Hyattsville’s 2021 election season is here, and with 20 candidates running for five ward seats and the mayor’s office, it may be the biggest election the city has ever seen. All week long, Route 1 Reporter will be introducing you to as many of the candidates as possible in a series of video interviews. Over the past week, Route1Reporter has interviewed 15 of the 20 candidates running.
Today, we unveil the interviews with the city’s Ward One candidates, or at least as many of them as we could get. Route 1 Reporter was unable to complete an interview with candidate Michael Brown, who cut-short a scheduled interview this past Sunday with Route 1 Reporter. Brown was out door-to-door campaigning at the time. During a pre-interview candidate-information collection process in which all other interviewed candidates provided responses, Brown cut short the interview after Route 1 Reporter inquired about any businesses he owned, saying the questions were getting “personal” and noting he had a top-secret security clearance. He also added he needed to visit his mother, who was ill. Attempts to re-schedule an interview with Brown before these articles published were unsuccessful.
Still, Route 1 Reporter was able to secure interviews with candidates Sam Denes, Mai Abdul Rahman, and Daniel Vallejos-Avila.
Route 1 Reporter’s interview with Denes is below.
In these interviews, each candidate was asked the same six questions. The questions were not shared with the candidates beforehand. The questions are also fairly broad, providing candidates an opportunity to introduce themselves and describe their approach to local government policymaking.
Hyattsville’s election season concludes May 11, 2021.
Theis:
Hello. My name is Michael Theis, editor and publisher of Route1Reporter.com. I’m here today with Sam Denes, Ward One candidate for Hyattsville city council. In this year, city elections, Hyattsville has more than 20 candidates running for five ward seats and the mayor’s office. This interview and others are intended to be a broad introduction to their candidates and their approach to local government policy and policy making. Let’s begin, Sam, how are you doing tonight?
Denes:
Doing pretty well as well as can be expected in a global pandemic. So
Theis:
Excellent. I’m doing well. Let’s just dive into the first question here. Tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do and how did you come to live in Hyattsville? How long have you lived in Hyattsville?
Denes:
Okay. A little bit about myself. I’m a Marine acoustician. I work for the federal government mitigating working on mitigation of underwater anthropogenic noise on Marine mammals, sea turtles, and fishes. I earned a PhD in acoustics from Penn state and grew up in Southern California. So I enjoy the outdoors. Kind of just– That frames a lot of who I am. I moved to Hyattsville a little over a little under four years ago. I had been living in Silver Spring and as we were searching for someplace to sit down a little bit more permanent roots, so we were searching around and we really fell in love with all that is Hyattsville, the route one corridor or the downtown, and it’s got a lovely businesses, restaurants cool community vibe. And we found a townhouse that we loved and have been here since 2017. And I think that was about the question.
Theis:
Okay, then. Yeah. The second question, it’s probably pretty broad, but you know, why are you running for Hyattsville city council?
Denes:
Since I moved to Hyattsville in 2017 shortly, shortly after I moved to Hyattsville I became involved in bicycle advocacy. One of the glaring kind of oversights that I noticed immediately after moving here was the gap in the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail. And so I became involved with WABA and their Prince George’s advocacy committee really campaigning and advocating to the city, the County and the state to get that last half mile of both separated transit transportation infrastructure approved, installed, funded. Through that advocacy, I became aware of other issues and became involved in other issues with the city. I’ve developed a relationship with the city council councilors from Ward One. I try to be a fairly active community member, when I see something, I say something. I get…I’ve advocated for additional issues within the ward most notably the expanding, expanding city services to uh, households that are paying taxes, but not receiving those services.
Denes:
I’ve been working, advocating with the DPW to expand access to composting. And it was great when they expanded to curbside composting, but again, those of us who don’t receive the curbside services don’t get to participate. So actually I, and most recently the city has announced that they’re expanding to a drop-off thing drop off composting but mainly it’s, I’ve been involved, I’ve been advocating and I know that there were issues I care about, and I want to continue to make sure that that my efforts in my drive to make this city that I’ve grown to love becomes better. We’re good, but we can improve. And I’m hoping to continue my work to do that.
Theis:
Excellent. Third question. What in your mind is the most pressing issue facing Hyattsville right now and what policies would you pursue to address it?
Denes:
So the most pressing issue that I, that I noticed in Hyattsville is absolutely pedestrian street and bicyclists safety. So in Ward One, we have a few major roads that, and even some residential streets where the dry drivers motoring through the streets is unsafe and really takes away from the the experience and the livability walkability of these, of these roads. So along the road, Route One, it’s two lane, two lanes in each direction. And it’s posted a 25 mile an hour speed limit and cars race through much faster. Both Queensbury, Jefferson, Hamilton, Oliver, and 42nd, it’s constant that we have issues within this city where people feel unsafe, walking along, crossing, and letting their kids play near the streets by their houses, where they live. And it’s untenable, the situation that we’re dealing with. To address the problem is a multi– it’s a big problem.
Denes:
It’s not going to be solved just by Hyattsville specifically because many of these streets are not under the jurisdiction of Hyattsville. So Route One is a state street. Queensbury and others, we have to deal with both County because they own the streets, or because the fire department and other services require certain levels of service to go through them. And but there are actions that the city can take to improve the streets, whether it’s through mitigation issues like putting in trying to get speed humps, rumble strips intersection narrowing through bump outs, painted crosswalks, pedestrian signage. And then of course the, the one issue that I’ve been involved with since moving here is just seeing through the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail on making sure that’s completed and the best multi-use trail that we can get from it.
Theis:
Fourth question, what is a unique skill or perspective you feel you would bring to this job? Something that only you possess perhaps?
Denes:
I don’t know that I’m particularly unique in anything. I’m, someone who cares and I’m someone who will bring a lot of effort. I don’t think that that is actually that unique in Hyattsville. And that’s a great thing about Hyattsville is there’s so many people – as you said, there’s 20 candidates running and interested in contributing to the city. I sit on the Hyattsville health, wellness and recreation committee. We’ve got a vibrant advisory community. So while I don’t think that it’s unique. It is something that I promise to bring is my drive, my compassion. And I’m an easy going dude. I’m not going to become overly tied to any one particular issue. I’ll listen to the case being made and kind of weigh the options, and make sure that we’re doing things right, and hopefully come out with a better solution at the end.
Theis:
Okay. The fifth question, almost all of the city council races this year are competitive. Some of them have a number of candidates. There’s a mathematical chance that the winner of your race could not, would have a minority or majority plurality or not a majority. If you were to win this seat, you know, what would your message be to those who did not vote for you?
Denes:
I’m going to represent Ward One, regardless of whether you vote for me, If I win. I’m not trying to… I don’t believe that any of the candidates are going to carry, carry the mantle of the kind of hyper partisan politics, and politicking that is going on just down the road in DC. I think every one of the candidates that I know has the best interest of Hyattsville at heart. I believe I do. And my messag is: I want you to vote for the person that you feel is most qualified and most represents you and your issues. I hope that’s me. And if you give me the chance to represent ward one, I will represent all on board one, regardless of whether you voted for me, how you identify, where you, where you live, whether you rent, whether you own, whether you’re a long-time resident, whether you’re a recent transplant, someone who just came back after a long time away, I’m going to represent you as a member of our community.
Theis:
Okay. My last question, many hot button issues in our national political discourse are at their heart local issues. These are things like policing, education policy, or debates over renaming landmarks and parks. How do you identify politically international content, democratic, Republican, socialist, libertarian, any of the above? How do you identify in a national political context and how do those values inform the policies you would pursue here in Hyattsville?
Denes:
I’m slightly uncomfortable with the question. I don’t have a problem identifying myself politically, but one of the nice things about our local municipal elections is that it’s apolitical. It’s nonpartisan. We aren’t trying to identify and be on teams. That being said, I consider myself a progressive. I consider… I believe black lives matter. I would…I believe that we should honor the fact that we’re sitting on their ancestral Homeland of Nacotchtank people, and that it’s important to understand those things. We need to take into account the fact that, as you say all politics are local – was it Tip O’Neill or Daniel Patrick Moynihan back in the day? And yes, the uh, renaming of possibly troubled landmarks or overpolicing or negative interactions with the police are, are, are an issue.
Denes:
And we can address them locally. Through my work with the with the city of Hyattsville’s Health, Wellness, Recreation Advisory Committee, we’ve taken a number of steps to help the city address some of these issues. We’ve focused a lot recently in this past year during the pandemic on providing wellness and mental health programming. So we’ve sponsored and advocated for the city to sponsor mental health first aid courses that when they were offered up to the public were at capacity within a day. We participated in the process for park renaming. And we deliberated with the Race and Equity Task Force over multiple meetings to winnow down the renaming of the city’s park formerly known as a Magruder park to a number of options that we feel can both honor what it means to be in Hyattsville and what it means to be part of our community and as well as encouraging that sense of community. And I think that my politics, and the person I am, is in essence that: is striving for a sense of community. And that means that the people we live with, the people that are part of our community, and we’re all welcome here. And yeah, I love Hyattsville. I think we’re great here.
Theis:
Excellent. Well, Sam, that’s the end of my questions at this time. I’d like to thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me to the audience out there on Route 1 Reporter, thank you very much for watching along and get out there and vote.