in corporate America or I doubt or in your political affiliations. And so that's good. You're free I won't even say free spirited, but you know what matters to you, you know um your set of values, and you speak truth to that. You speak truth to those values, you speak truth and power to what is important to you. And I I can see why you won that race, I can see why voters resonated with you with that, and I love the fact that you said that um you wanted to be a voice in the room for the Republican Party, for you know, that black representation, that younger generation, women generation, if you will. Um, and I love that. And and to to be honest, I don't know if I've I've thought about it that in that way, in that light, but I'm fully persuaded. Yeah. I'm fully persuaded and I love that. Okay, so um you talked a little bit about um your term being up and what you've been able to accomplish, and obviously the first two years, again, you had the every local government, state government, federal government had to pivot and figure out how we handle and come out of this COVID crisis. Um, but are there other things um on your platform that you'd like to um focus on for the city of Bowie? And you said you were you were planning to run for office again for re-election. And so what is the focus for the next four years? What would you tell a voter um why they should um re-elect you as councilwoman for district four?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna be honest with you and tell you that I don't have the answer to that yet because I don't want to sit here and uh give soundbite clips of uh uh getting people riled up and trying to generate excitement and energy when I'm still reflecting on that myself. And I think when I do approach that time, it needs to be intentional and authentic. And I don't know that I have the answer yet. But I will tell you, there is one thing that has been on my heart for a really long time that I didn't do this term, I didn't get a chance to, but we did it in increments, like two things. We established a partnership with Rosetta Stone and we established a partnership with Coursera, and we gave residents the Rosetta Stone um uh partnership got held up in like negotiations, legal negotiations, in terms of the contract agreement. But we did establish the Coursera partnership and we gave residents access to licenses for one year. So if you wanted to get Coursera and learn a new skill, we gave you access to that for free, a platform that normally costs about five to six hundred dollars. And then we also were giving away Google scholarships. So if you wanted to get Google certified or Salesforce certified, we gave you a scholarship to do that, and at the end of the completion of that certification, they would pair you directly with the recruiter, and you'd have access to jobs starting out at $85,000. And so that was something that we did um this year that was along the lines of what it laid the groundwork for the things that have been pulling at my hard heartstrings. But I've always had this dream of well, I've not always had it, I've had it since I've been in office. I've had this dream of building a community slash innovation center and partnering with certain other companies to do it. Because what I have found to be true over my time in office and before I even got to office is people don't understand our culture, and people don't understand the essence of human ingenuity and how beautiful it is and how powerful it is. And when I was in New York this past weekend, because I went to go speak at the UN for um Women's History Month about women's gender equity, and I went to this exhibit called Hip Hop Conscious Unconscious, and it took me through the time of how hip hop was the pillar of the African-American community from when it first began, and the beauty and the essence and the amalgamation of like culture and history that came from that and the movements that it started, kind of like a zeitgeist, if you will. And when I was in there, I was like, yo, this has been on my heart to create this center that infuses culture, infuses learning, infuses innovation, products, and gives people a place to gather and have community. So let me bring that down and speak to you in layman's terms. What that means is having a co-working space for if you want to work remotely that day, you got this place to go to and work remotely. And it's it's it's of access to you because it's a community center. There's a cafe there, there's a coffee shop, there's a cafe by your local budding uh restaurateur, your budding chef that's that's trying to find a place to get started. There's a space there for him or her, or there's a there's a top-notch kitchen. If you're learning how to cook, go in there and rent time and rent space and practice your recipes. You're you're you're you're trying to apply for a food contest network show. Go in there and practice. Go in there, film. There's a state-of-the-art production center. Great. You want to work with hip hop, you want to become an artist? Why don't you learn how to become a sound engineer too? Why don't you learn how to do the take one, take two, whatever they call it, but I'm not as now. Okay, you want to learn robotics? There's an AI and robotics facility in there. Why don't you go learn that? Okay, but you're passionate about farming, green space, sustainability, climate-friendly. There's a state-of-the-art agricultural center. There's a green space in there. Why don't you go in there and learn about that and learn about how that triculates to society? I've always dreamed of having the center of all of those different components in there that bring community together because it has different aspects. You want to start a business, you're looking for grant funding, well, there's an incubation hub right in there. And it has direct ties to venture capital funding that our communities typically don't have access to, that you just now have access to in that center. I've always dreamed of having this in one place, but I don't know. I just don't know if the climate is ready for that. And that's been the kind of like pause for me in terms of going full throttle with that. Um, but I see the need for it. But my question starts to become does everybody really see the need for it? And so that's one of the bigger things that I want to do that can be done in a short, a relatively short time frame because we already have land for it. I mean, you have the old Ice Arena, you have the Ken Hill Center, we already have the land for it. Um it's just about knowing that there's an appetite for it and attracting the private sector dollars that it would need to be able to bring it to fruition. And that would also take certain capital improvement costs off of the city, to be quite honest with you, and put it back in the budget so that we also don't have to raise taxes.
SPEAKER_00That's great. That's great. I love that. I love that idea. So, Bowie, um, this podcast um can be accessed nationwide. So a lot of people may not know about Prince George's County and Bowie, like what we do, but Prince George's County is a county in southern um Maryland, right outside of the District of Columbia. We're considered part of the quote unquote DMV district of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. And Bowie is the largest municipality within Prince George's County. It has its own mayor, it has its own council, um, has its own police force, all of the all of those uh good things. Tell our listeners um about Bowie as a as a place to live and why um they should um move to Bowie, move to District 4 in particular. You talked about some new development that's that's coming along. Um but um I know personally that it's a very progressive um um municipality and very powerful municipality actually in our county. Like I said, it's the largest municipality. Um but tell our listeners, those who of you in um listening for the first time or um don't quite know anything about the city of Bowie, uh just a little bit about that, and then we'll we'll we'll close on um how we can encourage millennials, Gen Zs to get more involved, to move beyond the ballot box and move to action and maybe some of the action things that you'd like to see residents in the city of Bowie, Prince Georgia's County, or nationwide really get involved in. I know that was a a mouthful, but we'll I can we can go back to the last part. But let's let's talk a little bit about the city of Bowie.
SPEAKER_01And getting so excited because Bowie is amazing, it's a wonderful place. And I've been here since 1999, so I'm biased. Well, what I will say is Bowie is the largest municipality in Prince George's County, and we also have the largest budget in Prince George's County at $77.4 million. So we are a pretty powerful municipality, and we're also just just pretty large. Like we're very sophisticated, very established, and very robust in terms of how we approach things. But it's interesting that you asked this question because we just did a branding exercise and a branding study where we got a branding firm to come out and just do that research to really tell us in our constituents' words what makes Bowie so energetic and energizing. The way that I would describe Bowie, I would describe it as a vibrant community that's very engaged, filled with very passionate, successful, and um people with a certain level of bravado and gravitas. Honestly, like I that's just the way that I would describe buoy residents, to be honest with you, um, especially those in District 4. We are known for having residents that are very actively engaged, that are very concerned about their community, that want an active voice and an active seat at the table. We are also known for our amenities. We have a number of amenities. We've got a golf course, we've got various tennis courses, we've got the buoy based sock stadium, we've got the Buoy Town Center, we've got South Lake Development that's getting ready to come online. We had a movie theater for a really long time that's getting ready to close down and become something else. So Bowie has for a long time been known for its amenities and its services. We have trash pickup do that two times a week. We have all these different services and amenities that um many other municipalities may not have access to and don't provide. We've got a gymnasium, we've got a senior center, um, we've got a hospital um called a stack here. So we've just got so much. Um, and it's continuing to grow and it's continuing to expand. Uh, hopefully we'll get a new school here soon in the next coming um months or years. So there's just a number of different things that make Bowie such a beautiful place between its services, between the amenities, between the way that we govern, the way that our residents are so actively engaged, and the level of sophistication, whether that's historical preservation or that's new, embudding um people to the workforce. It's just been known to be dynamic. Where we, I would say we kind of lack, and I'm not gonna try to sit here and hide from you, is we don't have a huge, large young population that is actively investing in Buoy. As in what I mean is that they are starting their lives and their careers and their families and they're moving to Bowie. I don't necessarily know that I see that trend as much. We do have Bowie State University, so that also makes it unique that we have a university here. Um, the longest and the oldest historically black college and university is Bowie State University, and we have that here. And so we have a number of different things, but I think over the next couple of years, what you'll see is we'll start to shift our posture to keep up with the times so that we can attract millennials and Gen Zers to want to come and invest in this community as well and want to move to this community. Because what's beautiful about Bowie is that you're about 30 minutes from everything. You're 30 minutes from Virginia, you're 30 minutes from DC, and you're 30 minutes from Baltimore. So we serve as kind of this central hub as somebody, as somebody who wants to tap into all of these neighborhoods. Like I'm always at Fed Hill down there in Baltimore at Inner Harbor, or you have Virginia, Arlington, Old Town, um, Old Town Virginia, or you have DC, you have Union Station, Union Market, all those little areas. And so for somebody who likes that being a little bit of all of it, it's a great central location for you to take advantage of. They still have a certain level of amenities that will keep you engaged and keep you sustained. But we will, I do think that it is our posture and it is our intent to continue to elevate those amenities and make sure that we have things like live music, beer gardens, um, different outdoor dining options, different high-class, high-tier stores, because that's the feedback that we get most of the time is we want to see higher amenities and things like that. So we are shifting our posture to align with what it is that we believe our constituency wants.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's good. I I live in the southern part of the county, so Clinton, Maryland, not too far from National Harbor. But I do like to to come to Buoy, uh PJ's uh coffee shop, black-owned. Yes! I go there to be a beignet! Yes. And um tomorrow I host my book club and we're going to Black Cow, another black-owned uh restaurant. And yes. For brunch. And we're gonna be reading. I selected the other Westmore in honor of our new black governor, Westmore. Um, so yeah, I know um Bowie to be a bit like I I describe it as a little bit more progressive. You have it's it's it's an interesting amalgamation of a county, of a municipality, in that, like you said, there's this historic area of Buoy, but then there's this very progressive area. And I do see more millennials and Gen Zers moving in, young families, African-American families up and coming. I do see them.
SPEAKER_01Um just for anyone watching who's interested, South Lake does have houses coming online. They are starting in, you know, I want to say the low fours all the way up to the high eights. So wherever you are on that spectrum, we've got something for you.
SPEAKER_00Got something for you. Okay, all right. Well, you heard it here from Councilmember Councilmember and Councilwoman Roxy. One last question I forgot to ask. You are considered mayor pro tem. I am. So tell us uh what those responsibilities are as mayor pro tem, and um, and then then we'll kind of close on um being more active and involved and not just being a citizen who said, I voted and okay, I've done my civic duty. How what else can they get involved in? So, mayor pro tem, what's what's the mayor pro tem?
SPEAKER_01So the best way to describe mayor pro tem is when you look at the president of the United States and the vice president, it's a similar dynamic.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01So essentially, mayor pro tem is vice mayor. And so essentially what happens is that you end up representing the mayor whenever the mayor is unavailable, absent, or God forbid something happens to the mayor, you essentially become mayor. So it's essentially that um representation of the mayor when the mayor is unavailable, similar to the vice president concept. It's pretty much the same. And I would definitely say the responsibilities to me are more attributed to leadership at this time and making sure that things stay on the right track and things are getting done and they're moving forward. I think because we have um a lot of council members, there are seven of us in total, you're talking about stakeholder management. Now you're talking about collaboration across the board and making sure that people are aligned and on the same same page. So it's a lot of inner working behind the scenes and making sure that people are moving forward. You're corralling the troops and making sure that everybody stays on target and that everything is that things that need to be top of mind are top of mind, and that one, I would say people are being seen and heard and um feel like they're included and they're not left out of the conversation and solutions are being presented, and that we're working together. So it's a lot of that behind the scenes, uh, and a lot of just really representation and making sure that the mayor is able to multiply because I do love our mayor and I think he's doing a phenomenal job. And so being able to um represent him and continue to make sure that buoy remains top of mind and is a part of the conversation and that our values are seen and heard, and that the things that we desire continue to be put at the forefront, even though many people tend to look at us like, you're a municipality that's bougie. You guys don't need anything. Like, no, we do, we do, because if we adopt that mentality, then we will become one of those municipalities that does need a lot. So, and we don't want that. We want to make sure that we're moving ahead of the curve and we're being innovative. So that's pretty much the most part of it behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. I love your mayor too. Actually, I campaigned for him for mayor uh Tim Adams, um first African-American uh mayor of the city of Bowie as well. And so um very good, excellent. So we're gonna end the show with um you talking about what you would encourage someone your age um or younger to do and why it's important to not just vote and you know and say, hey, I've done my civic duty, but should actually get actively involved in their community. Um maybe they don't have to, you know, rise to the level of running for elected office, but certainly um what would you say to your generation and younger generation about being more active and involved in in the community?
SPEAKER_01I think there are a number of ways to do that. But I think it starts with figuring out what area you want to make the most impact. Because community involvement looks like you being a community activist and making sure that you are representing issues that matter to you to those who are elected. Sometimes that looks like helping those who you want to be elected get elected. Sometimes that looks like running for office your actual self. Sometimes that looks like joining, excuse me, a city commission or a city board or state commission or a county commission and being able to lend your expertise and your advice and the perspective that you bring to the table to make sure that issues that are pertaining to Gen Z and millennials stay at the forefront. Um sometimes that looks like just getting engaged with think tank groups. Like I am a member and I have been for a very long time of the Brookings Institution and the Robert S. Brookings Society for Millennials and Gen Zers. So sometimes it looks like getting engaged in things like that. If you're a woman, sometimes it looks like getting engaged in organizations like the Policy Circle. The Policy Circle is a nonpartisan organization for women who are looking to get engaged and informed about being more active in the community. And they have certain learnings, briefings, I mean, it's an amazing organization. So I think it starts with understanding what area do you want to impact and what area do you want to get engaged. And once you decide that, whether that's running for office, there are a number of different organizations on both sides, on the Republican side and the Democratic side, that are willing to jump in and support you. They're nonpartisan organizations as well. Um, but if that looks like more on the community side, there are a number of different think tanks, there are a number of different city boards and committees and commissions that you can join that are in this, that are in the city. Um there are a number of different ways. Um we have a lot of um committees like Economic Development Committee, and I actually might just start a Gen Z Millennial Community to focus on Gen Z millennial issues, actually, now that you gave me the thought. Um, and then sometimes if that looks like being an activist, it just means that you join other kind of uh how do you call them, uh, community engagement like organizations that help get people elected and volunteer behind the scenes. So there are a number of different things that you can do. Um, what I do want to say is for those who are interested in learning, if you are millennial and Gen Z, I am always open to taking anybody with me to anything that I go to. So if I'm asked to speak at any type of occasion, whether that's a conference or I have access to a conference that is paid that you might not want to pay for, um I'm always open to bringing people with me. If I have to do something for TV, I'm always open to letting you see the behind the scenes because I know that that access was not there for me. So I'm all about giving it to others. And so if you ever have anything that I'm involved in that you're curious about or that you're like, oh, I want to learn more, or I want to go to a Brookings event, or I want to do something with Aspen Institute and see what they're doing there so I could determine what engagement looks like for me. You're always welcome to reach out to me on Instagram because I still am a true millennial on Instagram. Maybe not email. Instagram is best, and then Facebook, and then maybe email.
SPEAKER_00Excellent, excellent. Well, I so appreciate you just spending your time with me today to tell us a little bit more about you, about your um community in Bowie, District 4, some of the aspirations, what got you here, and I hope that it inspires our listeners and particularly our millennials and GNZ to get up and and do more and be more active in their community. I loved your story and loved learning and hearing about you again for the first time. I have to thank our daughter, uh Jessica Brown, who's my executive producer all the way out on the West Coast, for um finding you and saying, hey, this looks like an interesting person that you should interview and get more involved. And we so appreciate your time and effort, and I do plan to keep keep in contact with you and continue to follow you on Instagram and uh see what's what's what's the latest and greatest and what's going on. I wish you much success um in your capacity, not only as an elected official and your your bid for re-election, but also in your business and what you're planning to do in that space as well. So thank you so much for joining us with All Politics is local with me, your host, Hammer Davis Brown, and we look forward to having our listeners uh come in again. Please continue to subscribe and like and download and share this podcast wherever you get it, where it's it's Spotify, Google, Apple Podcasts, we're on all the platforms. Um, continue to follow follow us on wherever you uh download and listen to your podcast. So thanks for joining us today. And remember, let's move from the ballot box to action, and all politics is local. Thank you.
