The races for Orange County Mayor and the District 2 Commissioner seat are heating up. On Thursday, three mayoral candidates and the four District 2 candidates met with voters in Apopka during a town hall.
Democratic Orange County mayoral candidates were in a packed room of Apopka voters Thursday at the Hope CommUNITY Center. That included Orange County’s Clerk of the Courts Tiffany Moore Russell, former Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, and Orange County Commissioner Mayra Uribe. Republican candidate Chris Messina, an entrepreneur, was not in attendance.
Weighing heavily on voters' minds was the fate of the county if Gov. Ron DeSantis’ property tax cut passes on the November ballot.
That’s a big deal for Apopka residents Brad and Rosario Bereche Davis.
“The money's going to vaporize. They won't be able to pay for their own services,” Brad said. “They have to budget like it's not going to happen, and they have to budget like it's going to happen, and what is going to be the impact of those services?”
Rosario Bereche Davis, an auditor, said she wants whoever wins the election to audit the county.
“The money should be coming in more, and it should be rising for our community, for Orange County.[They should] not wait four or five years to do an audit and find out, whoa, it's minus. Where did the money go?” Rosario said.
The Davises said they were particularly struck by Mayra Uribe’s idea, who suggested offsetting the cuts by using more of the tourism development tax fund to benefit the community.
“Let's talk about the big elephant in the room. Tourism is sitting on $450 million in a bank account. Who's going to go fight so we can help affordable housing, we can help transportation, we can actually help the community that supports hospitality,” she said.
Another candidate for mayor, Tiffany Moore Russell, said as the Orange County Clerk of Court, she’s had to deal with budget cuts every year since she started 12 years ago. She suggested a 25% budget cut exercise from every department in the county.
“Then come meet with me to say what should be kept and what should go, and give me your justification for why,” she said. “Before we propose any new tax increases or any user fees internally, we gotta look for some ways for efficiencies, and how we can get rid of some waste internally in Orange County.”
District 2 commissioner candidates: Kamia Brown, George Oliver III, Wes Hodge, and Marsha Summerill also answered questions at the forum.
On the topic of the property tax cut, Hodge, the chief of staff for District 5 Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad, suggested a “transit fee.”
“The last thing that I want to do is increase transit fees or increase taxes, but I want to make sure… tourism pays its fair share,” he said. “We have 200,000 people using our roads every day, and they pay nothing.”
Another candidate for the commission seat, Oliver III, said the tax cut isn’t a cut and is more of a “tax shift.” Before taxes increase, he said “fat” has to be trimmed.
“We have to start looking for more practical ways that we're not going to burden our residents, but also be able to look at government, trim the fat from the government first, and then start looking at other creative ways to save money,” Oliver III said.
Marie Joseph, an Apopka resident, said she’s still undecided but is leaning towards candidates who will make good on campaign promises to make things more affordable.
“We need the change, we need to keep the country safe, and then we need people to stand up for us,” she said.
