Will the County Executive take the axe to your property tax? On this week's Open Agenda (S2 E12) learn about the Executive's intention to bust the revenue cap and how it will cost you more money. In addition, we discuss the possible outcomes of the Board of Appeals hearing regarding the bio-refinery operation and the impacts to neighboring communities. You'll also learn about the challenges that the Lower Shore Young Republicans are facing at SU, and their fight for the right of self defense on campus. Tune in and be informed.
Open Agenda TV : S2 E12 Editor of The Bury Post Colin McEvers
Show Transcript
Disclaimer: The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain spelling or contextual errors.
You're watching Open Agenda. Here's our
host, Joe White. Welcome to Open Agenda.
I'm your host, Joe White. In this
episode, we're going to talk about the
last county council meeting in March and
and also talk to you a little bit about
how we we're coming up on the budget
season and just some of the questions
you may want to ask of your local
officials before they actually pass on
to you some uh some nice presents uh
with with tax increases. So with me in
the studio to discuss that is Dr. Joe
Vanosa from Salsbury, Mr. Mike Goldberg
from Delmare. Thank you gentlemen for
being here. Always a pleasure. So uh at
the at the county council meeting uh
they they they were they were able to
approve a director of public works. Uh
it's the first time in six years that
we've had a director of public works. Um
we have had a acting deputy director but
that was uh considered an illegal
appointment. So just a little just a
little. It's definitely been a lot of
acting.
So, uh, you know, it was it was neat
because there was a a great debate, uh,
about, uh, where the salary should be
and we even, uh, you know, Councilman
James Wen talked a little bit about some
stuff that happened in close session. It
was it was it was kind of nice to to see
that transparency roll right out in
front of the public venue. But at the
end of the day, uh, county executive has
often said that she does not have a
county council that works with her. M
but they did I mean they they did they
they they did what was in the best
interest of the community. Right. Almost
I think like 30 of her nominees have
been approved by the county council.
There's only been a small handful with
three or four that the council had an
issue with and they had good cause to
have those issues. Well, and and then
you know, Laura Hurley, the the
administrator for the county council,
she has to make a public statement
because uh the county executive did not
either veto or approve the kennel
legislation that the county council
look, there was a lot of push back. Uh
county council made some mistakes, but
they they amended the the legislation.
They they passed it and they passed it
unanimously
and she elected to let it go for 21 days
without a veto or an approval and in in
her words cited some concerns about the
the procedure. The amended version of
legislative bill
202501 concerning commercial dog kennels
was was presented to the county
executive on February the 19th, 2025.
Under the charter, the county executive
had 21 days to either approve or veto
the amended bill. On March the 3, the
county council received a letter from
the county executive stating that she
would not sign the amended bill due to a
difference in interpretation regarding
the procedural reconsideration of the
bill. In accordance with charter section
411, the county executive, if the county
executive fails to return the bill
within the prescribed 21-day period, the
council administrator must document this
failure in the official record and then
the bill shall become law. This serves
as official notice to the council and to
the public that the 21-day period has
passed and the county executive has
neither signed nor vetoed the amended
bill. But did we get to the right
legislation with this, do you think? I I
think considering what the initial
concerns were, I think it ended as well
as it could have. I mean, in terms of
what people were worried about initially
and what the council did, I think when
we got to a point that that two of at
least two of the kennels went and hired
lawyers to to to represent them, spend
the money, this is not this seems
reckless. And then you get to a point
that you could sign it or hey if you
need to veto it um to do nothing I don't
think is leadership. Well, but again
that's not the point. The whole point
was to rile up people before for social
media clicks as she intends to run for
reelection. So she in my opinion doesn't
give a darn about those people that now
have spent money as kennel owners who
were in my opinion manipulated. Well,
you know Joe, you bring up a good point.
So, it's officially election season now
for our county executive. She posted on
social media. I do plan to rerun, so we
will see if in another four. Um, it's a
year and a half away, but it's election
season. Well, I think it was election
season when she did the uh budget. It
wasn't a budget hearing. It was a board
of education budget hearing. Uh, this
wasn't a budget meeting. This was a town
hall for the board of education. That
was all that was talked about. Maybe
sometime we'll have
a proposed operating budget meeting
where we can see what the proposals are
other than just a public hearing a
couple weeks ago and we've covered this.
Uh I mean that was a very more of a
campaign absolutely. Yeah, it was it was
like a time share, you know, sales
pitch. What I thought was interesting is
the Namarva Conservative Movement, you
know, was supposed to be the most
conservative group in our community. Uh
they they got the same pitch at their
meeting uh in March. But one of our
biggest challenges that we have in this
county, which is a good thing for
taxpayers, but a challenge when you're
trying to piece meal a budget together,
is our revenue cap. And I'm going to
talk a little bit about that. It's a
good thing because, like I said, it's
more money in your pockets. What I would
like to propose potentially, if I even
need to, and I'm going to talk about
that in a second because I got new
information, um, is instead of going
from 84 cents to 80 cents is maybe going
from 84 cents to 83 cents. You'd still
see a deduction, but we would have a
little bit of extra money to be able to
give to the board of education. I can
only break that revenue cap for
education. I am against breaking the
revenue cap. We all know f the federal
government's making cuts trying to save
money. The state of Maryland is millions
and millions of dollars in the hole. All
of those are going to end up getting put
on the counties. You know, we're talking
about now having to take on the teachers
pension system. I'm not for breaking
this revenue cap because it's just going
to increase our citizens taxes and stop
looking for ways to spend more money and
save some money for this county. Uh
there's a lot of talk about breaking the
revenue cap. Um I am absolutely not
convinced that that's going to be the
answer to the problem.
Um, I do know that throwing money at a
problem doesn't necessarily make it go
away. I was somewhat surprised because
it seemed like the focus of the budget
was nothing more than how are we going
to bust the revenue cap. You know,
there's there were other pages that were
attributed to other um other incomes and
other expenses. But for the most part,
uh, the subject matter ended up being
nothing more than four options. And
those four options were simply about
ways in order to bust the revenue cap in
order to pay for education. The four
options, what that left out, which was I
think uh somewhat disingenuous and a
disservice to the public, was that it
didn't tell you that there was also
another $70 million that we get from
income tax receipts and
recordations. So why wasn't that option
number five? The revenue cap is here for
two purposes and I have no intentions
whatsoever of busting the revenue cap.
The two intentions of the revenue cap,
the first one is to make sure that Wcomo
County spends within its means. What's
more important to me is that it's
important to have a revenue cap in place
so that we do not allow your taxes to go
to such an extreme that it makes it
almost unaffordable and unsustainable
for families to exist. What that means
is that with a revenue cap when
assessments go through the roof,
fortunately in Wcomo County, the revenue
tax is the assessments have gone up so
high, but the revenue cap forces us to
lower the tax rate. Other words, the tax
rate I believe is now 84 cents. Uh I
think it's projected to go down to 80.
If we were to go along with these four
options, it would probably stay at 84 or
it may be what was presented last year.
And I'm uh this is paraphrasing to a
certain extent. Last year, let's say it
was 90 and it could have gone down
through the revenue cap uh would have
forced it down to let's say
96, but the executive put it down to 98
and sent out a press release saying I've
lowered your taxes. But what was and
this is this is the this is exactly what
happened. But what wasn't told and what
we issued as a as a second our own press
release was that the executive did not
lower your property taxes to the extent
allowed by law. So you were short
sheeted about 2 cents until this council
went to great efforts to make the cuts
necessary to restore the revenue cap,
giving everybody the full benefit of a
full tax break and at the same time
still full funding county. Uh, so this
pitch I I mean, look, our county
executive is not only advocating for
breaking the revenue cap on a one-time
basis to fund education, she is actively
stating now that she feels that we
should look at getting rid of it. Well,
to be fair, her campaign contributors
want that. Well, I mean, so
conservativism
and campaign contributors want to raise
taxes, Mike. there. She's not a
conservative. I mean, conservatives are
fiscally conservative, but don't throw
it on my side because I don't think
she's a liberal or progressive either.
So, I don't I don't know. I don't know
where we're going to put it. I don't
blame you for not claiming her on that
either. You know, of course not. It's
like the NBA draft. But, you know, the
Delmare conservative movement, you its
name does not really represent, you
know, what their political philosophy
is. and Gerardano. But Mike, their their
address was the same as a Republican
headquarters downtown. Well, as a
conservative Republican, I take a look
at what's going on locally here in
Wcomako County with the so-called
conservatives, and I simply don't see
them as being at all conservative. I am
very worried
that anytime that we give our government
the ability to break into new revenue
streams without a check in a balance, it
is hard. That's not a conservative
concern necessarily either. Okay? Like,
you know, I don't think getting more
revenue or raising it or raising taxes
is inherently a conservative liberal
thing. Again, I I think there's, you
know, there's some philosophy, you know,
to it, but I don't think what's going on
with this particular executive and these
issues. It it doesn't fall into that as
far as I'm concerned. The only way you
can control how much government spends
is how much you give it. Right. Yeah.
So, I don't I don't want the government
in every aspect of my life. Do I want to
see the public education to be funded at
a level that meets the criteria
uh to to educate our young people
absolutely perpetually. They're
perfectly okay with raising taxes,
breaking the revenue cap. And the local
Republicans also seem to advocate
concentration of power in an executive
rather than a distribution of power of
power amongst a diverse council. And I
think as a Republican, nothing as an
American, nothing scares me more than
concentrated power because then not only
do they control you from a social
aspect, uh, but they certainly control
how much money they take from you and
where it's spent. And it's interesting
to kind of dovetail with that is, you
know, the concerns that I have um are
also sort of how that group's social
agenda is now going to be increasingly
pushed into schools because they have a
particular social vision of how they
want people to sort of both teach and
and learn. And we could debate the
philosophy of that, but in the end
they're very sort of clear that that and
and Julie said it several times. She's
going to run on a slate. Mhm. On the
next election. So, this isn't just
about a group or even just the the the
county council. Yeah. The the future
one, not not the current one. Sure. And
also even the makeup of the board of
education because we see some DCM
members who are a member of the of the
board of education. The the biggest
problem in Maryland is that there's only
one party that's really in control
statewide and that's the Democrats. But
the problem that we could have here in
Wakcomo County is that everything is
going to be run by Republicans. And
that's equally as dangerous. There there
has to be an opposition party to keep
the party in power honest. We are not
going to have that if uh if uh the
county executive runs with a slate,
right? And again, part of the sort of
the American problem is we have a
two-party system where you don't have
coalition building because the system
doesn't unfortunately I think we'd all
be perfect for that, but that's part of
the problem. And so in a situation like
with the budget or with the schools, you
really are kind of forced sort of to be
if you're going to take a political
angle to be in one camp or the other.
One thing I know about government, it's
rarely right or wrong. It's usually
somewhere in the middle that it's either
more right than wrong or more more wrong
than right. But the problem but but the
problem is as one US senator put it once
is that the problem if you take the
middle of the road is that that's where
you get hit. So you know you talk about
concentration of power. You know the
we're not going to be able to cover it
on this show but the the board of
appeals for Wakcomo County's meeting
tonight to discuss the bio-refinery on
Atkins Road. We we had Joe Diggs and
Ronda Tomco in uh a couple weeks ago. Uh
we're seeing some signs that there is,
you know, we have board members who
don't who who aren't invited to the
meeting. We also have uh you know, the
the the thought that no one else has
really weighed in publicly. We have not
heard from the county executive how she
feels. Um, and I know they want to let
the process play out, but at the same
time, a lot a lot could happen at that
meeting. That happens to be this
evening. It's Thursday, March 27th,
6:00. Um, I mean, what do you think,
Mike? You you're going to go and cover
the the We'll be covering it. And
unfortunately, nobody's going to see it
until, you know, the show or coverage of
it until after it's already occurred. Um
but uh we're certainly going to be um
talking to uh to the affected
neighborhoods. Uh one thing I can say at
least on the surface it appears that
they are getting due process. This has
gone through planning and zoning. Now
it's going to the board of appeals. Uh I
strongly suspect that it will wind up
ultimately in the circuit court if the
uh u if um the operator of international
bio-refineries is uh is rejected
tonight. So, I think this is going to
take some months or longer to to play
out. I mean, because let's just say that
this does get rejected at the board of
appeals. There's definitely going to be
a lawsuit. And if if it does get
approved by the board of appeals
somehow, there's going to be a lawsuit.
The lawyers will win. Don't worry. And
don't don't they always, right? So, um
so you're going to go and cover it and
and we're going to we're going to get a
chance to to speak to some of the
players there. Um, you know, I'm also
interested to, you know, you brought up
planning and zoning. There's a lot of
folks who think they're going to speak
to planning and zoning tonight, and
those are two different entities. We're
actually going to bring Mike Langford in
later on this episode to talk about city
council and and and the planning and
zoning there. Right now, Wakcomo County
shares planning and zoning with the
Salsbury city. uh they're going to split
those and some concerns that come up in
the city, but board of appeals is really
where where you go to get variance on a
use of a piece of property. You you
can't get exceptions on on things like
density without a text amendment at
planning and zoning. But but board of
appeals can give someone special
permission to use a piece of property
outside of the limits that it is
actually zoned for, but not outside the
limits that the zone exists somewhere.
Is that pretty accurate? Yes. I mean,
this is a a quasi judicial procedure,
but it's not the end of the road. So if
either way however whatever decision is
made uh there will be opportunities to
appeal to the actual courts to the
circuit court I believe and I think we
can reasonably expect that's exactly
what's going to happen. I think one of
the other cool things in the show today
we're going to bring uh Colin Mcvers and
and a young Republican somebody that I
think Mike and I suppose to old
Republicans like me or or middle-aged
ones like me.
Uh yeah, we we'll go young
middle. No, I think it'd be nice to
bring him in because, you know, as much
as as Joe said earlier, you know, there
there's that social philosophy, but we
really need to hear what what do young
folks in the community, this one happens
to be a conservative, uh what do they
feel like they need to succeed when
they're supposed to be in a position to
take care of us as we're nearing
retirement. So, uh I'm interested to
bring him in. I'm looking forward to it.
Um, he's done a nice job uh whether you
agree with him or not, at least making
his point about the pepper spray ban on
on the campus of SU. Again, I'm not here
to to debate the merits of his argument,
but anytime someone takes the time to to
to use themselves as an experiment to to
to prove their point, that's somebody
who's got enough passion to to take them
across the finish line. Absolutely. All
right. Well, stay with us. When we come
back, we're gonna have Colin McEvers on
the show with us and we're going to see
what some of the young folks in the
community are thinking. So stay with us.
We'll be right
back. Welcome back to Open Agenda. I'm
your host Joe White. We wanted to bring
in some of the younger members of our
community and also talk a little bit
about just how Salsbury University and
their population are maybe impacted by
some of our local politics and how they
feel about the the state of uh politics
right now. So in the in the studio with
with us is Colin Mcvers from SU and Mr.
Mike Goldberg from Delmare. Thank you
gentlemen for being here. I'm one of the
old Republicans. Well, we were going to
get to that later when we do the
timeline. It'll be dinosaurs, you, me,
and then Colin. I remember them well. Oh
my god, it's a good order. Pretty funny.
So, Colin, you're you're the editor uh
of the Bur Post. Yeah. So, uh so I
started the Bur Post back uh back last
year in May. May May of last year was
founded. So, it's not even a year old
yet, but essentially I was in the old
school newspaper, the flyer, which is
the official one that's paid by the
school student activities fee. Um, it
comes out of the pockets of students on
campus, so they get paid for our work,
and I was one of the editors that was
getting paid. And I just didn't like the
fact that they weren't doing a lot. It
was spring of 2024. There were only like
10 articles written. And the fact that
people were getting paid for that, like,
you know, stipens of a thousand or more,
like 2,000, $3,000, was just not right
to me. So, I wanted to cover more things
that were going on around campus. I
wanted to, you know, make it so that we
had a source where people could, you
know, exercise their right to freedom of
speech, freedom of press more
effectively. Because with the flyer,
there were a lot of instances where
articles that were um not in accordance
with the political opinions of the
editor-in chief were just denied. Okay.
And they weren't published. So the
censorship. Censorship. Exactly. So you
an independent p uh newspaper. We are an
independent newspaper. We're not funded
by anyone currently. We have brought
back print uh newspaper back to Salsbury
University. Um they discontinued it back
like two years ago because they said
that people weren't using it. But people
like to like flip their news and it's
also a really good way of getting the
word out that we actually have student
media and student press on campus. So,
we actually just came out with our
second issue um a couple days ago. Um
how else could people find you if they
can't find the print version? I mean,
are you on social media? Yeah, we are.
We are. We have a we have an Instagram
page called the
Burwost.su. Um we also have a website
where we post all of our articles. um
things that happen on campus, whether it
be, you know, back uh last year it was
or last semester it was the um the
hazing incident that happened or um well
not necessarily hazing, it was the uh it
was the major thing that blew up on
campus about the frat beating and all of
that. That was a major thing. The the
assault the assault. Exactly. Um so that
was a big thing we covered. We cover a
lot of different things. We have a new
website called the burypost.com. So the
burypost.com is is a is a website
someone could go to if they're not into
social media. Exactly. Okay. And you
know you're you're you've also been very
politically active in the community. Uh
what what position explain a little bit
about what is Lower Shore Young
Republicans and what your position there
is. For sure. For sure. So, I joined the
Lower Shore Young Republicans and, you
know, local Republican politics back in
uh September um late August and I was
doing some campaigning for Larry Hogan,
for local candidates for Andy Harris,
things like that. And so that kind of
gotten me into the sphere of, you know,
local Republican politics. And I've
always been conservative and
right-leaning ever since I was a kid.
Okay. Um so, uh so I was involved with
the Lower Shore Young Republicans. I
eventually became u vice chair of the of
the chapter because there weren't too
many people involved and then in January
there were elections and so I ran for
chair chairman of the lower shore of
young Republicans and I was able to win
luckily so I was really happy about that
and now we've been expanding we've been
growing our main purpose is basically
recruiting young Republicans on the
lower eastern shore getting them
involved in local politics sending them
out to campaign to door knockock for
people to actually do stuff in the
community. actually make a legitimate
impact rather than just sitting around
and complaining about, you know,
whatever it might be, political issues,
Democrats, actually go out into the
community. It is much harder to go out
and be a part of it than it is just to
complain about it. Exactly. Exactly.
It's so much easier just to complain.
So, Mike and I are both conservative
Republicans and uh you know, obviously
different age groups. What What is it
about your age demographic that people
out there should know about? What does
it mean to be young conservative and
Republican? What what does that mean to
you? I would say what it means is to,
you know, to me at least and to a lot of
people, it's just taking on individual
responsibility, personal responsibility
for our actions, for our work, having a
strong work ethic, uh not feeling
dependent upon the government, uh not
feeling dependent upon other people for
um what we're doing. It's just uh it's
it's going out into into the world. Um
making a life for ourselves, trying to
you know build a life for ourselves as
as as young Americans. Um you know, I
think that's one of the most important
things. It's also another major thing is
just uh is is freedom of speech for
sure. Just making sure that we have the
right to talk about whatever we want to
talk about. um to express our opinions
without being censored, without being
called terrible things, without being
called names, um without censorship. Um
just I think that's really important. It
it's well known that most public
universities are bastions of liberalism.
Oh yeah. How do you feel that your your
group Young Republicans fits in? Do you
get the hairy eyeball a lot? Or are you
able to convince students who may be
politically neutral that conservatism
and conservative policies is in their
best interest? Oh, yeah. That's really
difficult. I mean, it's so hard to get
people to actually go out on the campus
and say that they're Republican to
actually advocate for Republican
initiatives. You have to hide. It's it's
Yeah, exactly. A lot of people hide. Um,
I decided when I joined the College
Republicans, which is different from the
lower shore. So, I'm the chairman of the
Lower Shore. I'm the treasurer for the
college Republicans at SU. But I decided
it'd be good to go out and table and
promote the initiatives on campus to
actually talk to students, try to
recruit them to, you know, articulate a
message um that, you know, we have a
space in the Republican party for these
young people. We don't want them to just
be liberal and leftist and join the
Democrats. You feel like you're making
headway. I I think we are. I think we
are, but it's just so difficult because
um you just get a lot of hate. You get a
lot of criticism. People will make
things up about you. They'll call you
terrible things. They'll go on anonymous
sources. They'll say, "This guy is an
awful person. He's terrible. He does
this. He does that." Um, they'll just
make up a lot of terrible things. The
use of social media in that realm is got
to be really challenging to overcome
whatever vitil somebody wants to spew
out about what they think you are, what
you stand for. Is that is that something
you encounter? Oh, yeah. It's really
challenging. But uh but what we need to
do as young Republicans, as young
conservatives, is just make sure that
we're responding to those things and
we're saying um if some if if a lie is
spread about us, if uh we're we're
trying to advocate for an issue and they
call us out, they call us, you know,
awful, they call us terrible, we just
need to respond back and say, um no,
this is uh this is important. This is
important to stand up for. We're
fighters. We want to get out there. We
want to promote this message. Um, we
want to, you know, advocate for
self-defense on campus. Right now,
there's a pepper spray van, for
instance. And a lot of people really
care about that because it's a
crimeridden place. I mean, campus crimes
are really high. Salsbury Salsbury in
the area has a really high crime rate.
So, um, well, let's talk about that
because I mean, you you used yourself as
a as a test subject. I mean, on social
media. I don't I don't I don't I don't
think that young lady on there attacked
you out of raw daylight, right?
No, no, it was uh it was definitely
staged. I was not just uh I'm glad you
weren't hurt. I'm I'm glad to hurt.
Trust me, it was really painful, but uh
but it was all staged. It was all
planned. Um I figured like it's good to
promote an issue that's as important as
a pepper spray ban because that should
definitely not be on campus. People
should be able to carry pepper spray and
other self-defense items without the
fear of punishment. Um but uh but just
getting on there and saying that and
promoting it might not be as effective
as pulling like a stunt where a lot of
people find it funny. They'll reshare
it. They'll they'll post about it.
They'll talk about it. So yes, I did
decide to get pepper-sprayed. I I asked
my friend Sage to um you know spray me a
couple times and it really hurt. It
incapacitated me for like an hour. So if
if you were in a situation where your
your your life was in danger, you were
in danger of being assaulted, you would
have had time to get away from the
asalent. Oh yeah, definitely. For sure.
Because you pepper spray them once, they
can't open their eyes. They're going to
be they're not going to be worried about
attacking you. They're going to be, you
know, in a in a ball on the floor like
trying to like, you know, get that
pepper spray out of their eyes cuz it's
really painful and it's really
effective. For someone like me that's
really big. Yeah. It'll put them down
immediately. You talked about something
earlier. You talk about personal
responsibility. So the person using the
pet pepper spray does have a personal
responsibility for the the deciding to
use that. I mean they there there you're
not you're not advocating for people to
be able to randomly pepper spray their
their friends as a prank. Of course. Of
course you're you're saying, "Hey,
listen. This is a this is a method of
last resort." Exactly. And yes, there
are consequences, but there would also
be consequences if you weren't able to
defend yourself. Right. Exactly. So what
what do you you know and you and you
brought up about the the crime area in
Salsbury. Salsbury not every area is
even and even SU's campus kind of
straddles what what could be seen as one
of the nicest neighborhoods in in the
area and also one of the more dangerous
ones. You're right. How are we picking
and choosing like which which college
students could defend themselves on
their way home from a night of classes?
You're right. Currently, um the current
policy just uh it it prohibits all
students from being able to carry pepper
spray unless they have like a written
slip of permission from the chief of
police, which is really unfeasible.
People aren't going to go out of their
way to get that and it's really
difficult to do so. So, my idea and what
a lot of people think is that people
should just be able to carry it on them
to use at their discretion. Obviously,
they're going to be consequences if they
use it inappropriately.
um if they break the law, if they spray
someone for no reason, then yeah, they
need to be punished. But adding a
self-defense exception to the current
policy and saying students can use it
for self-defense reasons because it is a
legitimate concern. Um some areas around
Salsbury University, um some parts of
Salsbury are nice. Um they're nice
places, but then you have really really
bad parts of Salsbury that are around
here, too. And people, it's a party
school. People are going to parties back
and forth. So, they need that on campus,
off campus. It shouldn't be prevented.
Serious crime can happen anywhere in the
best of neighborhoods as well as the
worst of neighborhood. Didn't we just
have an instance this past February of
someone being assaulted in the parking
garage off of uh um was it Wayne Avenue?
Beman Avenue? Oh, yeah, definitely. Um
so, last year, like February 11th, I
think it was, it was late at night and a
girl was some some homeless guy tried to
kidnap her. um she was able to get away.
She wasn't harmed, but I mean she he
tried to kidnap her. Um he tried to
force himself upon her and you know
these things happen. Uh there there
there's a large homeless population
around Salsbury and and like you said um
it doesn't matter even if there are nice
places even if there are nice parts of
campus of Salsbury as a as a city um bad
things can happen regardless. So just
people just need to be able to defend
themselves and there are fundamentally
there are um statistics out there about
sexual assault. The majority of those
are committed by someone you know. Mhm.
So this could even be a a young lady in
her dorm with a someone over and you
know things are are not going the way
they should. This may be her last resort
to to defend herself and she lives on
campus. I mean she may be trapped in her
own room. Exactly. Exactly. It's not
even just like walking around outside or
off campus and some of these scary
parts. It could even be like a friend or
someone that the person knows and they
want to, you know, just defend
themselves. Um, you know, most of the
time it'll be someone that's like an
asalent that's trying to that's mostly
where like pepper spray is used, like
someone comes up, tries to attack you,
tries to kidnap you, like what happened
in February in 2024. And being able to
carry pepper spray and use it to just
put that person down as soon as possible
is is really important. Long enough for
you to get away. Exactly. Long enough
for you to get away. And and as a as a
pepper spray victim myself, it it gets
better. Like it's like an hour and a
half. It kind of sucks when you get in
the shower and it's like collecting your
hair. It runs down. It sucks. It's
terrible to get pepper spray, but it's
not lethal. It doesn't leave lasting. I
mean, it can in rare cases, but um it's
just a good way to get someone down to,
you know, escape a situation. And I'm
trying to run on that for I'm running
for vice president, actually. Are you
aware of any instances on on campus
whereby uh somebody used pepper spray
inappropriately where there was not a
threat, a prank or a joke or I I can't
think of any off this up. I I I can't
remember like seeing any news stories
about that or So, people have behaved
responsibly with it. Oh yeah. Because
because we know by and large it's still
being carried. It's just against policy
to do it. Exactly. Exa. A lot of people
that I talk to about it when I go out
and I say, "Hey, there's a pepper spray
ban on campus. We need to end it." A lot
of people are carrying pepper spray
already. And because of that, some
people will say, "Oh, well that means
it's not enforced. It's uninforced.
though you trying to end the pepper
spray ban is meaningless or local news
sources, you'll see uh representatives
of Salsbury University, they'll say if
pepper spray is found on someone or if
it's used by someone in a self-defense
situation, that student could you know
their punishment could range anywhere
from um you know some kind of a warning
and and a hearing um in that way or or
even expulsion from the university which
is just you know that's that shouldn't
be happening for someone who wasn't
asking for any trouble. So, exactly. I'd
just like to remind the um the
administrators of the University of
Maryland system that self-defense is our
in my view our single most fundamental
human right and to infringe on that
right is entirely unamerican. No.
Exactly. Exactly. And University of
Maryland actually they have a
self-defense exception and that's like
the biggest school in the state of
Maryland, I believe. 35,000. 35,000.
It's a huge campus. So, of course, a lot
of crime happens there, but they have a
self-defense exception so students can
carry it around on them. Um, and
Salsbury University doesn't have that
yet. So, we're trying to tell the
administration we need that self-defense
exception so that people are able to
carry it around without being at risk of
being punished. So, there's a different
set of rules at the University of
Maryland, College Park, than there is at
Salsbury. Exactly. Exactly. I mean
there's a state law that um I believe
representatives of the administration of
Salsbury said that um state law
prohibits uh people be students regular
students being able to carry pepper
spray or other things like dangerous
chem chemicals around with them at
government buildings like I guess SU is
but they can fix that by adding a
self-defense exception because there are
exceptions is reasonable and you're
bringing awareness to it. I'm trying to
Yeah. And it's been difficult. I mean
I'm running for student government
election currently. When is the
election? It's uh well it's today and
it's tomorrow and it ends tomorrow.
Okay. But um and you know circling back
to the whole Republicanism and and
standing up for conservative values on
campus, uh people know me as a
right-leaning figure. And so I look on
social media, I look online and I just
see a bunch of hate, a bunch of insults,
a bunch of lies being spread about me on
the daily. And it's it's hurtful. And I
can see why a lot of people that are
Republican students on campus don't want
to stand up and say that they're
Republican. and stand up to the
administration, which is very
left-leaning, it's because they're going
to be attacked relentlessly from their
own students and from people who want to
silence them and discredit them. And I
think that's just wrong. And I think the
people that do that are, you know,
frankly immature and disgraceful. But I
I still have to go out and and stand up
for these rights. I can't just hide
away. Listen, you know, what you speak
of, we we we can completely understand.
Even sometimes when you're standing up
to your own party, uh even on a local
level, you can find that there's just
especially through social media, uh and
folks who run like social media blogs
and that sort of thing, they're just
able to use that that platform, uh
whether it's monetized or not to just
really try to discredit anyone who just
has to speak out in on the other side of
an issue from them. For sure. Um so I
really hope that you you you hang in
there. Um thank you. I appreciate it.
The one thing, you know, that that
always helps just continue to be a
shining a light on whatever issues you
see in front of you. And and I wanted to
ask you one more question. What is it
you want older Republicans to know uh
that maybe some of the the older
rhetoric, the older platform is less
important to the next generation coming
up? Is there anything that sticks out to
you? I mean, for the older Republicans,
um I uh as as a as a leader of the lower
shore young Republicans, um of course I
attend a lot of the Republican club
meetings in the area, like my comical
Republican club, Delmore of a
Conservative movement, things like that.
And a lot of the people in these groups
are, of course, a little bit older
because um you know, they've been in in
the game for quite a while. Uh I I think
uh I think just using and and being able
to utilize social media more is is
really important. I think that is one of
the key reasons as to why uh Trump was
able to win. Um, I believe his son Baron
informed him about going on these long
forum podcasts, uh, speaking to PE, you
know, just having conversations like
we're having right now basically about
these issues because when people
actually hear these discussions and hear
these conversations that are unedited,
long form, uh, that aren't just little
snippets of something that said, or the
other, um, then, you know, a lot of
people agree and they say, "Oh, this
person actually, you know, maybe I am
willing to vote for this person. Maybe I
do. maybe this person uh you know
believes the same kinds of things that I
do. Maybe they're not a terrible for
like you were saying about the social
media stuff. Um there are a lot of
rumors that are spread, but if we're
able to utilize social media effectively
and we're able to have these uh you know
long form podcasts and and other forms
of promotion, um then I really think
it's it's it's an effective strategy.
Well, Colin, thanks for coming in and
and spending some time with us. We wish
you well in your election. Oh, I
appreciate it. I appreciate it. We'd
like to maybe before the semester's out,
if there's not too many essays and exams
at the end, maybe catch back up with you
and just see where the vibe is at SU as
the students start to leave for the
summer. Will you come back in? Oh, yeah.
For sure. I'd love to. Great. Thank you
for having me. I appreciate it. You're
very welcome. So, thanks for watching
this segment of Open Agenda.
I know what I'm doing, man. Look at the
camera directly and say, "Hello,
Americans. I did not have relations with
that.
You weren't even born yet. I wasn't. I
wasn't. Really? Now that's scary cuz
it's like yesterday to
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