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 four of Hyattsville’s six Ward Three candidates, namely Adam Alfano, Sherlyna Hanna, Alexander Houck, and Jimmy McClellan.
Unfortunately, Ward Three candidates Chuck Perry and James Wigley did not respond to requests for interviews before Monday morning, when the first of Route 1 Reporter’s candidate interviews published.
Route 1 Reporter’s interview with Alfano is below.
In these interviews, each candidate was asked 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 Adam Alfano, one of [six] candidates running for council in Ward Three. In all, Hyattsville has 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 candidacies and to explore their approach to local government policy and policymaking. Let’s begin, Adam, how are you doing today?
Alfano:
I’m doing great. How are you? I’m doing
Theis:
Well. It’s a nice Saturday. first question, tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do and how did you come to live in Hyattsville?
Alfano:
Um, so the best way about myself is that I’m from a bunch of different places. but that has nothing to do with me being a military family. My, my parents just sought opportunities and we moved around. So I grew up in Orlando, Florida in the eighties and nineties, and then I spent a couple of years out in West Virginia. And then my parents split and I moved out to rural Arkansas and live with my grandparents and my mom, my brother and my sister out in Arkansas. And from Arkansas, I got to DC by way of American University. So I went to AU for undergrad and then hung out in the area for ever since. And then I moved to Hyattsville almost three years ago over here in Editor’s Park. I went to Maryland for my MBA and finished that up a little over a year ago. So that’s how I got to Hyattsville. and then right now I work for PPG industries. I work in automotive refinish. So I work with the body shops across the state of Maryland, predominantly in PG County, Anne Arundel County, Charles County that area. So I do a lot of small business work with the body shop owners.
Theis:
Okay. Then the second question, why are you running for Hyattsville city council?
Alfano:
So I think for, for me, it’s, it’s wanting to just be involved and the more people that are involved and engaged the better. I think it comes, creates a better outcome, regardless of whether I win or lose the more people that are involved, you’re going to have better campaigns, more issues, more voices heard. Prior to my current position, I spent 17 years working in the restaurant industry. And so restaurants and the hospitality industry are really, really hard hit with COVID. And so I want to make sure that those voices are heard.
Theis:
Okay then. Third question. What is the most pressing issue facing Hyattsville right now and what policies would you pursue to address it?
Alfano:
So I think one of the what I would say is the most pressing is, you know, again, related to restaurants and hospitality and retail. So I live across the street from PG Plaza mall 10 years from now that mall will probably not be there, or if it is it’s going to be a slew of abandoned buildings. We have historic Hyattsville, which has, you know rows of restaurants, Busboys and Poets, Franklins, or Vigilante Coffee down there, you know, at the bagel shop up at College Park on Route One, you know, all those businesses at best had 50% of the revenue that they had in 2019 and 2020. so they’re all struggling. Retail is going to continue to struggle against e-commerce. So I think there’s a huge opportunity for Hyattsville to really put itself in the forefront, using sustainability policies, business development policies. There’s just a lot of opportunity and we can either seize that opportunity or we can do nothing. and we’ll end up like white Flint just over there, Montgomery County, where you drive up Rockville pike and it’s just abandoned mall and abandoned buildings and abandoned everything else. there’s not really anything going on over there. So I don’t want us to have that situation. I don’t want to live across the street from an empty JC penny and empty Macy’s is an empty everything else.
Theis:
Okay. Fourth question. What is a unique skill or perspective you would bring to this job if elected?
Alfano:
So a unique skill that I have has been developed over an extended period of time of working in restaurants. So here in the DC Metro area, I worked for Clyde’s restaurant group for many, many years, and I interacted with thousands and thousands of people every week. So I consider that I have good listening skills, as well as just being able to understand and read people and I’m a very, very personable person. People like to talk to me about different things. So I think that is a big advantage of just having an interacted with a lot of different people, as well as I grew up in, you know, a urban center out to the rural South and Appalachia. So just having that unique perspective of being around different places and different people.
Theis:
Okay. Then fifth question, almost all of the city council races this year are competitive, including your own. Why should people vote for you?
Alfano:
I think people should, should vote for me because I am relatable. You know, middle-class went to Maryland, went to American. I live in Hyattsville. I did restaurant work for years and years, and now work with body shops. You know, I’m a candidate that relates to the everyday Hyattsville resident. You know, I live down the street from Northwest high school, you know, Len Bias went there, it’s March madness. You know I would like for, for Maryland and Hyattsvillers to bring his name up more often, his family did a great job. I, after his passing of raising awareness and doing a lot for the local community. You know, and I, I think that story kind of gets lost, you know, 30, 35 years later, you know. So I think we have a lot going forward. I think I can, you know, relate to a lot of different people on a lot of different aspects. You know, my wife is a Pacific Islander. My dad is gay and is married down in South Florida. So I think given that, I have some unique experiences that allow me to be relatable.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Theis:
Last question, many hot button issues in our nation’s political discourse are at their heart local issues. And I’m talking about such things as policing policy, education policy, or debates over renaming or removing landmarks and parks. How do you identify politically in a national context, such as progressive conservative, democratic, Republican socialist, or libertarian, or any other term under the sun, and how do those values inform the policies you would pursue here in Hyattsville?
Alfano:
So I would say that the answer to that question would be I’m, I’m human and I have a humanistic approach. You know, I’m a staunch Andrew Yang supporter: humanity forward and not left, not right, but forward. So progressive on that technological sense, using data and science to come to an informed decision. But at the same time, you know, having spent so many years in the hospitality industry, utilizing those skills to address, you know, education and policing. It’s one of them, you know, there’s a lot of different aspects to police. You know, a lot of people, you know, a word that gets thrown around is defund. I’m not sure what that means. I think funds can be allocated differently, but I think we need to look at a lot of different things. What are we asking the police to do? What are the needs that the community. You know, you look at Hyattsville over 30% of the high school population is Latino.
Alfano:
You know, how many of those, you know, teaching schools and policing and other opportunities are native Spanish speakers or fluent speakers. You know, I speak Spanish. I lived in South America for six months on the university exchange program. It makes a big difference to, you know, to those individuals to make sure the voices get heard. And so I think, you know, a lot of it is just being able to listen and understand you know, I can relate to people in the rural South. I lived there for a long time. I lived in Appalachia. I know, I’ve been to the old coal mines that don’t exist anymore. my dad’s husband, his dad died as a coal miner. He died of black lung when he was in high school and that’s just part of West Virginia culture and that’s part of their life. And then having lived in a country that had a dictator and how you look at government, that’s a big deal.
Alfano:
Uh, we have a lot of Salvadorians, a lot of central Americans that live in Hyattsville. You know, it’s, it’s very, very different. when you come from a place where you can’t trust, you know, the police, you can’t trust the government to come a country where, you know, that’s, that’s the norm. So I think there’s just a lot of things. There’s a lot of underlying issues and we, we, as a society, try to put too many band-aids on it. Cause it’s easier than actually addressing the issues of, you know, what does this entail? Who, who are we trying to serve? How can we best help people?
Theis:
Okay. That’s excellent. That was my last question. Adam, I’d like to thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today to everyone out there watching along on route one, reporter.com. Thank you very much for watching and get out there and vote. Have a good day.