Ep. 6: Candidate Corner - Vision for Washington with Ellen Brabo

In this episode of What’s Up Washington, host Ellen Brabo sits down with Johnny Jones of Sozo Radio for his Candidate Corner series, where he talks with local candidates running for office here in Washington, NC. They cover a lot of ground—from property taxes and Brabo's military background to the City’s debt and why she is running for Mayor.

Learn more about Brabo's campaign at www.ellenbrabo.com
Support the campaign: text BRABO to (888) 444-8774
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Transcript

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Hey, y', all, and welcome back to another episode of what's Up Washington? I'm Ellen Brabo, host of this podcast and a candidate for mayor here in Washington, North Carolina. If you've been with me since episode one, you know that I started out focusing on the 15th street project. And while that is still on my radar and something the coalition continues to push back on, I'm broadening this podcast to cover more of the issues that impact our community every day. At the end of the day, electing leaders who truly represent Washington is the best way to shape how projects like 15th street and so many others move forward. With that in mind, I wanted to share a recent conversation I had with Johnny Jones on his Candidate Corner series. We talk about my background, why I decided to run for mayor, property taxes, the city's debt, and a few other challenges facing Washington right now. I hope you find it informative. And don't forget, early voting starts October 16th. Let's dive in. Hey, and welcome to another edition of Candidate Corner. Today, my guest is Ellen Brabo. Ellen is running for mayor for the city of Washington, North Carolina. I gotta say North Carolina, because someone could be watching this in anywhere in Washington, D.C. or Washington state or Washington, North Carolina, affectionately known by the locals as the Original Washington. Right, Ellen? Now, the slang is Little Washington, but the locals don't like Little Washington so much. It is the original Washington, and if you didn't know already, it is the first entity, town, municipality in the US to be named after George Washington. So the original Washington. Ellen, you're running for mayor. So, so glad to have you on with us today. We got a few questions for you. And, and the first one is, can you introduce yourself? I know a little bit about you, but for those that may not know who Ellen Brabo is, you got, you've done some interesting things in your life and really cool that has led you to this moment. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Thank you, Joni. I appreciate you having me on today. And I will offer. Being in the tourism industry, the Little Washington antidote is something I have fully embraced, being with a marketing background as well. I mean, you can't beat free advertising. And so when people know you as Little Washington, you just got to take it and run with it. But, yeah, so my background, I came to Washington in 2021. I am a military veteran, having served in the US army after college. And so I had the opportunity to serve primarily overseas, both in South Korea and in Germany. And after transitioning out of the army during COVID I made my way back to Washington, D.C. now, I want to. Pause you on that. You went to Colle. Where did you go to college? I went to college at SUNY Brockport. It's outside of the Rochester, New York area. Okay, you went to college, and then you went in the army, but you went in as an officer, and you. You rose to the rank of captain. Am I right on that? Correct? Yes. So in your job in the army, you what. What did you do in the Army? So, while my MOS was 25 Alpha, which is a signal officer, and that's what the army trained me to do, I had the opportunity to work instead as a public affairs officer. And so I told the soldier story. I was able to manage social media, use my photography background and skills, and write stories to show the men and women back home what all of our brave service members are doing abroad. And you were in the army how long? Five and a half years. That is awesome. All right, so after the army, tell us where you went from there. So after the Army, I did what most veterans do, and I took a job as a government contractor. And so I worked as the Strategic communications manager for the Office of Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense, overseeing our modernization portfolio. So, community. It was in the big Washington. It was in the big Washington, Yes. Yeah. I was working in D.C. at the Pentagon, and I had the opportunity to work with some pretty incredible technological intellects, ranging from learning about autonomous systems and hypersonic weapons to directed directed energy and future G, and just so much incredible technology that is coming out of the Department of Defense, and. And our academic partnerships and industrial partnerships as well. But being able to work in that office for a couple of years and oversee the communications efforts to make sure that both our internal partners and external partners knew what was going on was really incredible opportunity. So that's fascinating, Alan. What an amazing opportunity to serve in the Army. And what you did, what brought you and led you to Washington, North Carolina. The other Washington. The little Washington. The little Washington. What led you here? Tell us about that part of your life. Yeah, absolutely. So, like many people, during COVID I was working fully remote, and that really opened the doors to exploring what do I want my life to look like and what other opportunities might be out there beyond the traditional nine to five. And when I had transitioned out of the Army, I completed the Boots to Business Transition Program, which is for service members who want to go on to become an entrepreneur. And through that program, I had built out a business plan to create an Airbnb concept for military families in transition. So military. Military families lost tens of thousands of dollars due to strict cancellation policies from Airbnb during COVID And that's a whole rabbit hole. And so, thankfully, there are a lot of great partners out there who have seen that need and are working on developing that concept. But for me, it led me to want to understand the business model of Airbnb and looking at different places in the US where that investment could be made and didn't think it was going to work out. I'll be honest. I looked at properties in Texas and in Ohio and came back to D.C. and a girlfriend from high school and I had lunch together and like, ah, I wouldn't give up that easily. And the next morning she sent me a Facebook post and it was the Bowers Trip House in Washington, North Carolina. Wow. And I immediately contacted the Realtor on the listing, asked some questions in regards to the code and what would be possible with the property and could it be converted into a bnb? And by that was a Friday morning, and by Sunday afternoon, my parents and I were touring the Bowers Trip House, and by Wednesday, I was under contract. It was just one of those things where, you know, the first place we went when we got to town was parlay, and Sunny Fields was playing his guitar on the porch, and you're looking at the waterfront and you're like, wow, wow, this is cool. Like, I could see a life here. But the moment we stepped in the house, it was one of those things you just feel in your soul and your bones. And I was like, this is it. This is where I want to be. And the Realtor, I asked her, you know, would this be a place that values community over competition? I don't want to be come here. That's fighting day after day to be here. And she was like, no, we really value community here in Washington. And that is something I have felt every step of the way from the my first day here in Washington. So with your Airbnb, it's known as the El Hotel, it's been very community oriented. I mean, there's a lot of community things that you've done as a part of that. You probably had no idea how involved that would be in the community. Hosting different gathering, small groups and just little meet and greets and just different things. And it's been. It's been a real blessing to the community. What's that been like for you? It's given you a real platform to get to know and meet people that without that, you may have not Met as quickly as you have with. Without being a part of this Airbnb concept that you had. Yeah, absolutely. It has been incredible opportunity and a great pillar for me to be able to meet a lot of people in the community. And one of the things I did recently when I made the offer on the property, the sellers had asked for a video to kind of articulate who I was and what my vision was for the space. I know they received multiple offers and I went back and rewatched that video. I hadn't sat down and done that since 2021. And in that video, 27 year old Ellen is talking about, you know, wanting to create a pillar of the community and have open doors and host events and Christmas parties and create opportunity for the home to be filled with love and laughter and joy again. And I feel very proud that I have been able to do that. But it is not by us being in a silo. The only reason I have been able to find success in creating the Elle Hotel and that brand is for the community of support around me. And, you know, being a member of the Chamber of Commerce, that was one thing my grandfather told me right when I got to Washington was like, you need to join the chamber and being able to jump in and take their leadership Beaufort program and be able to meet so many incredible people, but also understand the inner workings of both the city and the county, our nonprofit community. The list goes on. It's a very valuable course that I really am grateful I was able to take advantage of when setting up my business. So you just mentioned getting to learn the inner workings of the county and the city. And you got to learn some things that probably took you a little bit by surprise. Something that I know led you to that, as we've talked about, was you begin to see this proposal for the 15th street expansion. Everyone knows something needs to be done with 15th Street. It can be a bottleneck and there's no turn lane. We get all of that. But you, you begin to see some proposals that were being put out there and you begin to talk with some folks in the community and you could see how this is going to impact. There was a proposal with the DOT and the city coordinating together. You felt like some voices needed to be heard. And did you spearhead the 15th Street Coalition? Was that your. Did you, did you spearhead that yourself or what was that? Tell us how that got started. And then that led you to discover some things with the city that, though you love the charm of Washington, you like, man, there's some inner workings going on and how the city is operating and managed that needs attention, that one thing led to another. So take us down that road, if you will, Ellen. Yeah. So in 2023, I campaigned for City Council here in Washington. And through that year, I met with some residents who had expressed their concerns to me and educated me on the background for the 15th Street Project. And so that 15th Street Project dates back to 1997, which is something I think a lot of residents maybe don't even realize. And it was part of the 2000 Thoroughfare Plan of needing improvements. And that has just unfortunately continued to evolve while nothing has been done to address the safety considerations of the corridor. And so the residents that had very engaged and very involved and outspoken against the dot's version of the solution sat me down, gave me some background, and they asked, if I'm elected to City Council, would I please keep them in the know if this project comes back on the table? And so earlier, while I was not elected to City Council, I do take that responsibility very seriously, that people did vote for me, and you don't have to be elected to be engaged civically in your community. And so in January this year, the public notice from NCDOT came across the news desk at the Washington Daily News. It was going to be published for the February 6th meeting. And I reached out to a couple of constituents that I knew were concerned about the project to see if they had heard any updates, had anyone from the city reached out to them to let them know that this was back on the table. And no one had. They had no idea. And so I felt like it was an obligation, but also, as a resident of Washington, I wanted to be part of that conversation. And so I attended the February 6 public input session there at the Church of God, I think it is, on 15th Street. And I was blown away at the amount of errors in the proposal, but also in just the scale, the scale of the project. And it seemed like from everything I was seeing in February that the project that the city had voted against once but twice was being brought back again on a much. On even a larger scale. And that, to me, seems problematic. And so from there, things just kind of evolved. It was getting other people together that had already been previously engaged, putting together a website and presenting at City Council that, hey, you know, there's a responsibility here for you to look at these things more deeply. And if we're catching errors, why are we being presented these proposals that are filled with these types of errors? What are we missing? What. What are the deeper things going on here that we're not paying attention to. And unfortunately, through that process, in myself and others of the coalition reaching out to our representatives, they were either unresponsive or flat outright told us, no, we don't need to meet with you. We only had one city council member respond back to us and meet with us. And we're very grateful for that. But it really led me to feeling very frustrated that representatives are not being representative of the people that they were elected by. And so by April, we put together a petition and more than 600 people in Washington have signed that petition saying, no, we do not want this project. We presented that petition on April 12 at the city council meeting with a pinpoint map with, with every name and every address so that the city council members could see. This is not a not in my backyard issue. This is a citywide, county wide issue where residents are saying we don't want our neighborhood reshaped in this way. More than. More than 40 homes and businesses will be lost to this project. What's the benefit? So we can push cars through town as quickly as possible. Cars being pushed through town, don't spend money in town. And there are better solutions. Communities across the country are trying to undo these types of projects because of the devastation that has happened to their communities. And yet here we are behind the eight ball trying to put something like this in. And I think Washington deserves best practice. We deserve industry standard. We don't deserve something less than just because we're a rural community. You obviously had run for city council and so Ellen, who moves to Washington? And what year did you move to Washington? 2021. 2021. Not that you're trying to, but a name is being made. I mean, you're, you're showing up on people's radar. Not in a very positive way, I may add, but. But because you were spearheading this 15th street coalition is almost like you came under the ire of maybe city council, the offices there, mayor, office that would govern our city. What did that look like? How did that show up? Did, did you feel that? Was that a real thing? And then we're going to just tie this in directly with the whole El hotel thing, because it is the elephant in the room. It seems like that's parlayed into some things there. Can you give us an overview of that whole experience? What, what, what, what is this about? Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to feel like it's ironic or. Because I don't believe in irony. I think, you know, everything happens there. I Don't know. It just. It's not ironic that, you know, April 12, I speak out at a city council meeting. Maybe it was April 14th, April 14th, city council meeting, I Spe, on behalf of the 15th Street Coalition, present a petition, and then two days later, the city sends me a notice to my business. I would have liked to have seen city resources. If we're willing to use resources to this extent, I think we should have been able to use them towards engaging with the community on 15th street as opposed to putting your head in the sand and pretending the problem is just going to go away. So the timing is not ironic and I think it's very unfortunate. But I think if you take it a year back, further To March of 2024, I think it's really disappointing that the City of Washington Planning board and the City of Washington City Council felt it was acceptable to change the city code by which bed and breakfasts operate without consulting and including us in the conversation. If they can do it to my business industry, they can do it to yours. So there are only four bed and breakfast that operate in the city. So how hard would it have been for the city to reach out to those folks, to be a part of that conversation? It seems odd and puzzling. It seems very odd and puzzling. It shouldn't be hard to pick up the phone. I think about the fact that the city in the manner of two weeks mailed me 12 notices in regards to the code violations that they submitted to me in May. But last year, when they changed the code, I didn't even get so much as a letter in the mail or a call on the phone to be part of the conversation. If someone's complaining about my business or the other bed and breakfast in town, we should know about that. So you're not even notified about a code changing, but two days after you share concerns about the 15th street project, over a period of few days, you get 12 notices of violations? Yes. Yeah. And I find it, I mean, it really is mind boggling given that our Harriet Tubman Day tea party for the open Door Women's shelter in March was on the front cover of the newspaper. We're not secretive. I'm secretive about anything that we're doing at the hotel. We are very engaged on social media. We're very grateful for the support of the Washington Daily News. If something that we were doing or operating in some capacity was a detriment to the neighborhood or a concern to the city, I think there's been a lot of other opportunities in which that could have been addressed. But we hosted our first event in December of 2021, long before we opened our doors to the community and had our grand opening. And I would, I think it's just a very, it's a disservice to the residents of Washington when your city leaders aren't willing to engage the stakeholders in the conversations because they're the ones in the industry. They're the ones who understand the ins and the outs. And so, I mean, one of the examples I will offer is the city code for bed and breakfast now says we're only allowed to have one part time staff member, but not a single member on city council or the planning board owns or operates a bed and breakfast. How are you able to tell me how many staff it takes to successfully operate my business? Our economic development goals for a rural agricultural community has always been job creation. Why would you want to limit job creation? Why would you? It just doesn't make any sense. It feels very counterintuitive to other stated objectives. And it's hard to understand why that, what that thought process was when changing the code like that. So this all culminates in this seven hour hearing that happened on a weeknight when you were brought before the planning zoning board because there, there's the threat of them revoking your license to operate your business. And I saw you turn and look to people in the audience. These were some people around the neighborhood that had seemed to be complaining about some things like maybe parking or whatever. But you turn and look to folks and you said, I never heard from you. Like, I'm not. I didn't know this was an issue. If so could you, you could have come to me at any moment. I've got an open door. I would have been glad to come up with something. Just from what I've gotten to know about you, Alan, like you're not just a, you know, a bull in a china shop type of person. You really love people and you want to work with people. It seemed like it would have been such an easier thing to like, let's get together, you got some concerns, if you got some questions, let's, let's come up with something that works for all. But instead there seemed to be this forceful, heavy handed thing. And as I watched the seven hours, I mean, we didn't go to bed

after 1: 19:40

30 in the morning that night. I kept saying to my wife, the amount of effort the city has put into building a case against you to find these neighbors, to find these witnesses, it's like, would it have just been so easier, so much easier to sit down with Ellen and the owners of these Airbnb bed and breakfast entities and sit down and work out some solutions. It's like at the end of the day, are you for business? Are you against business as the city? But it just, there was a smell to the whole thing. It just didn't feel right. There were some things that didn't pass the smell test. It just seems so odd for the viewer watching that. So help us land this plane. Like where does that land? Where is it at now in the process and give us an update on that end. Yeah, I mean, it should have been a neighbor conversation. It should have been a neighbor conversation. Last year in March, if the city had received a complaint in regards to any bed and breakfast, that's where we should have started. And essentially that's where the seven hour meeting ended, was the stakeholders should get together with the city and have a conversation to what the text amendment should have been and should look like by which we operate bed and breakfasts in our community. And so that is something that is now being asked of us and something we'll have to navigate in the coming months with the city and propose back before city council to see if they will support a text amendment to the way by which we operate bed and breakfasts here in Washington. The interesting is that I don't think maybe a lot of people picked up on either through that hearing process is, you know, those violation notices were received by myself in May, retained an attorney, submitted the petition to appeal in June, and the Board of adjustment has 60 days to schedule that hearing. And so that 60 day mark, that hearing was scheduled for August 14th. And I had not had the opportunity to appeal the zoning violation before the city submitted the request to revoke my permit. It's hard not to take that as the city trying to shut down a business when that is literally what they tried to do to me before I ever had the opportunity to appeal the violations. And so if I had gone before the board of Adjustment, appealed my zoning violations and then continued to be non compliant for whatever the decision may be, or the board could have said, you know what, we don't think you're in violation of anything because you're operating under the code in which we gave you the permit, it could have gone either way. But we didn't get to see that opportunity take place. It's almost like some steps were skipped to get to the point where we're going to have a hearing to shut down your business. Correct. And I Think for myself. I mean, I can only speak from my experiences, but it makes you wonder how others are being treated and what other businesses or residents in our community are the steps being skipped. Why are we essentially getting all the way to 100 without seeing how we can resolve things at step one? Totally understand that. So again, your, your plans for running for mayor happened before that marathon hearing. We get that. What led you to the place where you felt like, I want to run for mayor, there's a need for this, and I want to get involved. Give us some reasons, maybe your top three reasons as to why you feel like you are running for mayor and what the purpose would be of your winning. Like what would you bring to Washington if, if you become mayor? I think first and foremost for myself, something that I've really had a front row seat to this been the lack of transparency and the lack of open governance currently taking place at the city of Washington. And I think it's a disservice to the residents that live here. It's 2025, transparency, communication, all of that. It's not hard. It should be very easy for residents to know what's happening, when it's happening, and why it's happening. And my experience, you know, presenting at city council meetings and speaking at city council meetings this year has really lent itself to feeling like I'm talking to a wall, that there doesn't seem to be any follow up or care or consideration for those who are speaking at city council meetings. And there's no two way dialogue taking place. And neighborhoods are being reshaped without the neighbors that live there getting to have a say in what that looks like. And 15th street is just one example. But that April City council meeting, I mean, you had no scheduled public appearances on the agenda. You had no agenda item pertaining to 15th Street. And after nearly 15 residents got up during public comment to speak and voice concerns regarding the project, suddenly the Chairman of the RPO has a 45 minute prepared presentation with slides. Your city manager has a slide and a presentation prepared. Your director of public safety just happens to have a folder on hand with speed data from a 15th street speed study last year. None of that was accidental. And it's a complete disservice to the residents of Washington to not be transparent about what's taking place. People should have been able to know that those presentations were going to be provided and they should have been included on the agenda. And if they weren't, you know, on the agenda in advance, the city council could have simply made an amendment at the start of the meeting, and anyone that was watching live online, that wanted to make an effort to turn the TV off and come down to City hall should have had the right to do that. And instead, that has just become the status quo by which the city government is operating. And I really believe that with my communications background, I can help bring us into the 21st century on how we're communicating and being transparent about what we're doing. We could have quarterly town halls. There should be a regular weekly newsletter coming out of the mayor's office. There should be a podcast for the city for residents to understand easy, digestible updates about what's taking place, when it's taking place, and why it's taking place. You speak of effective communications. I heard one of the. The employees of the city talk about how well we. We put out a notice in the newspaper that we're going to have this hearing on changing the code for Airbnb. And I'm thinking it's 2025. How many people read a newspaper? If you want to. If you want to put information out where the public is watching today, it's social media. It's. There's other things to do. You know, it's like, is government doing some of these things just to cover their tracks or to check the box? Are they really putting in an effort to have open dialogue with the citizens? And I feel like that's not happening. It really isn't happening. So that moves us to the. To another thing, and it's the sheer amount of debt and the lack of fiscal responsibility. I had some numbers presented to me, and that is, in 2022, the city of Washington had a debt amount of$1.4 million. Sounds like a lot, but, I mean, you know, it is what it is. From 2022 to now, we are at a$22 million debt for the City of Washington. We're talking. And we're talking over $21 million in debt that have been occurred to the city in such a short period of time, in three years. Like, what in the world is going on? And what can you do to help with this craziness in spending? Along with that is property taxes. You know, our home in the City of Washington, our house payment has gone up significantly. We called our insurance company to say, is our insurance going up? And come to find out, it is our property taxes that are just literally going through the roof. And it almost feels like it's for. I mean, and we're managing it, but for folks that can't manage that, senior citizens Those on fixed incomes that are experiencing such high increase in property taxes. It's like, what is going on that's causing us to go from 1.4 million in debt as a city to 22 million. And as a result, see property taxes go through the roof. It doesn't feel like there's any fiscal responsibility when you see numbers like that. Am I right on that? 1.44? Yeah. We were just under 1.4 million in 2022. And I mean, even 2024's numbers, we were sitting at closer to 9 million. And that is insane. I don't know about you, Johnny, but I was raised if you don't have money, you don't spend it. And I get that there are some elements of business debt, I'm a business owner and things like that. But a lot of those loans, if you look at them, they're publicly available in the budget. We're talking 6% interest rates, 13% interest rates. Wow. I can't understand how that would be a fiscally responsible decision to make. And if we don't. And that's where communication comes into play. Right. If your residents are asking for something, I will offer the splash pad. I love to take my nieces to the splash pad when they're in town, and I think it's great. I think that's a cool community resource that we've been able to provide. However, we didn't financially have the money to provide it. That is a loan that the city took to build the splash pad, and that is now part of our debt that we're making payments on with interest. If you don't have the money to do something, communicate to the constituents that are asking for the resource that I don't have the money to do this right now, but this is how we're going to budget for it. And you could even create some fundraising opportunities for people to get involved and help support project here or there as needed versus going into debt to do it. Absolutely. One of the ideas that I had a resident offer to me, and I don't. I'll be honest, I don't know if it's something that we do require of developers, but something that she had seen often in other communities she's lived in, is, you know, if a big developer wants to come in and put in 300 homes, they should be, you know, putting in these community resources or contributing towards them. Could that cost have been offset with something like that? I don't know. I think that we have to be willing to look outside the box and taking on$22 million in debt does not seem like a responsible thing to be doing. Maybe we can pay it now, but western North Carolina, I think, has shown us a lot of things that we could be doing to be better prepared for our future being in a state that is impacted by natural disasters. And I would hate to see the city of Washington not be prepared for our future because of irresponsible decisions being made. So the reality of those, to those watching, is the debt is going through the roof. There is what seems to be a lack of accountability and transparency in our city government. And it seems obvious. I mean, it just really does. These are facts. This isn't hyperbole. This is. These are facts. Are there any other concerns or any other thoughts? I know there's a couple other candidates that are running for city Council. Joe Davis, am I right? Yeah, you, Fritz. These are guys who are promising, hey, if you elect us to the City Council, we're going to reduce these property taxes and get a hold of this spending, speak into that and then any other thoughts, concerns that you have as to reasons why you're running for mayor? Absolutely. And I will offer. Zach Sudawang is a great candidate for City council as well, with some really good ideas about property, fixed property tax rates for senior citizens and those that are working on fixed incomes or living on fixed incomes. And so I think I would really encourage residents to be paying attention to who your city council candidates are. There are some really great candidates out there, and you can, you know, make a change for mayor, but you have to make a change for council, too. If you want to see things different for the future of Washington, it requires both. Right. And that partnership along with the city, their city employees, the city staff. We should be working as a team. And the culture of the team should, in my mind, be, how do we get to yes? How do we get to yes on projects, on solutions, on solving problems. And I'm having a reputation of being good for business in our city government. But I would offer a couple other things. I mean, obviously, property taxes is something we touched on. I'm a real estate investor. But I also think it's counterintuitive to housing affordability goals and objectives when you continue to put your rent prices out of reach for the working class here in Washington. We have rent prices that are very high, comparative to areas like Greenville. And I think that we should be thinking about if. If you can't say you're looking for housing affordability and then do your actions are counterintuitive to that and, you know, landlords are just going to pass those fees on to the tenant. So who do we continue to price out living here in Washington? So in other words, because property taxes are going through the roof, rents are having to be raised. I mean, so basically the cost of living within the city. So it's not just the fault of the landlords, like they're forced to pass this on to folks renting because the cost of their property is just skyrocketing. Am I right on that? Yeah, exactly. And I understand a reevaluation needed to take place, but I do think that the city could have done better to certainly, I mean, revenue neutral would have been a very easy baseline to protect the residents as opposed to not going revenue neutral. I think another one that I would offer through the 15th Street Project. I did a lot of reading and research reading our bike plan, our pedestrian plan, the camel land use planning. We have some really well thought out plans. Unfortunately, they haven't been updated since 2016 for most of them. But I understand that. I mean, the city spent tens of thousands of dollars, they received grants for some of these plans. We have the 2009 reinvestment strategy. They're not being followed. And so I was very disappointed when I asked at the community college meeting, you know, why for 15th street, this doesn't align with our pedestrian plan, this doesn't align with our bike plan to be told, well, they're just plans. We don't have to follow them. And I disagree. I mean, if we don't have a plan for where we're going, how do we know how to get there? And I would love to see Washington be a bikeable, walkable community. From 15th street all the way to the waterfront, we should be able to bike and walk safely to navigate. It breaks my heart when I see the motorized wheelchairs up and down 15th street and Carolina Avenue. Without a safe space to be able to navigate, you can't walk to the. You should be able to walk to the grocery store. You should be able to hop on your bike and get downtown if you so choose. And I think some of that would alleviate the stress of parking downtown if people could easily navigate by foot and by bike safely here within the city of Washington. Any closing thoughts? And I do want to cover one thing before we, before we finish. Any other finishing thoughts? Closing thoughts as to why you feel like you are the best candidate for mayor for the city of Washington? That's a really good question. I think at the end of the day, I hope people will vote where they feel that they are going to receive honest and respectful answers and responses, transparent responses with integrity. And I hope that people will, when they look to my campaign that that is what they'll see. I might not be able to solve every problem. I am one person. But I will be honest about where we stand. I will be transparent about the decisions that are being made. And I will always strive to be representative of the community and the voice of the residents here in Washington. That's awesome. Well Ellen, thank you. So how can folks learn more? We know that the election for mayor is November 4th. Early voting starts October 16th. So that's not very far away from right now when, when this is being aired. How can people get involved in your campaign? How can they learn more? How can people get a T shirt, a yard sign? How can they be a part of this? Yeah, absolutely. So I have a website, ellenbrabo.com you can visit the website and you can find information about my campaign. You can request a yard sign. You can buy a shirt. You can sign up to join the email newsletter. If you're interested in being engaged with the campaign as a volunteer in some capacity, you can certainly email me. My email is ellenlenbrabo.com and I will offer Johnny because it's a question I continue to get nowhere on my website. Will you see an affiliation for the Democratic or the Republican party? I am an independent candidate and I would encourage people to be mindful that it is a non partisan election and so I would look at the whole candidate. What do they represent that is going to affect your quality of life because local government can have a lot of impact on what your day to day look looks like. Well with that said to probably is more than anything. I mean federal is big but the cities by which you live in the counties by which you live in that really plays a big part in your day to day life as you said. So Ellen, people can also make a donation to your at your website as well to help support your campaign? Yes. Yeah, no I'm Financial contributions to any campaign are they're what we need to keep running to get our name out there. And so I would say yes if you are willing to donate you can do so@EllenBrabo.com we have a way to donate online or if you'd like to write a check you can make a check payable to the Committee to Elect Ellen Brabo and that can be dropped off to Steven Wood at Brigal Insurance and I will also offer you can follow the campaign on Facebook. Ellen Brabo for mayor of Washington. There's an address. People can mail a check as well. My right. Yes. Yep. That's also on the website as well. All right, Ellen, thank you for joining us, folks. Do your research. Learn about the mayoral race of Washington, North Carolina, the city council. It's obvious some changes need to be made. Again, going from 1.4 million in debt in 2022 to 22 million in debt in 2025. Wow. I'm just speechless. So do your research, Pray about it. And. And you vote where you feel like you are supposed to vote. So, Ellen, thank you for. Thank you, Johnny. Stay tuned for our next edition of Canada Corner.