Ep. 69 - Guest: Faith Andrews, Lake County Clerk of Courts

Guest: Faith Andrews, Lake County Clerk of Courts

Episode Transcript

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Now. This is the FCB PodcastNetwork. This is the Jeff lory In
Nick Show. The Jefflori and NickShow is an informative talk show that's focused

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on finding solutions to today's problems.The show's purpose is to provide healthy discussions
that lead to building stronger communities andthe stronger nation through promoting good conservative principles,
business and bringing people together. Today, we're happy to have with us
a great person. Her name isFaith Andrews, and she is the Clerk

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of Courts for the Great County ofLake County in Ohio. Good morning,
Faith, How are you today?Wonderful? How are you just doing?
Great? Faith? We're going tojust jump right into it. This is
an election, see, and wehave a big election coming up here.
There's primary elections that are going onall over the country. And we know

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that you as Clerk of Courts infor the Great County of Lake County,
you've been doing that for a while. Can you just tell us a little
bit about yourself, give me yourbackground and how did you become Clerk of
courts? Okay, Well, Ispent most of my career in the private
sector, working for CEOs of Fortunefive hundred companies and managing partners of large

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defense law firms. I was alsoa tech writer into it, and I
got involved because I was a littlebit of an activist before I came into
office. And I was at aRepublican roundtable lunch lamenting about the fact that
a former Democrat switched parties and decidedinstead of helping us, to run against

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the great Becky Lynch, who wasthe Recorder of Lake County. And I
said, this guy can't be,you know, a conservative. He spent
a Democrat all his life. Unfortunately, I think what's happening is they're realizing
that, you know, they're goingto have a harder time winning, you
know, because their party is justI mean, if you hit your little
red wagon to a party who wantsto murder children up to you know,

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the moment of birth, then youknow you're going to maybe have a little
bit of a problem getting into officehere in conservative Lake County. But my
party asked me to run. Iwas lamenting about the fact that there was
no competition for the Democrat who wasrunning for Clerk of Courts, and Dale
Fellows said why don't you do it? So I said, okay, and

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I did, and I won.Now, Now for our listeners, who
is Dale Fellows? Oh? DaleFellows is the chairman of the Lake County
Republican Party. Okay, so myparty asked me to run. Okay,
and Faith, how did you whatkind of thing in the private sector kind
of prepared you for this office?Oh? Boy? Everything, I mean

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working for everything is a project whenyou are an executive assistant working at the
level I was working at. Ialso again had about ten years experience in
the legal field, working for amanaging partner who did a medical malpractice defense
and legal mailpractice defense. So Igot to see the court system function from

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a different aspect. Love law.Literally wanted to be a lawyer, but
then I started having children and theycame first. So my time with uh
Well, the last private sector jobI had before I started my own business

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was working for a Highlight International.I was working for the CEO and CFO
of that company, and I wasrunning four programs for North American operations.
Furthermore, one of the things Isaid that I would do is improve efficiency
through technological improvements and process improvements.And I did get that. You know

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that experience in the private sector,I know how software development works. Because
I worked for into it and Iwrote a software manual called Foresight. It's
an advanced budgeting and forecasting application.So I worked with subject matter experts,
I worked with the actual programmers,and I wrote the documentation, the user

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manual. So I believe that myprivate sector experience, we move at the
speed of business, not government,and I have brought that to the office.
And both title and what legal andtitle. Most people don't know that
the clerk, of course also runsthe title bureau. Faith. It sounds

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as if your private sector experience thatgave you the opportunity to make processes processes
work a little faster and more efficiently, and that is great. Tell us
what the clerk does. Tell usabout the clerk's office. What kind of
things do you do? Well,as I said, I have two divisions.

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I have about fifty employees. Thelegal division were the keeper of the
records and we're also the checks andbalances for the court. The High Revised
Code says the people want an unbiasedthird party managing the court's records. They
do not want the judges and theirstaff managing the docket or the court records.

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Yes, they're the court's records,but the arc and the people want
someone like me managing those records.So we manage the docket. I mean
basically from you know, we earthcases and we manage the docket. And
basically, like I said, keepwhere the keeper of the records. One

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of my proudest accomplishments in what Ihope is my first term because I'm going
for a second, was the centralizationof court records. We had records all
over Painsville in four separate locations,paying lease a lease on these locations.
It made things very inefficient for retrieval. I now have them all in one

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comprehensive record center, which makes thingsmore efficient for records retrieval. Everything is
safe because a portion of the recordswere stored in a bell tower that was
leaky. Records and water do notmix. It took my wonderful staff only
ninety days to get this thing puttogether. Title I run that title bureau

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as well. I have two brickand mortar locations, one in Mentor near
Heinens and one in Wickliffe near Gabes, and we title everything with the motor.
We also are a passport acceptance agency. All of my deputies are certified

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passport agents. And we also providewe started last year providing watercraft registration as
well, mostly for convenience. Youcan title your motor, you can title
your boat, and then you canregister your watercraft. So your next stop
is the boat ramp and Lake Erie. I can monetize title, I can

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find more revenue streams, and mybusiness experience has really been instrumental. We've
run in twenty three new dealers inthree years. I title everything in Billy.
Tell me about that. Back upa little bit. You said you
brought in twenty three new dealers.Talking about that a little bit. Okay.

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We have what we call casual titles, and those are person to person,
like I'm selling you my vehicle,and you know I'm not going to
a dealer. Our dealers. Wework directly with dealers. And one of
the things that I did when Icame into office was started a title runner
program. We run titles, butbasically we have a cadre of dealers that

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we do their title work for.See, they'll run to us and will
run to them. I title everythingin Lake County, my friend, and
then I take over a million dollarsevery year from surrounding counties. Why because
we provide title runner. We providea twenty four hour turnaround. And the
public service. Our public service ispowered by exceptional deputy clerks. They are

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the best in the state. Sofolks that are buying vehicles, automobiles,
boats, anything that needs a title, they go to your office and you
have that's correct, and you havetwo locations. You said, yes,
sir, all right, awesome,that's awesome. What kind of things have

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you done? What things have youchanged into clerk's office since you've been there.
Well, I believe in equal justiceunder the law and access to justice
for all. You know, thatmeans no two tier system of justice the
first part there. But one ofthe things that I've done in the legal

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division is I have made court recordsavailable to the public online back twenty eighteen
to the current time for the firsttime ever. Additionally, we are e
filing all case types with the exceptionof Court of Appeals, and that's something

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that I'm looking to do later thisyear. Awesome. So I was just
going to ask you what are yourplans for the clerk's office, and you've
just jumped right into it and saidthat plan. So you're making the clerks
office more accessible or should I sayeasily accessible to the public. We're making
records available, yes, and andagain access to justice. It's that's very

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important to me. I'm a publicservant first and foremost. I really don't
like it when people refer to meas a politician, because that, to
me is a dirty word. Iam a public servant, so my focus
is always on the people, andthat is what I do demand of my
staff. They need to remember whothey've served. Another thing that I've done

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is I brought in business process modeling. We are actually, you know,
flow charting our processes because we wantto see where inefficiencies are. And then
we will be upgrading our court managementsystem as well. Right now we're running
the lowest version of a court view, that's what it's called, and we
need to upgrade. So that ismy plans. That's also on my radar

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for my next term. That's awesome. I know a lot of people just
don't have time. People like togo into places, and I hate to
use this as an example, butfor quite some time, a lot of
folks who would complain about going tothe post office and standing in line and
waiting, and I know I've doneit on several occasions, and you know,

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I know things have gotten better ata lot of locations, but there
are times where I go to thepost office and I'm waiting in line,
and I'm waiting and I'm saying,wait a minute, I could go up
there and move a lot faster thanthis. So what you're saying is people
don't have to go to the clerk'soffice and stand in line forever and to
get a public record, deal withfrustration and those things. You're continuing to

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make things more efficient for the publicto access records and the services that they
need that they need. Is thatcorrect? That is correct? And you
know that we advertise for our passportservices because nobody knows and it's a full
service. We do your photo aswell, because we've had to turn away
their pretty persnicity about their photos andso we've had to reject several so we

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just decided to start offering the photowhere at once to stop shot. And
we are way nicer than the postoffice. Let me tell you, we
can make short work of it.Yeah. I didn't mean to make a
negative comment there, but because wetry to keep things as positive as possible.
So that's good to know that iffolks want a passport, now do

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you have? They can come toyour office. Do you have to live
in Lake County? No? Andagain, part of the reason why I
can take over a million dollars fromsurrounding counties is cross titling is a thing.
I got to make sure nobody's takenanything from me, and they don't.
But I'll take as much from Cuyahogaas I can, and Summit and

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everybody else because again, we providethe highest quality service. I mean,
if if somebody's offering you a twentyfour hour turnaround, and you're the clerk
in your county says, I'm sorry, you got seventy We can't do this
three days. You got you gotto wait for your title for three days?
What are you going to do?And if I'm making it so easy
that I'm running titles to you,you know they never go back once they

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once they try our service. Iknow that you're a good family person and
you love family, and I thinkthat's so important that you love people and
you're providing a good service. Howcan people find out more about you?
What if folks you want to helpyou in your re election? And it's
so said that you've got to runfor office because you're doing a great job.

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How can people find out more aboutyou? Get in touch with you?
Okay, well there, I am, as you mentioned, up for
reelection. The election the primary isMarch nineteenth, and unfortunately, I do
have a primary candidate. I amendorsed by the Republican Party, and I
have my experience and what I've done. I mean to run on and I

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so I am asking for folks toto get in there and vote for me,
and you can find out more aboutme and what I've done. Uh,
my website is Andrews for Clerk ofCourts dot com. Andrews for Clerk
of Courts dot com. My phonenumber and I'm gonna is that Andrews number

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four or there's the word the wordf O R. Yeah, that's Andrews
for Clerk of Courts dot com.Okay, thank you, and then your
number. My phone number is fourfour zero eight for zero one, eight
four or five. Send me atext, pick up the phone. I'll
be happy to talk to anyone andanswer any questions you have. And my

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face page is Faith Andrew's Lake,Faith Andrew's Lake. Oh, this is
awesome. We want you to justkeep doing the work that you're doing.
Faith Andrews Lake County Clerk of Courts, Again, we want to just thank
you, say thank you Faith forjust coming on and keep providing these services.

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And anytime you have an update ofnew services, we'd like to share
that with our audience because we wantour audience to enjoy all of the positive
things that are going on in life. We all need to stay positive,
so I want to say thank youto our audience and remember to keep fighting
the good fight and we can alldo better. This has been a presentation

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of the FCB podcast Network, whereReal Talk Lives is online at FCB podcasts
dot com. M