Welcome to Steve and Client. Steve is going to be running a Forest Center Realty on Council in the October election. And Steve, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure, so me and my wife Kim have lived in centerville for more than a decade now and we're raising our twins Alex Nemley. They're seven years old here in town and I just want to start by saying you know certainly thanks to my wife for letting me do this run for town council. I wouldn't be sitting here without her so thanks to her but I'm an Eagle Scout and I've been a Marylander my entire life in fact I'm a seventh generation Marylander from Baltimore originally but I moved over here about 10 years ago. Great. Well why were you considering running for town council? So I'm the son of a steel worker a Baltimore steel worker who worked in those steel mills for 33 years and we were taught from a young age to move towards a job that needed to be done and when you get done on an important cause to get right to it and as a kid as a Boy Scout growing up I did a lot of public service projects in town where I was living then and carried that with me really through my whole life and I think it's time to step up and you know there's clearly things that need to happen in town and I think I can be a part of that. I don't come to this race with with an agenda you know there's not a single thing that I'm obsessing over having to get done but I do think we need serious-minded and professional people to to run for these jobs so I'm excited to see nine people running for these seats it's really refreshing. What are some of the major issues that you see facing the council that's coming here? Sure so I think that's the town needs to do a better job of communicating with its residents. As you saw I think and it's good to see some of this but there's clearly appetite for change in town and you saw a lot of excitement around the last election a lot of excitement around the row construction project and I think people have lost confidence in town government and it's difficult to have confidence in something that you never hear from. It's tough to imagine you know again having confidence in a town government that you don't hear from and so the next batch of town council members have got to do a better job of communicating with the residents. We have a $17 million debt on the books right now that is more than three times the general budget of the town which I think is pretty alarming so the second issue is we've got to start to address that debt issue and you can marry those two things. Every quarter everybody in town gets gets a letter a bill utility bill from the town and I would argue every one of those utility bills should include a financial statement of how the town is doing what revenues look like what expenditures look like where we are in the budget year and instead of having a three-page budget document that is really difficult to read it has no context from previous budget years we have got to change the way we do that. The third thing I would mention is broadband internet you know everybody seemingly everyone is learning from home now working from home and if we're going to place centerville in a relevant position for the next two or three hundred years we have got to be better on the internet and get a more reliable internet connection and more competition because that that increases customer service and the final thing I'll mention is growth we have the potential to add hundreds of new homes to centerville looking at a couple of farms across town and that has to be managed that has to be you have the town council members have got to be asking the right questions of developers and demanding the right answers. Is there one main thing that you would hope to accomplish out of those? Sure I want to restore people's confidence in the town government I want people to know that the town government is competent it is looking out for the residents best interests and I've got a reputation professionally and personally as being kind of a no nonsense guy but I'm also a positive guy and I think if you look at what's happening on social media and in the country broadly I think it's a very negative and what I want to do is push back against that whatever can don't talk to our neighbors the way we talk to people on social media we don't talk to people with the grocery store that way and I think centerville is a good laboratory for you know how do we treat people better how are we approach problems with a solutions oriented attitude but also positive attitude as well. Lastly is there anything else that you want to share with the voters? Yeah I think that that message of positivity that we can you know this is not centerville doesn't have to be the place where we talk about big national debates. The town government has some very specific and tangible things that they have to get done for the residents of the town and I think that needs to demand more from its government the residents need to demand more from its government get involved please vote certainly I would say look into all of the candidates I think there are candidates that are well positioned to by temperament by experience I've got 20 years of experience in public policy and I think I come to this uniquely qualified for the job. Well thanks so much for being here with us. Thank you for the opportunity.