Tiffany Moore Russel

Meet the Candidate Tiffany Moore Russel for Orange County Mayor

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi. I'm Judy Copira. I'm the market president here in
Central Florida, and today I'm meeting with Tiffany Moore Russell,
who is running for Orange County mayor, and this is
part of our Meet the Candidates. Tiffany, welcome, well.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Thank you for giving me this opportunity talk to your
listening audience.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Absolutely tell us a little bit about you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
So I am a native of Orange County. I actually
grew up in this community. Actually, I'm a third generation
Orange County resident, which I know is very rare. We
still have my grandmother's home in Tildenville, which is like
west west Orange County, but I grew up here. I
grew up in Tangela Park. I'm a graduate of Doctor
Phillips High School, and I'm a lawyer by profession and training.
I am married. My husband's a principal. We have two boys,

(00:42):
a seventeen year old and a fifteen year old that
keep us pretty busy. The oldest place baseball and he's
a rising senior. So starting tomorrow it's his first last
day of public school.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
So this is a little bit about me.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
An active member of Saint Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church,
active and Berrio's organizations in the community, and just proud
to be to serve this community, which I love it
I call home.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Please give us an idea of what prompted you to
run for this office.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
So what's interesting is I used to be a county commissioner,
so I'll start there. And so actually where I really
learned Orange County how it works is I served on
various boards, as on the Board of Zoning and Adjustments
and the Community Action Board, both diverse and totally different.
One looks at zoning, what's allowed, what's not allowed near
our communities, and then community Action looks at services for

(01:32):
those who need them the most, whether it's utility assistance
or rental assistance.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
So those both showed me how the citizens.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Can be engaged in establishing policy for their government. But
then I got elected to the County commission and one
lesson I learned is if you want to drive the
vision of any community, you have to be in the
seat that sets the direction. So it's always kind of there.
I want to run for mayor, but I had small kids.
I actually have both of my children while serving as
a County commissioner.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
So if you know, for me, I realized I chose.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
You know that to be a mayor, I need to
really be one hundred percent on in and when you
have a five year old and an eight year old,
it just makes it very difficult. So now you know
the seat is open because Mayor Jerry Dimmings has turned out,
and so for me, it's about timing that that was
a time for me to pursue this opportunity.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
What experienced, skills, qualifications would you say you bring to
this position.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I think I bring the most unique experience to
this role. Because I mentioned earlier, I am a former
county commissioner, and so I have knowledge about how the
county works. I've served on for eight years making decisions
on ordinances and you know, for example, the Big Box
ordinance when we were designed, determining how can Walmart and
Target build near our communities. And so I'm familiar with

(02:42):
the county budget process and how the governance process should work.
And I've served in a capacity where you need other
commissioners to support any initiative. But I also bring the
experience of serving as an executive as the Clerk of court,
So I've been the clerk now for twelve years, and
there I have the responsibility of managing a constitution office.
I'm supervised over four hundred employees. I have to manage

(03:04):
a forty million dollar budget. Also in that role as clerk,
I've been given the opportunity to serve on our statewide
budget arm and that's the budget committee that distributes a
half a billion dollars to all sixty seven clerks across
the state. And so I bring a lot of experienced
understanding complex budgets, the importance of how to make decisions
while you're also having to cut back on your resources

(03:26):
and therefore how to prioritize services, but also preserving the
people who work for you, how to still make sure
you can increase their pay. I'm going to be very
strategic about doing that. But also how to deliver services
to the public who need them the vote. So I
think those two roles have uniquely prepared me to be
the next Orange County mayor.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
What do you feel is the most important issue facing
our community right now?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
If you ask the voters, the most important issue is
affordabuilding crisis. Your voters are having to make tough decisions.
We know, and that are some things that county can't control,
like we can't control gas prices, we can't control insurance rates,
but we know that we have to listen to what
the voters are saying.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
And the affordability is an issue.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Many cannot afford to rent in this county or even
purchase their own first home, and so we have to
be able to find solutions to bring the price down
in those areas.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
That we can control as a local agency.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So, if elected, what's going to be your first three priorities?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
My first three prioris is one to take care internal challenges, right,
So one, anytime you have a major change in an organization,
you have to address change management and the culture of
an organization. And we also have to hire some senior
level executives. So the county attorney is retiring, the CIO
is retiring. We just saw in the news the buyer
chief resigned and you know, talking to our county administrator,

(04:40):
will he continue what is his plans? So those are
very high level executives in the county structure. And so
first setting up an organizational structure, hiring, but also getting
in and addressing the Alorida building out.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
We're going to look at our it's our housing plan
and what's.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Our plan to address transportation. And then of course there's
this lineerate issue that we continue to hear about our
data centers. And so for me, I may be looking
at some type of moraitorium to just pause to allow
us to look at our zona and our code and
actually do an inventory of what's already here today and
we want to establish as a community. So for me,
that's my first three priorities is first internally, look at

(05:15):
Orange County government as a whole, or how we deploy
our services and what's happening with our employees and those
major issues.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
What would you like.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Voters to know about you that distinguishes you from the
rest of the candidates.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
What I want voters to know about me is that
I am a very strategic thinker and leader. I truly
believe that you can come to the table with emotions
and empathy about how you want to serve the people,
but they should also be married with the data. We
know that data tells us timeliness, Data tells us where
we should spend our time and how quickly we should

(05:47):
deploy them. And that's kind of leader that I am.
You know, when I think about when I first got
to the clerk's office. They were paying making twelve dollars
an hour in twenty fourteen, and I knew that I
need to be able to pay people more just they
compare it.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I was losing clerks to law private law firms, even
going over to other government agencies.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
But I also knew I couldn't raise my fees because
that's statuatorially impassable.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
And so I had to come up with a strategic plan.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
About what as we know, the living wage is for
Orange Counties twenty five dollars. Today we're at twelve dollars.
How do I get there if every year I got
to make her work with the legislature, And so you
have to come up with a strategic plan and how
do you deliver that and increase that as well as
moving everybody else's pay up. So what I want voters
to know is that I'm very deliberate about my decisions.
I make sure that that data helps me drive those decisions,

(06:32):
and I'm very intentional about how we move that forward.
You know, we're gonna have goals. We're gonna have strategic
goals for year one, year two. Make sure we can
sit in and pivot and if we need to make
any changes, but also address our.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Successes and our wins. And so I want voters to
know that I am. I believe it's.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Important that you work together with both the public and
the private that citizens haven't see at the table, helping
us come up with that plan, identifying our goals and
our strategies to be able to succeed and win. And
so I want voters to know that I'm prepared on
day one that I understand county government, I understand the
budgeting process, and I'm prepared to be their mayor on
December of the eighth, twenty twenty sixth.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Thank you. And if photos want to learn more about you,
where can they go?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, so they can visit my website at Tiffany fromayor
dot com. I mean, I'm also on all social media
platforms and so they can inbox me and we respond
to them as well. But that's the best way for
them to reach me.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Thank you well, Tiffany, it was really a delight to
meet you. And again this is Tiffany Moore Brussel, who
was running for Orange County mayor. Thank you for joining
us to thank

Speaker 3 (07:30):
You, Thank you for the opportunity