June 3, 2026 • 62 mins
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings — the former Orlando police chief turned local executive who is now running for governor of Florida — joins the Chuck Toddcast for a candid conversation about the challenges of being a Democrat in modern Florida and the lessons his unusual career path (accountant, then cop, then mayor) brings to executive leadership. Demings reveals that Governor Ron DeSantis personally threatened to remove him from office over his opposition to ICE operations in Orange County, and uses that experience as the entry point to a broader discussion about what's gone wrong with American law enforcement. He argues you cannot solve police shortages by lowering recruiting standards — exactly what he says ICE did when it ramped up so quickly that screening and training went out the window, with the predictable consequence that ICE has now begun poaching trained officers from state and local departments. Demings makes the case that we have to get criminals off the streets but it has to be done lawfully, that state law enforcement should not be doing immigration work, and that being elected sheriff as a partisan position creates real tensions because the actual responsibilities of the job aren't partisan at all. He pushes back on the idea that he's running to be a "performance politician" and frames his candidacy as wanting to bring competent local-government experience to a state level that he says is suffering from leaders chasing viral moments rather than delivering services.
The conversation turns to the structural challenges facing Florida and the deeper question of why Democrats can't win statewide in a state that's growing more diverse by the year. Demings argues Florida's underpaid state legislators simply don't attract quality talent, that many longtime Florida Democrats have left the party out of pure frustration, and that the party's central task is to restore basic public belief in government's capacity to function. He's willing to give DeSantis credit for diversifying and growing Florida's economy, but argues the state needs to find efficiencies rather than continually burdening local governments with expenses it should be covering itself — and points to slashed state mental health funding as a direct driver of the violent crime he sees in his community. Demings is sharp on Florida's climate exposure, arguing the state is building in places it absolutely should not be building, and that hurricane-hardened construction standards need a major overhaul, He flags the NAACP's call for athletes to avoid schools in remapping states as the kind of extreme response that extreme government actions inevitably provoke, and warns that the politics of division are starting to genuinely threaten Florida's tourism economy — meaning the state's longtime economic engine may finally be running into the consequences of the culture wars its leaders have spent the past decade fueling.
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Timeline:
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)
00:00 Jerry Demings joins the Chuck ToddCast
01:00 How did you go from accountant to police to mayor?
02:15 Accounting background helped with managing the city budget
03:30 How has Orlando changed since the time you were a police officer in the 80s?
05:00 Working on police reform both locally and nationally
06:15 Should the focus for police be better recruiting or better training?
07:00 Lowering recruiting standards can’t be the answer to police shortages
07:45 ICE was forced to ramp up so fast they didn’t screen or train recruits properly
09:15 We have to get criminals off the street, but it has be done lawfully
10:00 What were the unintended consequences of ICE’s questionable recruitment?
11:15 ICE began poaching state and local police officers
13:15 Should county sheriff be an elected position?
14:30 Political considerations do enter the equation when you’re elected
16:00 Size of jurisdiction does matter when it comes to appointed vs. elected
17:00 Sheriff is elected as a partisan position, but the responsibilities aren’t partisan
18:00 Why did you want to run for governor?
20:30 Want to take experience at local level government to a larger level
21:15 Ron DeSantis threatened to remove him over opposition to ICE
24:00 How would you work with the Republican dominated legislature?
26:00 Republicans have a large voter regis
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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first box and free croissants for life when you visit
wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo
code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace,
so use that code well. Joining me now is, as
many of you know, I may not be an official
(01:46):
resident of Florida, but I still am a Floridian, which
means I'm always going to over index on Florida politicians
on this podcast. And joining me now is the mayor
of Orange County, also a candidate for governor. It is
Jerry Demings, your mayor. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Thank you so much, glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'll admit so I did a little research, and I'll
admit there's something in here that I was that you
have a terrific unusual background for a politician. The reason
I say this is that it's not every day that
there are elected officials whose first trade was accountant. And
given how we have so many governments who don't know
(02:28):
how to balance books at all, I think we could
use some more accountants in politics. Tell me how do
you go from accountant to police officer to sheriff to mayor?
Tell me about accounting? About that past.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So, yes, I'm a graduate of Florida State University, where
I studied.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
All that against it, I tease that, And I'm married
to a knowle.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It happens, it does happen, And so am I a
mayor to a no. But when I was undergraduate, I
was highly recruited by various federal law enforcement agencies. But
when I got to graduation, the first job that I
(03:10):
took was as an accountant. But while I was working
for about a years an accountant, the federal government continued
to pursue me, and quite frankly, they convinced me that
a career in law enforcement might be a good career
for me. Secondly, I saw some things happening in my
neighborhook that I didn't like, where the neighborhood was becoming
(03:32):
infested in drugs. I had a brother was addicted to heroin,
and I was just frustrated, but I wanted to do
something about it, and so I applied to the Orlando
Police Department, and obviously I got hired. I thought I
would stay there for a year, and I ended up
staying there for twenty one plus years and rising from
(03:53):
a police officer street comp to chief of Police and
had the privilege of being appointed you police in nineteen
nine to eight. But the accounting kind of helped me
to run the agency because it wasn't just about public
safety at that point. I was brought in, you know,
several hundred million dollar operation at that point, and it
(04:15):
just kind of set me up perfectly for what I'm
doing today because I started out at the local level,
the granular level, understanding the true needs of people who
struggle within their communities.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You know, I was born and raised in Miami, and
I noticed that you're born and raised in Orlando. And
I'm sure you've gotten this because I get it. It's
like nobody's born in Miami, nobody's born in Orlando. Everybody
moves to Orlando, but you're a native, and that's interesting
to me because you've seen you know, I've always say
Florida has changed more than it's not changed as far
(04:52):
as my experiences have been. You know, you know, I've
left Miami in nineteen ninety. By two thousand, Miami was
more different than it was the same. And that's just
the story of Florida. Florida's always growing, it's always changing.
But talk about Orlando in the eighties when you became
a police officer to what Orlando is today.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So and back to her the eighties. At that time,
it was a period of call for reform of the
nation's law enforcement agencies. We came off of Arriot in
the nineteen eighty period of time, and I.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Was starting all over Florida. We had three of them
in Miami in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You know, you're correct. It was happening all over Florida,
all over the country. And so as I entered law enforcement,
there were these calls for police reform. And so here
I am forty five years later, and I will tell
you that there's still calls a police reform, but today
that call is for police reform of our federal immigration
(05:53):
and customs enforcement agents more so than the state of
locals and so Florida. My entire forty five year career
of a public has always been a call to take
a look at the way we do business as a
law enforcement agency, as a local government. And so I've
had the opportunity now to live through four and a
(06:16):
half decades of change, concert change, and so here i
am today. I say that that experience of being here
at the granular level has adequately prepared me for the
state wide level. Now. Over these years, I've been able
to have appointments to different state oversight commissions, to federal
(06:39):
oversight commissions. I had an opportunity during the Obama administration
to be appointed to the FEMA National Advisory Council. I
had the opportunity to speak on behalf of the nation's
law enforcement agencies and how to bring about change as
part of different national committees, and the same with the
State of Florida. Had opportunity to serve on the Criminal
(07:00):
Justice Standards and Training Commission here in Florida that regulates
law enforcement agencies, and I've enjoyed doing it. But also
I've had the opportunity to really delve into some of
the most significant issues facing just working class people here
within our state. And that has set me up perfectly
(07:22):
to be a mayor now, you know, and been a
shaff lease, chief mayor, deputy county administrator.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
All of those things, the sun total of those things
gave me experience, broad experience by wish to govern, and
also the measure the performance of our state and local
governments over the years.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Let me go to law enforcement training. What's the look?
There's no one. I don't want to sit here and
say there's just one answer here. But is it better
recruiting or better training? That should be the focus? You
know it should be? You know, is it you got
to recruit a certain type of person, of a certain
(08:04):
type of character or training matters more than anything what
would be your you know what matters more here?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
What matters is not one of those things, but all
of them. You got to hire the right people in
the first place. And today, in the competitive hiring environment
that law enforcement or public service binds themselves in in general,
there's a lot of competition out there, and if you're
not careful because of the competition, your lower your standards,
(08:35):
and sometimes by lowering your standards, you're not going to
get the right people through the door in the first place.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
This is a huge problem, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, they could be ethically compromised, but then training. Once
you focus on getting the right people who have backgrounds
with the desired kinds of backgrounds that you want to
see from a hiring perspective, then you have to train
them adequately. And then the third piece really is you
have to provide adequate supervision. If you lead men and
(09:07):
women to the human experience out there, sometimes they'll make
a poor decision they need because of the lack of
experience of what happened. You need to have good supervision.
And the fourth piece you have is you have to
hold an account That means you have to have the
appropriate discipline. One of the things that we've seen now
with the frustration the immigration and customs enforcement, they've had
(09:29):
to ramp up so quickly because the President forced this
quick ramp up until they didn't have time to really
adequately scream and hire the right people. Then, secondly, they
didn't provide adequate training because they wanted to get them
in the field so quickly, they cut the training in short.
(09:49):
And then the third thing is they haven't really supervised them.
They don't have well experienced people who are doing the supervision.
And then lastly, they didn't hold them accountable and as
a result of that we saw some outcomes that appear
very cruel to Americans. Regardless of what party you're in,
(10:09):
it was cruel. We saw some consequences of that that. Unfortunately,
when you put law enforcement officers out there with a
gun on where they can have the authority to use
deadly force or force, that force needs to be appropriate
given the circumstances, and good law enforcement agencies are trained
(10:31):
to avoid the use of deadly force if they can.
But you got to have all of those ingredients that
I just talked about in order to avoid a calamity.
And that's why we have seen now the challenges that
we have with immigration and customed enforcement. Now, of course,
we all agree that you want to get the worst
or the worst off of our streets, the most violent offenders.
(10:54):
We don't want them in our country, we don't want
them in our state, we don't want them in our neighborhoods.
But the way you go about doing that still has
to a job with the law and best practices, and
some of what we have seen now is just not
best practices when it comes to law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Well, you know, it's the recruiting videos that Ice used.
I watch a lot of college football and so what
was what was jarring during college football season this last
fall was and they would sort of target by community, Hey, Seattle,
do you want to you know, not have be told
(11:35):
how to be?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You know?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Are you tired of essentially being told you have to
follow a certain set of rules. Come come to Ice,
you know, and we're going to throw all this money
at you. What were the unintended consequences for for a
sheriff's department, like like Orange Counties with these ad campaigns
that were all over the country. This was and it
(11:58):
was essentially they were trying to recruit other law enforcement,
which of course only undermined local law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, even the sheriffs across the nation and some of
the sheriffs here in Florida, they pushed back because quite frankly,
they were competing for talent. When you look at the
minimum qualifications to be a law enforcement officer, they're pretty stiff.
But what we saw happening is in this field of competition,
(12:33):
the sheriffs in the nation primarily said we're going to
cooperate with the federal immigration enforcement efforts. Certainly the sheriffs
in Florida did that. The oval lambing majority of them said, hey,
we're signing on board because in our state, the majority
of the sheriff's just happened to be Republicans, and so
(12:53):
they were playing they were playing an ice with ice,
but then Ice turning around out on them and started
offering some of their officers and deputies incentives, signing bonuses,
and that frustrated the sheriffs, and so they began to
call them out and say, wait a minute, this is
(13:14):
supposed to be a partnership. We did not look for
you to be poaching from our men and women who
are serving our local agencies, and especially some of the
state law enforcement officers here in the state of Florida.
Many of the state law enforcement officers are the lawyers
paid law enforcement officers in the state of Florida, and
(13:36):
so even within the state, when Ron de Santis chose
to really step outside of his core responsibilities as a
governor to protect the state, he stepped into the arena
of doing federal immigration enforcement. Immigration is a federal responsibility,
not a state, although we all have to protect our
(13:57):
borders in order to keep our states safe. But he
really got all in at all costs, and the last
that I have heard the state of Florida, with the
promise from the federal government, is oled over six hundred
million dollars that really could have gone to take care
of some of the essential needs of our state. We
(14:19):
have homelessness that seem to have spiked here within the
state of Florida, and many different affordability issues related to
our social issues that the state could have used those
dollars to assist our local governments and really deal with
some of the affordability issues. But rather, because they jumped
(14:42):
into immigration and customer enforcement, those dollars are no longer available.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Look, I want to move to why you're running for governor,
but one last question for you on certain law enforcement.
Should the county sheriff be an elected position? I mean,
I know the state wants it to be, but you know,
and I know like Miami Dade County had to add this.
They didn't want to have an elected sheriff, and then
(15:07):
they I think they're sort of were forced to because
not every community thinks that should be something that's up
for up for a vote.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Okay, so I've been through all three, right, I've been
a chief of police, an appointed chief of police by
the City of Orlando.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Mayor, working for a mayor essentially right a mayor.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I've been a director of public safety working for the county,
and I've been an elected sheriff. And what I can
tell you is that sometimes as an appointed chief of police,
politics enter into the issues that I had to deal with.
Sometimes politics related to funding adequately funding my police agency.
(15:52):
Sometimes politics entered into the priorities about how we would
deploy resources. Now always said I'm forever grateful for the
mayor that appointed me. The only wanted to have served
as mayor of the City of Orlando Lyndy Hood. But
sometimes we had conflict as things were happening. I was
(16:15):
chief of police during the events of nine to eleven
and there was a nexus even here to our local
government with that. I won't get into the details now,
so suffice it to say, you know it wasn't perfect then.
As an appointed director of public safety by the county
wide mayor, again politics kind of in and into that.
(16:36):
I had oversight for the jail during that era, and
sometimes you have frustration related to the costs of benefit
of how we were doing business. But when you appointed,
sometimes you are not free to be as interesting fred
(16:56):
as you want to be. When you're making statements to
the public. But now I will tell you my style
was my agreement with both the mayor both mayors was
that you hired me to run this agency, and if
you want to run it, I'm not your guy. But
then as a sheriff, a sheriff is elected an electric
constitutional officer and really can depoliticize to some extent the
(17:22):
breath of the responsibilities of law enforcement and can I believe,
more effectively advocate for a budget, can more effectively be
held totally responsible for the employ up under their command.
And so it really depends on the size of the agency.
(17:45):
Some of these law enforcement agencies, quite frankly, are just
not large enough and some of those duties should be
better handled by a medium to a larger agency for
just for cause efficiency, And so I see all of them.
It depends on the community.
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It sounds like you think size of jurisdiction. You being
able to deal with a mayor as a peer rather
than as a subordinate. Is you're making it. I mean,
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's an
interesting argument, that you're peer to peer with a mayor
(20:18):
on advocating for money rather than having to play the
internal political game.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yes, because some of the other politicians while here the
Orlando mayor is a non partisan position. The Range County
mayor that I serve in now as non partisant. I
didn't get elected just by Democrats. I got elected by
an entire community and in some jurisdiction The sheriff is
a partisan position in this jurisdiction. When I was elected
(20:44):
as sheriff, it was a part of some position. However,
the role and the responsibility that I had was a
non partisan role was to keep people safe. I really
didn't care what party they were in long as a Democrat,
and so I think there's something to be said about that.
And because of that, I typically always had bipartisan support.
(21:06):
I want all of my elections as a sheriff. I
was on the ballot five times. I won all five
of those elections by landslide overwhelmingly, three general elections and
two primaries during the decade that I was a sheriff here,
and so I have the greatest admiration for the men
and women who serve, but I believe that I had
(21:27):
a little bit more authority being the high sheriff. The
sheriff and counties considered one of the highest local elected
officials anywhere in the country, and I had the privilege
of being to serve in that role.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
All right, So here's the basic question. Why do you
want to run for governor? Why do you want to
be governor?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I want to run for governor because I care about
my state. I've demonstrated after forty five years of public
service now having been very active in our state's politics,
haven't been very active in setting the priorities for our
state from a local government perspective, through numerous different organizations
(22:10):
I have been part of from being part of the
Florida Chiefs of Police Association, to being part of the
Florida Supreme Court Mental Health and Substance Abuse Task Force,
to being part of the Florida Sheriff's Association, to being
part of the Mayor's Association, to being part of the
(22:32):
Florida Association of Counties, and even at the national level,
being active with the National Association of Counties, being acted
with our state associations. It has given me the opportunity
to lead in bringing about the type of reform, the
type of governance that we want to see at the local, state,
(22:56):
and federal level. And so because of that, I have
great joy in being part of the solution, rather than
just being part of the problem, of sitting on the
sidelines and just rather than trying to make things happen
and bring about the change that one would want to see,
I've chosen to get into the fight. And the other
(23:17):
thing quite frankly, that really forced me to finally make
a decision was the unfair, uneven reviewing, the scrutiny that
the state was putting local governments under. They created this
farce of a dolge process here in the state of
Florida that was right in political agendas, and they came
(23:41):
into our county And just today, as a matter of fact,
the chief financial officer for the State of Florida came
into my county and criticized how we were doing business.
And he doesn't have a clue about one money management.
He has no real credentials in that regard. But he's
running for re election and so he's a performance politician
(24:05):
that came in. But we are wrestling with the needs
of our community day to day. So just the prospects
of taking my level of interest and public service to
the next level, I'm really highly motivated to move to
be governor to kind of expand the work that we're
(24:26):
doing here. We can gain some one respect back as
a local government because our state has been pre empty
local government authority and that's frustrating for all of us
who serve at the local level, and it's unfair, quite frankly,
to the citizens. So all of that has motivated me.
And then the last thing that I will tell you
(24:46):
that motivated me to get in this race. The Census
administration threatened to remove me from office and all six
members of my Border count of Commission when I challenged
his zeal to force local governments here in Florida into
(25:06):
supporting immigration and customs enforcement. And when I pushed back
on that, after all the other local governments had signed agreements,
I was pushing back all signing the agreement. And so
he announced publicly, you know, through media forums, that if
we didn't sign the agreement, he was going to remove
(25:29):
us from office. Now, this is because Florida had passed
legislation that said that all local governments must cooperate with
immigration enforcement using their best efforts. Failure to do so
will result in your removal from office. But we have
seen the governor here remove our prosecute, our state attorney
(25:49):
from this jurisdiction, and so it was somewhat of a
real threat. But then when we really studied my legal
team and I studied the agreements, it really didn't require
us to do anything that we had not been doing
for a decade. And so reluctantly. I signed the immigration
Agreement in the Government Services Agreement, and it really didn't
(26:14):
require us to do anything because the jail reports to
me ultimately as the CEO for our county. It doesn't
report to the sheriff. Our sheriff had already signed the
two eighty seven G from the law enforcement perspective, like
all sixty seven other sheriffs in Florida had done. And
then in terms of the sixty seven counties, all the
other counties had signed it before before I did. But
(26:38):
it really has been effectively meaningless to us. We still
do what we needed to do. But all of those
things kind of frustrated me and said, you know what
we can do better and if we want better results,
then we have to elect people and send people the
talent has it to do the work it needs to
be done, that's not afraid to do so. And so
(27:00):
I'm here, I'm running now to be that person to
bring back some normalcy and some balance in our style
of governing here in the state of Florida. If that
makes sense to you.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
No, it look it makes sense. But let me let
me talk about challenge number one for you. Let's say
you get elected governor in Orange County, you've got a
county Commission that uh shares your worldview, at least politically.
As governor, you're not going to have a legislature that's
probably going to share, uh share your what. You're going
to have a potentially a pretty combustible relationship. Who knows right?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
How do you work? You know what?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
What's your How are you going to work with a
Republican legislature that's you know, that can have a mind
of their own. Even Governor DeSantis would tell you that.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Well, I work with them now, uh with me? And
not all just about partisanship. It's about right versus wrong.
And I believe when you focus on what's right versus wrong,
we all know what that looks like. Even though today
we have people and leadership positions who are working really
hard to make right look wrong and wrong look right.
(28:15):
So I look forward to going to the state level
having some common sense and balanced approaches to government. My
style of leadership is not to just always make the
decision Uni Ladderman, but to involve the people and making
decisions for themselves. I never forget that we are a
government of the people and by the people. It's we
(28:36):
the people. And so when we get back to doing that,
and we can get back to doing that, then we
can perhaps bridge some of the gaps that exist today
along partisan lines. I happen to be a Democrat. I'm
registered to be a Democrat when I think I was
seventeen and a half years old, so we're talking about
about fifty years since I've been a Democrat. I lined
(28:58):
up there. But I'm a Democrat, and here in our
local jurisdiction, I don't just represent Democrats. I represent everybody
in this community and the governor. If the governor is
doing his or her job correctly, they shall never forget
that they represent all of the people, no matter how
you get there. And so I've demonstrated that over time.
(29:21):
I've always had some bipartisan support in my elections, especially
now because it's a non partisan race. I probably had
as many republicanly vote for me as anybody else did.
And so the path of victory for me now as governor,
even though the Republicans have a one and a half
(29:41):
million or so registration advantage over Democrats, they won't be
Democrats and Republicans won't be the only ones who will
be voting in this election cycle. All of those minor
parties are no party affiliates or the so called independence,
they will vote and even I tell you every day
(30:01):
I have some wonderful Republican friends who I respect. Just
today I was out of the airport at our Bought
meeting and some of my Republican friends kind of talked
to me about what was going on in Cuba. And
some of them have supported me financially what I have
had to raise money. Some of them I have appointed
(30:23):
to various positions, and so I look forward to getting
back to a tallahasset that is not just focused on
divisions because they're not healthy for our state. At the
end of the day, some of what we're seeing in
our state here a state where the President calls home,
(30:44):
but what is happening in Washington, d C. Is dividing people,
and people are seeing that. I believe people want something different.
So I got into this race to offer Floridians something different,
a person that is no drama. I'm not a performance politician,
you know. I take the work that we do very
(31:05):
seriously to offer them an experienced leader. I'm an experienced CEO.
Now my budget that I'm manage her in a Range
county is about nine point seven billion dollars this year.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
A dozen states.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
But I handled real issues, dealing with homelessness, mental health
related issues, dealing with community issues, and that's what I'll take.
Even crisis you know I've had over the years, I've
had the kitchen sink thrown that million in terms of
from responding to a terror attack, the Pulse ninth Club incident,
(31:42):
to managing a global pandemic. So as governor, the governor's
role is to not just govern during the good times,
but bad times, and that means taking care of all
all people, regardless of the political persuade.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Well, look, I mean you a strong case could be made,
ears prepared as anybody I've ever seen to run for governor.
But as you know, it isn't always about whether who's
got the best resume, right, So what's your diagnosis as
to why Democrats have not elected a governor since Lawton Childs.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
We lost our our footing, okay, And I believe some
of that is because of part ofsan politics. Sometimes quite frankly,
we perhaps didn't run our best and our brightest. And
in the state of Florida, there's been a deliberate attempt
to not pay our legislators in the State House or
(32:38):
the State Senate. Very well, you're talking about someone for
the work that they do, making twenty seven to twenty
nine thousand dollars a year. And quite frankly, it's a
part time legislature. We're probably will pass them being part time.
But it has been deliberate, i believe by the party
(33:00):
in power to keep the payload so that they would
attract a few of people who are I'm going to
say more suited, more experienced, and so that's a problem.
And so they have jerry manner the districts. They have
put their foot on the scale through redistricting efforts, through
(33:21):
the ability to appunt our members of the judiciary right
from the Florida Supreme Court all the way down to
our local county courts, and so all of that has
resulted in this dominance that we see of the Republican
Party within the state of Florida. And they don't intend
to change. They want they're doubling down. We see Jerry
(33:44):
Manda redistricting maps now based upon partisanship. Whether they will
admit it or not, that's quite frankly what they.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Thought that was unconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
That's probably going to be un constitutional. But then this
blending of the courts with the executive branch with the
legislative branches happened. But getting back to the central core
of your question, I think that Democrats could have run
better candidates, and I say that very objectively, and we didn't.
(34:15):
And sometimes some of the positions that we took were
not consistent with where the majority of Floridians were. And
so we've learned from that, and so we have to
get close under the Baill curve where more people are
because quite frankly, we shared some Democrats. What I mean
by that is there are some who were Democrats who
(34:39):
got frustrated with our party and they left the Democratic
Party and they are now no party affiliates or independence
and so we have to take ownership in the blame
for that because we didn't listen. We were not listening
to them. So the path to victory for me is
to make sure that I'm talking about the issues that's
important order to the majority of Floridians. I have to
(35:03):
make certain that we create a pathway to victory where
we talk about the issues that's important, where I'm perceived
as being electable. Also, we have to make sure that
(35:23):
we organize and mobilize this grassroots movement that we're talking
about today. Uh, in order for me to get elected
and at the end of the day, demonstrate that, you know,
I'm confident and I'm comfortent uh to do the work
that needs to be done. Uh and broaden my appeal
(35:46):
to the masses, the overwhelming majority of people. And so
we have a way that we're doing that. I'm running
a campaign. I have to communicate what we will do. Uh.
We have to breed some hope back into the Democratic partner.
(36:06):
The Democrats in Florida have lost and lost in since
thirty two years.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, it's a little bit like the football.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I don't know if they believe. I can tell you
the national people they don't believe.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
So you see this this pen that I wear. I
branded my campaign to Believe campaign. So I do have
to talk with people about believe again in your government.
Believe that you can have an impact on who gets elected.
And so that's what I'm doing. I'm running to create
(36:41):
this believed movement and give them some of what our
Republican friends are doing right now. They're helping us, you know,
we're seeing some changes across the state of Florida where
we are seeing more Democrats elected to positions we've just
sold last evening in Georgia, you know, on the Democratic side,
(37:03):
Keisha lance Bottom won that primary. We're seeing here in
the state of Florida. In some areas right in President
Trump's backyard, you know, Democratic House member got elected. We're
seeing those things. So we're seeing some signs that Americans
are frustrated. People within our state are frustrated and they
(37:26):
want something different, and we have to capitalize on this
movement for change, and so all of that is a
pathway to victory for us.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
What's the Santus done right in his eight years.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I do believe that one of the things that DeSantis
has done right is he has focused the state on commerce,
on diversifying our economy. Our economy is thriving, and we
(38:02):
are the land of opportunities. The growth in this state
has continued where people are migrating here from all over
the world. He did, of course, he didn't do it alone.
I believe that the investments into our state have been
partly because of we're state with no state income tax,
(38:25):
and long before the Santis got in office, he kind
of he's been able to capitalize on the momentum that
the state had. But for the most part, he's created
some momentum with international business that is here. And so
I certainly don't agree with him with many things. You know,
(38:46):
as we were dealing with COVID, you know, I sparred
with him over COVID protocols. As it relates to healthcare,
I think he's done a terrible job our state. The
costs of healthcare, and our state has gone up significantly,
our healthcare from corporate perspective. Uh, they're tops in the
(39:07):
nation in revenue above in terms of health care affordability,
we rank forty fifth or near the bottom in that regard.
So you have done a great job there, And I
can go on and on about it, but you know,
I try to be back.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I know it's a you got more cases against them,
But you know, you strike me as somebody that isn't
going to assume somebody is one hundred percent wrong all
the time.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
No, rarely it is somebody one hundred percent role of
all the time. And no, are you one hundred percent
right if you're that person. Now, we see some personalities
on the national scene. Now I believe that they are
right one hundred percent of the time. Well, they're really honest.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
That's that's yeah, that's I'm going to pick up two
issues that are very Florida centric. You sort of hinted
at one of them, you know when it when it
came to the no income tax, because it's about how
your fund government when you don't have an income tax.
And we look, Florida ain't gonna get an income tax
anytime soon. I'm not going to sit here and say
that that's the answer. But does the state need more
(40:13):
revenues or does it need a better or does it
need to be prioritized better.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Well, we're growing state, okay, we're the fastest growing state
in the Union. When you're growing, it's going to require
more money. The cost of living has gone off. One
of the things I pride myself on is being a
good steward of the people's money. But sometimes these priorities
(40:44):
are shifting. We'll state where we're a peninsula. We have
been adversely impacted by major storms and hurricanes. That's cost here.
Those things are very unpredictable. We cannot control the global
economy with some of what we're seeing with the influx
of people who are coming in who find themselves ill
(41:07):
prepared to really thrive in our environment, and so quite frankly,
you know, the cost of living has gone up so
much our workers. In order to keep our workforce, you
got to pay people. In order to get the food
to the market from the fields, you got to pay people.
We are relying on immigrants, and God bless the immigrants
(41:29):
who want to come here and do the difficult work
for the amount of money that they're paid paid. And
so as a result of all of that, I think
that our state needs more money. But government should always
look for the opportunity to look for inefficiencies, and when
you find those efficiencies, you should use those dollars to
(41:54):
do other things well. But the fact that we're growing,
growing in complexity, I don't see a scenario where the
state's budget really is going to decline. What our state
solution to these issues right now has been to deflect
(42:14):
them to the local governments. Where our state is.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Not property taxes right and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
They're not working hand in love with our local governments.
They're putting a burden on our local governments to come
up with the solutions to the most difficult challenges that
we have, housing, affordability, transit, transportation, healthcare, all of those
things they're putting on the backs of local governments. While
(42:43):
they can say, well, we reduce the state's budget, but
they've transferred it to us. And that's what frustrates those
of us at the local government because.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Especially one who's been an accountant, you actually know how
that legacy works. Not everybody, not every mayor.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Does I know how this works as a mayor. Had
been the perfect setup for me to be the governor
to understand how we can more efficiently use money, because really,
if we invested more and some of the social challenges,
it's like treatment fundamentally ill, like treatment for the substance abuser,
(43:22):
like treatment for persons who suffer with various behavioral disorders,
are core occurring issues. When we work with spending money
on the front end to get those individuals more self
reliant in a self indulgent world, we can get them
more functional. Sometimes they're not committing crimes, they're not stealing
(43:42):
because they're on drugs. We changed our public policy in
our county and I've been part of that now for
quite some time, and by doing so, we have avoided
increasing costs in our county, the state of Florida. If
we spend more time with health care and mental health
(44:03):
related issues, we probably will have had less violent crime
because some of these persons who go out and commit
violent crime, they're mentally ill. With the moss that was
just attacked they or so ago in California, I suspected
those young people, those teenagers have been radicalized. I suspect
(44:26):
that they probably were in need of some mental health
counseling and treatment. But it's too late for that. You know,
they acquired guns and went and killed innocent people. Well,
if they had gotten the right treatment, maybe some people
will be alive today. In my experience, I responded to
these scenes where I've had law enforcement officers who were
(44:48):
seriously injured, shot and killed in the line of duty
because they were confronted by a person who was mentally ill,
who had a god. All of those types of things
we have to get serious about talking about, I believe,
as a nation, as a state, how to more effectively
(45:10):
address some of those types of issues. Because if we
reduce crime, we reduce recidivism. By getting people healthy again,
we reduce costs, and so that's what I do. I
take the cast savings and then I use it for
some some other needs.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
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And yes, I too, am a customer. Look, my mother
lives in Seminole County, so I hear about this a lot.
Which is the following she gets a new insurance company.
It seems like every six months, right every year. You know,
(47:18):
she doesn't want to change insurance companies. Insurance companies pull
out or they decide they can't cover homeowners. And we
know why the problem is this is you said it earlier.
Florida's a peninsula and it's just going to get more storms.
There doesn't seem to be a good answer. How do
you either entice more insurance companies to come to Florida
and write policies to create better competition and hopefully lower prices,
(47:42):
or do you subsidize And there doesn't seem to be
a good consensus, and I don't know if there's a
good answer, But what's your plan?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Well, I think you have to do really four things. One,
I do believe that Florida needs to incentivize up in
casually insurance companies moving here in the state of Florida, Okay,
through our regulatory authority. I believe that there's an opportunity
to do that, to create more competition by creating incentives
(48:13):
if that is reducing if they move into the state,
creating a center for reduction in property taxes for them
or business taxes for them. There's an opportunity to do that.
The second thing that if we create this competition, typically
(48:33):
competition drives price down. If we do are successful in that,
then the second thing that we should do is require
that when they make profit in this state beyond a
certain point, they should have to be required and reinvested
in the state of Florida. And in order since they
get the incentives. The third thing that happens in the
(48:55):
state of Florida is we have a lot of fraud.
There are a number of people who file fraudalent claims,
and the State of Florida doesn't do a really good
job of investigating the fraud that happens. At least three
different state agencies in the State of Florida stigation that's
(49:15):
related here. In addition to those, private and insurance companies
have their own fraud investigators. So for me, I want
to consolidate the responsibility for the investigation of fraud and
to lawn state agency and then I law the person's
the staff to focus in that area. Right now, some
(49:37):
of our law enforcement in the state of Florida is
being pulled off of doing investigations and they're doing immigration
and customers enforcement. Right they're doing what the federal government
really should be doing and not what the state should
be doing. And then the next thing that I think,
we have a state that is heavily influenced by developm
(50:01):
They kind of controlled tallahassee, uh they go and we
see legislation that is introduced that preemps local government authority.
It comes to land use related decisions, and when you
take the decision making out of the hands of those
local authorities, and you invested really in the influence of
(50:23):
the legislators and the developers. We are building and places
that we shouldn't be on this peninsula. We are not
adequately recognizing the consequences of sea level rise and global warming,
and all of those are things that are real. And
(50:45):
I believe through our regulatory authority, we can build to
a higher standard where we build when we're not building homes,
whereas in flood zones and what have you that since
you grew up in Miami. When I go to Miami,
I see all types of calamities there because the building
(51:06):
codes were not consistent, They're irregular. There are people who
were allowed to build too close to wetlands, on wetlands
and the like. And so from I believe from a
sustainability perspective, we have not done what we should be
doing in the state of Florida to protect our environment,
(51:28):
and so we have to make some improvements there. So
we do those things, harden the target for when the
hurricane made the storm comes, then we can reduce costs.
We can't do a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Of should the state Should the state band manufactured homes?
And I say this, I'll give you an example, Rick,
I remember after the hurricane that hit sout I say,
the hurricane so many hurricanes. I think it was Charlotte
or I'm probably confusing Charlotte County, but it was one
of the hurricanes that sort of came came over Fort Myers, Naples, Charlotte,
(52:03):
that area of the state, and Collier County had banned
manufacture housing. Charlotte County had not. Even though the hurricane's
eye went over Collier, there was more damage than Charlotte.
It's because those manufactured homes just can't withstand even the
category ones versus Collier County had less property damage because
(52:27):
they had high It was my county higher standards, and
you know it was I remember the Senator Scott made
this point and then I said, well, then should we
not have manufactured housing? And he sort of, you know,
wasn't going to do that. And I understand the hesitancy
because a lot of developers, you know where it does
(52:49):
make homes cost more if you banned manufacture housing. And
here we are having a crunch on that. Where are
you on that?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Well, I do think that some of these manage fact
housing projects that I'm seeing now, they can stand in
a Category two or three with this move modern technology
in the way they construct some of them, but clearly
and coastal communities. Coastal communities are more likely to have
(53:18):
a direct hit from hurricane versus an inland community like
my account. But two thousand and four we had three
hurricanes that major member category hurricanes go across our count
and we're inland. Our manufactured homes really farewell. So I
think the conversation has to be about where you build
(53:39):
and what you build. And so I believe that through
having some type of guidance from the State of Florida.
I said earlier, my stylar leadership is to bring subject
down experts together and this is gonna This is an
area that I would love to tackle, is to do
a full reset and review of Florida's building and codes
(54:01):
and adopt some standards that make sense. And some of
those standards need to be based upon geographical location. Some
of those standards need to be based upon affordability because
some of the tiny homes are accessory dwelling units that
are being built now. Uh they are, They're pretty good.
(54:22):
And I can tell you in our inland counting, our
manufactured homes have fared well historically. Uh so there are
some things that you can do to mitigate the damage
and how you require them to be constructed. But then, uh,
you know, if you're out on the coastal community, uh,
(54:43):
you know, there's some challenges there. So I think that
there's some some room for change. And so these are
the types of things I enjoy tackling. H We know
that that's a serious issue. But to get the best
outcomes where we don't introvertently drive up the as the
rent payments that are already through the rules, I want
(55:04):
to make sure we have the right solution and use
a modern technology and making these types of.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Decisions, all right, I want to I always like to
end on a little lighter note. But before I get
to the lighter note, the subject matter that I'm going
to end on actually has gotten a little heavier. Over
the last twenty four hours. The NAACP is calling on
African American high school students to essentially boycott state go
(55:32):
to going to state universities in the South in states
that are remapping and getting rid of predominantly African American
congressional seats. That would you know that you know how
important college football is in the state of Florida, and
it's certainly an interesting idea that the NAACP is coming with,
(55:55):
and I understand where they're coming from on this. You
think that would be fruitful? Do you think that would
be useful in a positive protest?
Speaker 4 (56:06):
I believe that what happens when people get chronically stressed,
they resort to extraordinary responses, and what the NAACP is doing.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
Is responding to the extraordinary circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Where we live in a nation where the president by
executive water did away no or the women business enterprise
related programs. We live in a state where the governor
and the legislature passed legislation that prohibits local governments from
(56:45):
investing in diversity, equity and inclusion types of programs. As
if the playing field has been level to where we
see these gerementary district districts that that is underway. This
is caused the response to the NAACP has a jown
(57:05):
in Now. I'm a lifelong member of the NAACP, and
I wouldn't have some of the civil liberties that I have.
I wouldn't have enjoyed some of the successes I have today,
but for the fight that the NAACP of the NACP
has been involved in. However, have I said all over
(57:26):
that I do think that that's not sustainable. Okay, Here
in the state of Florida, when our governor adopted some
of the policies that he's adopted, the NAACP said, uh,
you know, supported a ban on historically black college and
(57:49):
universities coming into our state to do business with national conferences.
Uh coming into our state to do business. And because
I represent the number one tourist destination in North America,
I knew that that would not really benefit my constituents
(58:13):
in tourism. You know, ninety plus percent of the people
who work in the industry, they are black and brown people.
And if our tourism in Florida goes elsewhere, we potentially
put people out of work who they are fighting for
to have a seat at the table. And so sometimes
(58:36):
what you see is when these narratives come about, they're
motivated by different reasons. Sometimes it's geography. There are other states,
there are other regions that would love to have the
economy that Florida enjoys, And sometimes decisions are made, sometimes
(58:58):
very short sighted and not looking at the long long
term goal because quite frankly, if Florida's economy, uh, if
these football players are higher education institutions, uh, suddenly, uh,
you know, stop having black athletes. What you're going to
have is you'll have segregated institutions. And some of our
(59:22):
largest uh institutions, higher education institutions in this state are
public institutions. The University of Florida, Uh, the University of
Central Florida is the largest right here in Orlando by
student by the enrollment Florida State University where I went, Well,
you just decimated some of those institutions if uh these
(59:45):
players decided to go somewhere else. Couple with the ni
L and the professional uh payments that these athletes who
are supposedly uh not yet professionals, you know, the money
is there. I think that it's not sustainable long term,
(01:00:08):
and we could introvertently hurt people who you don't intend
to hurt by the response. So we'll have to see.
That's that's kind of my position as governor. I would
do everything that I could to keep our economic training,
to keep business coming in, to keep our universities a
(01:00:30):
focus on educating and get out of the cultural wards
and the politics, the banning of the books, all of
that is just dividing us along racial lines. And so
but I understand where they are because the actions that
our state has taken is the visit and so that's
(01:00:53):
the pushback that the NAACP finds themselves in today.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Well, when you're in Orlando, that's Gator country, is it not.
It must be tough for seminoals.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
No, this this is uh, it's probably as many seminoles
as there are gators here.
Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
Well that's good because the go to Gainesville's and you
want to do that, Yeah for that, but uh, but
we we have our fair share here because the University
of Central Florida is the largest, uh public institution in
the state of Florida.
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
You've watched that school go from literally a commuter to
your school right to what it is today.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
It's this is kind of like night country around Central Florida. Uh,
you know, their support that's probably yeah, you know, so
uh you know with space exploration, commercial space space exploration
being what it is that's taking off. You know, NASA's
has a substantial number of this employ Whill graduates from
(01:01:56):
the University of Central Florida.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Uh, Mayor deamis good to meet you. I look forward
to talking with you down the road. If if you
make it to the next round, I look forward to it.
All right, my friends all thank you sir.
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Mm hmmm mm hmm
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(01:46):
resident of Florida, but I still am a Floridian, which
means I'm always going to over index on Florida politicians
on this podcast. And joining me now is the mayor
of Orange County, also a candidate for governor. It is
Jerry Demings, your mayor. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Thank you so much, glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'll admit so I did a little research, and I'll
admit there's something in here that I was that you
have a terrific unusual background for a politician. The reason
I say this is that it's not every day that
there are elected officials whose first trade was accountant. And
given how we have so many governments who don't know
(02:28):
how to balance books at all, I think we could
use some more accountants in politics. Tell me how do
you go from accountant to police officer to sheriff to mayor?
Tell me about accounting? About that past.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So, yes, I'm a graduate of Florida State University, where
I studied.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
All that against it, I tease that, And I'm married
to a knowle.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It happens, it does happen, And so am I a
mayor to a no. But when I was undergraduate, I
was highly recruited by various federal law enforcement agencies. But
when I got to graduation, the first job that I
(03:10):
took was as an accountant. But while I was working
for about a years an accountant, the federal government continued
to pursue me, and quite frankly, they convinced me that
a career in law enforcement might be a good career
for me. Secondly, I saw some things happening in my
neighborhook that I didn't like, where the neighborhood was becoming
(03:32):
infested in drugs. I had a brother was addicted to heroin,
and I was just frustrated, but I wanted to do
something about it, and so I applied to the Orlando
Police Department, and obviously I got hired. I thought I
would stay there for a year, and I ended up
staying there for twenty one plus years and rising from
(03:53):
a police officer street comp to chief of Police and
had the privilege of being appointed you police in nineteen
nine to eight. But the accounting kind of helped me
to run the agency because it wasn't just about public
safety at that point. I was brought in, you know,
several hundred million dollar operation at that point, and it
(04:15):
just kind of set me up perfectly for what I'm
doing today because I started out at the local level,
the granular level, understanding the true needs of people who
struggle within their communities.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You know, I was born and raised in Miami, and
I noticed that you're born and raised in Orlando. And
I'm sure you've gotten this because I get it. It's
like nobody's born in Miami, nobody's born in Orlando. Everybody
moves to Orlando, but you're a native, and that's interesting
to me because you've seen you know, I've always say
Florida has changed more than it's not changed as far
(04:52):
as my experiences have been. You know, you know, I've
left Miami in nineteen ninety. By two thousand, Miami was
more different than it was the same. And that's just
the story of Florida. Florida's always growing, it's always changing.
But talk about Orlando in the eighties when you became
a police officer to what Orlando is today.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So and back to her the eighties. At that time,
it was a period of call for reform of the
nation's law enforcement agencies. We came off of Arriot in
the nineteen eighty period of time, and I.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Was starting all over Florida. We had three of them
in Miami in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You know, you're correct. It was happening all over Florida,
all over the country. And so as I entered law enforcement,
there were these calls for police reform. And so here
I am forty five years later, and I will tell
you that there's still calls a police reform, but today
that call is for police reform of our federal immigration
(05:53):
and customs enforcement agents more so than the state of
locals and so Florida. My entire forty five year career
of a public has always been a call to take
a look at the way we do business as a
law enforcement agency, as a local government. And so I've
had the opportunity now to live through four and a
(06:16):
half decades of change, concert change, and so here i
am today. I say that that experience of being here
at the granular level has adequately prepared me for the
state wide level. Now. Over these years, I've been able
to have appointments to different state oversight commissions, to federal
(06:39):
oversight commissions. I had an opportunity during the Obama administration
to be appointed to the FEMA National Advisory Council. I
had the opportunity to speak on behalf of the nation's
law enforcement agencies and how to bring about change as
part of different national committees, and the same with the
State of Florida. Had opportunity to serve on the Criminal
(07:00):
Justice Standards and Training Commission here in Florida that regulates
law enforcement agencies, and I've enjoyed doing it. But also
I've had the opportunity to really delve into some of
the most significant issues facing just working class people here
within our state. And that has set me up perfectly
(07:22):
to be a mayor now, you know, and been a
shaff lease, chief mayor, deputy county administrator.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
All of those things, the sun total of those things
gave me experience, broad experience by wish to govern, and
also the measure the performance of our state and local
governments over the years.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Let me go to law enforcement training. What's the look?
There's no one. I don't want to sit here and
say there's just one answer here. But is it better
recruiting or better training? That should be the focus? You
know it should be? You know, is it you got
to recruit a certain type of person, of a certain
(08:04):
type of character or training matters more than anything what
would be your you know what matters more here?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
What matters is not one of those things, but all
of them. You got to hire the right people in
the first place. And today, in the competitive hiring environment
that law enforcement or public service binds themselves in in general,
there's a lot of competition out there, and if you're
not careful because of the competition, your lower your standards,
(08:35):
and sometimes by lowering your standards, you're not going to
get the right people through the door in the first place.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
This is a huge problem, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, they could be ethically compromised, but then training. Once
you focus on getting the right people who have backgrounds
with the desired kinds of backgrounds that you want to
see from a hiring perspective, then you have to train
them adequately. And then the third piece really is you
have to provide adequate supervision. If you lead men and
(09:07):
women to the human experience out there, sometimes they'll make
a poor decision they need because of the lack of
experience of what happened. You need to have good supervision.
And the fourth piece you have is you have to
hold an account That means you have to have the
appropriate discipline. One of the things that we've seen now
with the frustration the immigration and customs enforcement, they've had
(09:29):
to ramp up so quickly because the President forced this
quick ramp up until they didn't have time to really
adequately scream and hire the right people. Then, secondly, they
didn't provide adequate training because they wanted to get them
in the field so quickly, they cut the training in short.
(09:49):
And then the third thing is they haven't really supervised them.
They don't have well experienced people who are doing the supervision.
And then lastly, they didn't hold them accountable and as
a result of that we saw some outcomes that appear
very cruel to Americans. Regardless of what party you're in,
(10:09):
it was cruel. We saw some consequences of that that. Unfortunately,
when you put law enforcement officers out there with a
gun on where they can have the authority to use
deadly force or force, that force needs to be appropriate
given the circumstances, and good law enforcement agencies are trained
(10:31):
to avoid the use of deadly force if they can.
But you got to have all of those ingredients that
I just talked about in order to avoid a calamity.
And that's why we have seen now the challenges that
we have with immigration and customed enforcement. Now, of course,
we all agree that you want to get the worst
or the worst off of our streets, the most violent offenders.
(10:54):
We don't want them in our country, we don't want
them in our state, we don't want them in our neighborhoods.
But the way you go about doing that still has
to a job with the law and best practices, and
some of what we have seen now is just not
best practices when it comes to law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Well, you know, it's the recruiting videos that Ice used.
I watch a lot of college football and so what
was what was jarring during college football season this last
fall was and they would sort of target by community, Hey, Seattle,
do you want to you know, not have be told
(11:35):
how to be?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You know?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Are you tired of essentially being told you have to
follow a certain set of rules. Come come to Ice,
you know, and we're going to throw all this money
at you. What were the unintended consequences for for a
sheriff's department, like like Orange Counties with these ad campaigns
that were all over the country. This was and it
(11:58):
was essentially they were trying to recruit other law enforcement,
which of course only undermined local law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, even the sheriffs across the nation and some of
the sheriffs here in Florida, they pushed back because quite frankly,
they were competing for talent. When you look at the
minimum qualifications to be a law enforcement officer, they're pretty stiff.
But what we saw happening is in this field of competition,
(12:33):
the sheriffs in the nation primarily said we're going to
cooperate with the federal immigration enforcement efforts. Certainly the sheriffs
in Florida did that. The oval lambing majority of them said, hey,
we're signing on board because in our state, the majority
of the sheriff's just happened to be Republicans, and so
(12:53):
they were playing they were playing an ice with ice,
but then Ice turning around out on them and started
offering some of their officers and deputies incentives, signing bonuses,
and that frustrated the sheriffs, and so they began to
call them out and say, wait a minute, this is
(13:14):
supposed to be a partnership. We did not look for
you to be poaching from our men and women who
are serving our local agencies, and especially some of the
state law enforcement officers here in the state of Florida.
Many of the state law enforcement officers are the lawyers
paid law enforcement officers in the state of Florida, and
(13:36):
so even within the state, when Ron de Santis chose
to really step outside of his core responsibilities as a
governor to protect the state, he stepped into the arena
of doing federal immigration enforcement. Immigration is a federal responsibility,
not a state, although we all have to protect our
(13:57):
borders in order to keep our states safe. But he
really got all in at all costs, and the last
that I have heard the state of Florida, with the
promise from the federal government, is oled over six hundred
million dollars that really could have gone to take care
of some of the essential needs of our state. We
(14:19):
have homelessness that seem to have spiked here within the
state of Florida, and many different affordability issues related to
our social issues that the state could have used those
dollars to assist our local governments and really deal with
some of the affordability issues. But rather, because they jumped
(14:42):
into immigration and customer enforcement, those dollars are no longer available.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Look, I want to move to why you're running for governor,
but one last question for you on certain law enforcement.
Should the county sheriff be an elected position? I mean,
I know the state wants it to be, but you know,
and I know like Miami Dade County had to add this.
They didn't want to have an elected sheriff, and then
(15:07):
they I think they're sort of were forced to because
not every community thinks that should be something that's up
for up for a vote.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Okay, so I've been through all three, right, I've been
a chief of police, an appointed chief of police by
the City of Orlando.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Mayor, working for a mayor essentially right a mayor.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I've been a director of public safety working for the county,
and I've been an elected sheriff. And what I can
tell you is that sometimes as an appointed chief of police,
politics enter into the issues that I had to deal with.
Sometimes politics related to funding adequately funding my police agency.
(15:52):
Sometimes politics entered into the priorities about how we would
deploy resources. Now always said I'm forever grateful for the
mayor that appointed me. The only wanted to have served
as mayor of the City of Orlando Lyndy Hood. But
sometimes we had conflict as things were happening. I was
(16:15):
chief of police during the events of nine to eleven
and there was a nexus even here to our local
government with that. I won't get into the details now,
so suffice it to say, you know it wasn't perfect then.
As an appointed director of public safety by the county
wide mayor, again politics kind of in and into that.
(16:36):
I had oversight for the jail during that era, and
sometimes you have frustration related to the costs of benefit
of how we were doing business. But when you appointed,
sometimes you are not free to be as interesting fred
(16:56):
as you want to be. When you're making statements to
the public. But now I will tell you my style
was my agreement with both the mayor both mayors was
that you hired me to run this agency, and if
you want to run it, I'm not your guy. But
then as a sheriff, a sheriff is elected an electric
constitutional officer and really can depoliticize to some extent the
(17:22):
breath of the responsibilities of law enforcement and can I believe,
more effectively advocate for a budget, can more effectively be
held totally responsible for the employ up under their command.
And so it really depends on the size of the agency.
(17:45):
Some of these law enforcement agencies, quite frankly, are just
not large enough and some of those duties should be
better handled by a medium to a larger agency for
just for cause efficiency, And so I see all of them.
It depends on the community.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
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It sounds like you think size of jurisdiction. You being
able to deal with a mayor as a peer rather
than as a subordinate. Is you're making it. I mean,
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's an
interesting argument, that you're peer to peer with a mayor
(20:18):
on advocating for money rather than having to play the
internal political game.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yes, because some of the other politicians while here the
Orlando mayor is a non partisan position. The Range County
mayor that I serve in now as non partisant. I
didn't get elected just by Democrats. I got elected by
an entire community and in some jurisdiction The sheriff is
a partisan position in this jurisdiction. When I was elected
(20:44):
as sheriff, it was a part of some position. However,
the role and the responsibility that I had was a
non partisan role was to keep people safe. I really
didn't care what party they were in long as a Democrat,
and so I think there's something to be said about that.
And because of that, I typically always had bipartisan support.
(21:06):
I want all of my elections as a sheriff. I
was on the ballot five times. I won all five
of those elections by landslide overwhelmingly, three general elections and
two primaries during the decade that I was a sheriff here,
and so I have the greatest admiration for the men
and women who serve, but I believe that I had
(21:27):
a little bit more authority being the high sheriff. The
sheriff and counties considered one of the highest local elected
officials anywhere in the country, and I had the privilege
of being to serve in that role.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
All right, So here's the basic question. Why do you
want to run for governor? Why do you want to
be governor?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I want to run for governor because I care about
my state. I've demonstrated after forty five years of public
service now having been very active in our state's politics,
haven't been very active in setting the priorities for our
state from a local government perspective, through numerous different organizations
(22:10):
I have been part of from being part of the
Florida Chiefs of Police Association, to being part of the
Florida Supreme Court Mental Health and Substance Abuse Task Force,
to being part of the Florida Sheriff's Association, to being
part of the Mayor's Association, to being part of the
(22:32):
Florida Association of Counties, and even at the national level,
being active with the National Association of Counties, being acted
with our state associations. It has given me the opportunity
to lead in bringing about the type of reform, the
type of governance that we want to see at the local, state,
(22:56):
and federal level. And so because of that, I have
great joy in being part of the solution, rather than
just being part of the problem, of sitting on the
sidelines and just rather than trying to make things happen
and bring about the change that one would want to see,
I've chosen to get into the fight. And the other
(23:17):
thing quite frankly, that really forced me to finally make
a decision was the unfair, uneven reviewing, the scrutiny that
the state was putting local governments under. They created this
farce of a dolge process here in the state of
Florida that was right in political agendas, and they came
(23:41):
into our county And just today, as a matter of fact,
the chief financial officer for the State of Florida came
into my county and criticized how we were doing business.
And he doesn't have a clue about one money management.
He has no real credentials in that regard. But he's
running for re election and so he's a performance politician
(24:05):
that came in. But we are wrestling with the needs
of our community day to day. So just the prospects
of taking my level of interest and public service to
the next level, I'm really highly motivated to move to
be governor to kind of expand the work that we're
(24:26):
doing here. We can gain some one respect back as
a local government because our state has been pre empty
local government authority and that's frustrating for all of us
who serve at the local level, and it's unfair, quite frankly,
to the citizens. So all of that has motivated me.
And then the last thing that I will tell you
(24:46):
that motivated me to get in this race. The Census
administration threatened to remove me from office and all six
members of my Border count of Commission when I challenged
his zeal to force local governments here in Florida into
(25:06):
supporting immigration and customs enforcement. And when I pushed back
on that, after all the other local governments had signed agreements,
I was pushing back all signing the agreement. And so
he announced publicly, you know, through media forums, that if
we didn't sign the agreement, he was going to remove
(25:29):
us from office. Now, this is because Florida had passed
legislation that said that all local governments must cooperate with
immigration enforcement using their best efforts. Failure to do so
will result in your removal from office. But we have
seen the governor here remove our prosecute, our state attorney
(25:49):
from this jurisdiction, and so it was somewhat of a
real threat. But then when we really studied my legal
team and I studied the agreements, it really didn't require
us to do anything that we had not been doing
for a decade. And so reluctantly. I signed the immigration
Agreement in the Government Services Agreement, and it really didn't
(26:14):
require us to do anything because the jail reports to
me ultimately as the CEO for our county. It doesn't
report to the sheriff. Our sheriff had already signed the
two eighty seven G from the law enforcement perspective, like
all sixty seven other sheriffs in Florida had done. And
then in terms of the sixty seven counties, all the
other counties had signed it before before I did. But
(26:38):
it really has been effectively meaningless to us. We still
do what we needed to do. But all of those
things kind of frustrated me and said, you know what
we can do better and if we want better results,
then we have to elect people and send people the
talent has it to do the work it needs to
be done, that's not afraid to do so. And so
(27:00):
I'm here, I'm running now to be that person to
bring back some normalcy and some balance in our style
of governing here in the state of Florida. If that
makes sense to you.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
No, it look it makes sense. But let me let
me talk about challenge number one for you. Let's say
you get elected governor in Orange County, you've got a
county Commission that uh shares your worldview, at least politically.
As governor, you're not going to have a legislature that's
probably going to share, uh share your what. You're going
to have a potentially a pretty combustible relationship. Who knows right?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
How do you work? You know what?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
What's your How are you going to work with a
Republican legislature that's you know, that can have a mind
of their own. Even Governor DeSantis would tell you that.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Well, I work with them now, uh with me? And
not all just about partisanship. It's about right versus wrong.
And I believe when you focus on what's right versus wrong,
we all know what that looks like. Even though today
we have people and leadership positions who are working really
hard to make right look wrong and wrong look right.
(28:15):
So I look forward to going to the state level
having some common sense and balanced approaches to government. My
style of leadership is not to just always make the
decision Uni Ladderman, but to involve the people and making
decisions for themselves. I never forget that we are a
government of the people and by the people. It's we
(28:36):
the people. And so when we get back to doing that,
and we can get back to doing that, then we
can perhaps bridge some of the gaps that exist today
along partisan lines. I happen to be a Democrat. I'm
registered to be a Democrat when I think I was
seventeen and a half years old, so we're talking about
about fifty years since I've been a Democrat. I lined
(28:58):
up there. But I'm a Democrat, and here in our
local jurisdiction, I don't just represent Democrats. I represent everybody
in this community and the governor. If the governor is
doing his or her job correctly, they shall never forget
that they represent all of the people, no matter how
you get there. And so I've demonstrated that over time.
(29:21):
I've always had some bipartisan support in my elections, especially
now because it's a non partisan race. I probably had
as many republicanly vote for me as anybody else did.
And so the path of victory for me now as governor,
even though the Republicans have a one and a half
(29:41):
million or so registration advantage over Democrats, they won't be
Democrats and Republicans won't be the only ones who will
be voting in this election cycle. All of those minor
parties are no party affiliates or the so called independence,
they will vote and even I tell you every day
(30:01):
I have some wonderful Republican friends who I respect. Just
today I was out of the airport at our Bought
meeting and some of my Republican friends kind of talked
to me about what was going on in Cuba. And
some of them have supported me financially what I have
had to raise money. Some of them I have appointed
(30:23):
to various positions, and so I look forward to getting
back to a tallahasset that is not just focused on
divisions because they're not healthy for our state. At the
end of the day, some of what we're seeing in
our state here a state where the President calls home,
(30:44):
but what is happening in Washington, d C. Is dividing people,
and people are seeing that. I believe people want something different.
So I got into this race to offer Floridians something different,
a person that is no drama. I'm not a performance politician,
you know. I take the work that we do very
(31:05):
seriously to offer them an experienced leader. I'm an experienced CEO.
Now my budget that I'm manage her in a Range
county is about nine point seven billion dollars this year.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
A dozen states.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
But I handled real issues, dealing with homelessness, mental health
related issues, dealing with community issues, and that's what I'll take.
Even crisis you know I've had over the years, I've
had the kitchen sink thrown that million in terms of
from responding to a terror attack, the Pulse ninth Club incident,
(31:42):
to managing a global pandemic. So as governor, the governor's
role is to not just govern during the good times,
but bad times, and that means taking care of all
all people, regardless of the political persuade.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Well, look, I mean you a strong case could be made,
ears prepared as anybody I've ever seen to run for governor.
But as you know, it isn't always about whether who's
got the best resume, right, So what's your diagnosis as
to why Democrats have not elected a governor since Lawton Childs.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
We lost our our footing, okay, And I believe some
of that is because of part ofsan politics. Sometimes quite frankly,
we perhaps didn't run our best and our brightest. And
in the state of Florida, there's been a deliberate attempt
to not pay our legislators in the State House or
(32:38):
the State Senate. Very well, you're talking about someone for
the work that they do, making twenty seven to twenty
nine thousand dollars a year. And quite frankly, it's a
part time legislature. We're probably will pass them being part time.
But it has been deliberate, i believe by the party
(33:00):
in power to keep the payload so that they would
attract a few of people who are I'm going to
say more suited, more experienced, and so that's a problem.
And so they have jerry manner the districts. They have
put their foot on the scale through redistricting efforts, through
(33:21):
the ability to appunt our members of the judiciary right
from the Florida Supreme Court all the way down to
our local county courts, and so all of that has
resulted in this dominance that we see of the Republican
Party within the state of Florida. And they don't intend
to change. They want they're doubling down. We see Jerry
(33:44):
Manda redistricting maps now based upon partisanship. Whether they will
admit it or not, that's quite frankly what they.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Thought that was unconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
That's probably going to be un constitutional. But then this
blending of the courts with the executive branch with the
legislative branches happened. But getting back to the central core
of your question, I think that Democrats could have run
better candidates, and I say that very objectively, and we didn't.
(34:15):
And sometimes some of the positions that we took were
not consistent with where the majority of Floridians were. And
so we've learned from that, and so we have to
get close under the Baill curve where more people are
because quite frankly, we shared some Democrats. What I mean
by that is there are some who were Democrats who
(34:39):
got frustrated with our party and they left the Democratic
Party and they are now no party affiliates or independence
and so we have to take ownership in the blame
for that because we didn't listen. We were not listening
to them. So the path to victory for me is
to make sure that I'm talking about the issues that's
important order to the majority of Floridians. I have to
(35:03):
make certain that we create a pathway to victory where
we talk about the issues that's important, where I'm perceived
as being electable. Also, we have to make sure that
(35:23):
we organize and mobilize this grassroots movement that we're talking
about today. Uh, in order for me to get elected
and at the end of the day, demonstrate that, you know,
I'm confident and I'm comfortent uh to do the work
that needs to be done. Uh and broaden my appeal
(35:46):
to the masses, the overwhelming majority of people. And so
we have a way that we're doing that. I'm running
a campaign. I have to communicate what we will do. Uh.
We have to breed some hope back into the Democratic partner.
(36:06):
The Democrats in Florida have lost and lost in since
thirty two years.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, it's a little bit like the football.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I don't know if they believe. I can tell you
the national people they don't believe.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
So you see this this pen that I wear. I
branded my campaign to Believe campaign. So I do have
to talk with people about believe again in your government.
Believe that you can have an impact on who gets elected.
And so that's what I'm doing. I'm running to create
(36:41):
this believed movement and give them some of what our
Republican friends are doing right now. They're helping us, you know,
we're seeing some changes across the state of Florida where
we are seeing more Democrats elected to positions we've just
sold last evening in Georgia, you know, on the Democratic side,
(37:03):
Keisha lance Bottom won that primary. We're seeing here in
the state of Florida. In some areas right in President
Trump's backyard, you know, Democratic House member got elected. We're
seeing those things. So we're seeing some signs that Americans
are frustrated. People within our state are frustrated and they
(37:26):
want something different, and we have to capitalize on this
movement for change, and so all of that is a
pathway to victory for us.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
What's the Santus done right in his eight years.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I do believe that one of the things that DeSantis
has done right is he has focused the state on commerce,
on diversifying our economy. Our economy is thriving, and we
(38:02):
are the land of opportunities. The growth in this state
has continued where people are migrating here from all over
the world. He did, of course, he didn't do it alone.
I believe that the investments into our state have been
partly because of we're state with no state income tax,
(38:25):
and long before the Santis got in office, he kind
of he's been able to capitalize on the momentum that
the state had. But for the most part, he's created
some momentum with international business that is here. And so
I certainly don't agree with him with many things. You know,
(38:46):
as we were dealing with COVID, you know, I sparred
with him over COVID protocols. As it relates to healthcare,
I think he's done a terrible job our state. The
costs of healthcare, and our state has gone up significantly,
our healthcare from corporate perspective. Uh, they're tops in the
(39:07):
nation in revenue above in terms of health care affordability,
we rank forty fifth or near the bottom in that regard.
So you have done a great job there, And I
can go on and on about it, but you know,
I try to be back.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I know it's a you got more cases against them,
But you know, you strike me as somebody that isn't
going to assume somebody is one hundred percent wrong all
the time.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
No, rarely it is somebody one hundred percent role of
all the time. And no, are you one hundred percent
right if you're that person. Now, we see some personalities
on the national scene. Now I believe that they are
right one hundred percent of the time. Well, they're really honest.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
That's that's yeah, that's I'm going to pick up two
issues that are very Florida centric. You sort of hinted
at one of them, you know when it when it
came to the no income tax, because it's about how
your fund government when you don't have an income tax.
And we look, Florida ain't gonna get an income tax
anytime soon. I'm not going to sit here and say
that that's the answer. But does the state need more
(40:13):
revenues or does it need a better or does it
need to be prioritized better.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Well, we're growing state, okay, we're the fastest growing state
in the Union. When you're growing, it's going to require
more money. The cost of living has gone off. One
of the things I pride myself on is being a
good steward of the people's money. But sometimes these priorities
(40:44):
are shifting. We'll state where we're a peninsula. We have
been adversely impacted by major storms and hurricanes. That's cost here.
Those things are very unpredictable. We cannot control the global
economy with some of what we're seeing with the influx
of people who are coming in who find themselves ill
(41:07):
prepared to really thrive in our environment, and so quite frankly,
you know, the cost of living has gone up so
much our workers. In order to keep our workforce, you
got to pay people. In order to get the food
to the market from the fields, you got to pay people.
We are relying on immigrants, and God bless the immigrants
(41:29):
who want to come here and do the difficult work
for the amount of money that they're paid paid. And
so as a result of all of that, I think
that our state needs more money. But government should always
look for the opportunity to look for inefficiencies, and when
you find those efficiencies, you should use those dollars to
(41:54):
do other things well. But the fact that we're growing,
growing in complexity, I don't see a scenario where the
state's budget really is going to decline. What our state
solution to these issues right now has been to deflect
(42:14):
them to the local governments. Where our state is.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Not property taxes right and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
They're not working hand in love with our local governments.
They're putting a burden on our local governments to come
up with the solutions to the most difficult challenges that
we have, housing, affordability, transit, transportation, healthcare, all of those
things they're putting on the backs of local governments. While
(42:43):
they can say, well, we reduce the state's budget, but
they've transferred it to us. And that's what frustrates those
of us at the local government because.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Especially one who's been an accountant, you actually know how
that legacy works. Not everybody, not every mayor.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Does I know how this works as a mayor. Had
been the perfect setup for me to be the governor
to understand how we can more efficiently use money, because really,
if we invested more and some of the social challenges,
it's like treatment fundamentally ill, like treatment for the substance abuser,
(43:22):
like treatment for persons who suffer with various behavioral disorders,
are core occurring issues. When we work with spending money
on the front end to get those individuals more self
reliant in a self indulgent world, we can get them
more functional. Sometimes they're not committing crimes, they're not stealing
(43:42):
because they're on drugs. We changed our public policy in
our county and I've been part of that now for
quite some time, and by doing so, we have avoided
increasing costs in our county, the state of Florida. If
we spend more time with health care and mental health
(44:03):
related issues, we probably will have had less violent crime
because some of these persons who go out and commit
violent crime, they're mentally ill. With the moss that was
just attacked they or so ago in California, I suspected
those young people, those teenagers have been radicalized. I suspect
(44:26):
that they probably were in need of some mental health
counseling and treatment. But it's too late for that. You know,
they acquired guns and went and killed innocent people. Well,
if they had gotten the right treatment, maybe some people
will be alive today. In my experience, I responded to
these scenes where I've had law enforcement officers who were
(44:48):
seriously injured, shot and killed in the line of duty
because they were confronted by a person who was mentally ill,
who had a god. All of those types of things
we have to get serious about talking about, I believe,
as a nation, as a state, how to more effectively
(45:10):
address some of those types of issues. Because if we
reduce crime, we reduce recidivism. By getting people healthy again,
we reduce costs, and so that's what I do. I
take the cast savings and then I use it for
some some other needs.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
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And yes, I too, am a customer. Look, my mother
lives in Seminole County, so I hear about this a lot.
Which is the following she gets a new insurance company.
It seems like every six months, right every year. You know,
(47:18):
she doesn't want to change insurance companies. Insurance companies pull
out or they decide they can't cover homeowners. And we
know why the problem is this is you said it earlier.
Florida's a peninsula and it's just going to get more storms.
There doesn't seem to be a good answer. How do
you either entice more insurance companies to come to Florida
and write policies to create better competition and hopefully lower prices,
(47:42):
or do you subsidize And there doesn't seem to be
a good consensus, and I don't know if there's a
good answer, But what's your plan?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Well, I think you have to do really four things. One,
I do believe that Florida needs to incentivize up in
casually insurance companies moving here in the state of Florida, Okay,
through our regulatory authority. I believe that there's an opportunity
to do that, to create more competition by creating incentives
(48:13):
if that is reducing if they move into the state,
creating a center for reduction in property taxes for them
or business taxes for them. There's an opportunity to do that.
The second thing that if we create this competition, typically
(48:33):
competition drives price down. If we do are successful in that,
then the second thing that we should do is require
that when they make profit in this state beyond a
certain point, they should have to be required and reinvested
in the state of Florida. And in order since they
get the incentives. The third thing that happens in the
(48:55):
state of Florida is we have a lot of fraud.
There are a number of people who file fraudalent claims,
and the State of Florida doesn't do a really good
job of investigating the fraud that happens. At least three
different state agencies in the State of Florida stigation that's
(49:15):
related here. In addition to those, private and insurance companies
have their own fraud investigators. So for me, I want
to consolidate the responsibility for the investigation of fraud and
to lawn state agency and then I law the person's
the staff to focus in that area. Right now, some
(49:37):
of our law enforcement in the state of Florida is
being pulled off of doing investigations and they're doing immigration
and customers enforcement. Right they're doing what the federal government
really should be doing and not what the state should
be doing. And then the next thing that I think,
we have a state that is heavily influenced by developm
(50:01):
They kind of controlled tallahassee, uh they go and we
see legislation that is introduced that preemps local government authority.
It comes to land use related decisions, and when you
take the decision making out of the hands of those
local authorities, and you invested really in the influence of
(50:23):
the legislators and the developers. We are building and places
that we shouldn't be on this peninsula. We are not
adequately recognizing the consequences of sea level rise and global warming,
and all of those are things that are real. And
(50:45):
I believe through our regulatory authority, we can build to
a higher standard where we build when we're not building homes,
whereas in flood zones and what have you that since
you grew up in Miami. When I go to Miami,
I see all types of calamities there because the building
(51:06):
codes were not consistent, They're irregular. There are people who
were allowed to build too close to wetlands, on wetlands
and the like. And so from I believe from a
sustainability perspective, we have not done what we should be
doing in the state of Florida to protect our environment,
(51:28):
and so we have to make some improvements there. So
we do those things, harden the target for when the
hurricane made the storm comes, then we can reduce costs.
We can't do a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Of should the state Should the state band manufactured homes?
And I say this, I'll give you an example, Rick,
I remember after the hurricane that hit sout I say,
the hurricane so many hurricanes. I think it was Charlotte
or I'm probably confusing Charlotte County, but it was one
of the hurricanes that sort of came came over Fort Myers, Naples, Charlotte,
(52:03):
that area of the state, and Collier County had banned
manufacture housing. Charlotte County had not. Even though the hurricane's
eye went over Collier, there was more damage than Charlotte.
It's because those manufactured homes just can't withstand even the
category ones versus Collier County had less property damage because
(52:27):
they had high It was my county higher standards, and
you know it was I remember the Senator Scott made
this point and then I said, well, then should we
not have manufactured housing? And he sort of, you know,
wasn't going to do that. And I understand the hesitancy
because a lot of developers, you know where it does
(52:49):
make homes cost more if you banned manufacture housing. And
here we are having a crunch on that. Where are
you on that?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Well, I do think that some of these manage fact
housing projects that I'm seeing now, they can stand in
a Category two or three with this move modern technology
in the way they construct some of them, but clearly
and coastal communities. Coastal communities are more likely to have
(53:18):
a direct hit from hurricane versus an inland community like
my account. But two thousand and four we had three
hurricanes that major member category hurricanes go across our count
and we're inland. Our manufactured homes really farewell. So I
think the conversation has to be about where you build
(53:39):
and what you build. And so I believe that through
having some type of guidance from the State of Florida.
I said earlier, my stylar leadership is to bring subject
down experts together and this is gonna This is an
area that I would love to tackle, is to do
a full reset and review of Florida's building and codes
(54:01):
and adopt some standards that make sense. And some of
those standards need to be based upon geographical location. Some
of those standards need to be based upon affordability because
some of the tiny homes are accessory dwelling units that
are being built now. Uh they are, They're pretty good.
(54:22):
And I can tell you in our inland counting, our
manufactured homes have fared well historically. Uh so there are
some things that you can do to mitigate the damage
and how you require them to be constructed. But then, uh,
you know, if you're out on the coastal community, uh,
(54:43):
you know, there's some challenges there. So I think that
there's some some room for change. And so these are
the types of things I enjoy tackling. H We know
that that's a serious issue. But to get the best
outcomes where we don't introvertently drive up the as the
rent payments that are already through the rules, I want
(55:04):
to make sure we have the right solution and use
a modern technology and making these types of.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Decisions, all right, I want to I always like to
end on a little lighter note. But before I get
to the lighter note, the subject matter that I'm going
to end on actually has gotten a little heavier. Over
the last twenty four hours. The NAACP is calling on
African American high school students to essentially boycott state go
(55:32):
to going to state universities in the South in states
that are remapping and getting rid of predominantly African American
congressional seats. That would you know that you know how
important college football is in the state of Florida, and
it's certainly an interesting idea that the NAACP is coming with,
(55:55):
and I understand where they're coming from on this. You
think that would be fruitful? Do you think that would
be useful in a positive protest?
Speaker 4 (56:06):
I believe that what happens when people get chronically stressed,
they resort to extraordinary responses, and what the NAACP is doing.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
Is responding to the extraordinary circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Where we live in a nation where the president by
executive water did away no or the women business enterprise
related programs. We live in a state where the governor
and the legislature passed legislation that prohibits local governments from
(56:45):
investing in diversity, equity and inclusion types of programs. As
if the playing field has been level to where we
see these gerementary district districts that that is underway. This
is caused the response to the NAACP has a jown
(57:05):
in Now. I'm a lifelong member of the NAACP, and
I wouldn't have some of the civil liberties that I have.
I wouldn't have enjoyed some of the successes I have today,
but for the fight that the NAACP of the NACP
has been involved in. However, have I said all over
(57:26):
that I do think that that's not sustainable. Okay, Here
in the state of Florida, when our governor adopted some
of the policies that he's adopted, the NAACP said, uh,
you know, supported a ban on historically black college and
(57:49):
universities coming into our state to do business with national conferences.
Uh coming into our state to do business. And because
I represent the number one tourist destination in North America,
I knew that that would not really benefit my constituents
(58:13):
in tourism. You know, ninety plus percent of the people
who work in the industry, they are black and brown people.
And if our tourism in Florida goes elsewhere, we potentially
put people out of work who they are fighting for
to have a seat at the table. And so sometimes
(58:36):
what you see is when these narratives come about, they're
motivated by different reasons. Sometimes it's geography. There are other states,
there are other regions that would love to have the
economy that Florida enjoys, And sometimes decisions are made, sometimes
(58:58):
very short sighted and not looking at the long long
term goal because quite frankly, if Florida's economy, uh, if
these football players are higher education institutions, uh, suddenly, uh,
you know, stop having black athletes. What you're going to
have is you'll have segregated institutions. And some of our
(59:22):
largest uh institutions, higher education institutions in this state are
public institutions. The University of Florida, Uh, the University of
Central Florida is the largest right here in Orlando by
student by the enrollment Florida State University where I went, Well,
you just decimated some of those institutions if uh these
(59:45):
players decided to go somewhere else. Couple with the ni
L and the professional uh payments that these athletes who
are supposedly uh not yet professionals, you know, the money
is there. I think that it's not sustainable long term,
(01:00:08):
and we could introvertently hurt people who you don't intend
to hurt by the response. So we'll have to see.
That's that's kind of my position as governor. I would
do everything that I could to keep our economic training,
to keep business coming in, to keep our universities a
(01:00:30):
focus on educating and get out of the cultural wards
and the politics, the banning of the books, all of
that is just dividing us along racial lines. And so
but I understand where they are because the actions that
our state has taken is the visit and so that's
(01:00:53):
the pushback that the NAACP finds themselves in today.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Well, when you're in Orlando, that's Gator country, is it not.
It must be tough for seminoals.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
No, this this is uh, it's probably as many seminoles
as there are gators here.
Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
Well that's good because the go to Gainesville's and you
want to do that, Yeah for that, but uh, but
we we have our fair share here because the University
of Central Florida is the largest, uh public institution in
the state of Florida.
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
You've watched that school go from literally a commuter to
your school right to what it is today.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
It's this is kind of like night country around Central Florida. Uh,
you know, their support that's probably yeah, you know, so
uh you know with space exploration, commercial space space exploration
being what it is that's taking off. You know, NASA's
has a substantial number of this employ Whill graduates from
(01:01:56):
the University of Central Florida.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Uh, Mayor deamis good to meet you. I look forward
to talking with you down the road. If if you
make it to the next round, I look forward to it.
All right, my friends all thank you sir.
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Mm hmmm mm hmm
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