As part of our commitment to providing you with what you need to make an informed decision in the 2026 elections, News 6 joined with the News Collaborative of Central Florida to present the Voting Central Florida 2026 Voter’s Guide.
Tuesday, Aug. 18 is the Florida Statewide Primary election, a mix of party primaries and nonpartisan local elections, such as school board races, judicial races, and county commission races in some counties.
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[ELECTION 2026: Make sure you’re eligible to vote|How to vote by mail|Election Myths]
Florida has a closed primary system, which means only members of a political party may vote in party primaries. To be eligible, a voter had to identify with that party by July 20.
However, judicial races and local races, for the most part, are open to all registered voters, regardless of political party.
Everything you need to know in order to vote in the Aug. 18 Statewide Primary, including how to vote by mail, vote early, and vote on Election Day, can be found in our Election 2026 section HERE.
Orange County Commission District 6
Orange County’s commissioners are elected in nonpartisan races, which means all voters can vote in the election, regardless of party affiliation.
Since there are five candidates in the race, the top vote-getter must get more than 50% of the vote (50%+1) in order to win outright. Otherwise, the top two candidates will go to a runoff in November.
The county added two new commission seats for the 2026 election, which means the districts the commissioners represent have changed.
County Commission District 6 encompasses part of Central Orange County, including the areas of Downtown Orlando, west Orlando, Metrowest, Holden and Oak Ridge. You can see a map of the area HERE.
The News Collaborative of Central Florida created a list of common questions to ask the candidates. Questionnaires were sent to all candidates.
Not all of the candidates responded. Where candidates did not respond, we have filled out the information to the best of our abilities.
Our partners at the Orlando Sentinel compiled the candidate responses for the Commission District 6 race, emailing and calling the candidates over several weeks.
You can see the full Orlando Sentinel Voting Guide HERE.
Loody Delice
WEBSITE: https://www.tiktok.com/@voteloodydelice
Top issues in your race
If elected, what are the THREE most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them? In the boxes below, please list each issue and how you will address them:
YOUR NUMBER 1 ISSUE and how you plan to address it:
Issue #1: Affordable Housing & Cost of Living
Problem: Many working families, seniors, teachers, first responders, and young professionals are struggling with rising housing costs and the increasing cost of living.
My Solution: I will support responsible development that expands affordable and workforce housing while protecting existing neighborhoods. I will work with public and private partners to increase housing opportunities, encourage redevelopment of underused properties, and promote policies that help residents remain in their communities. I will also advocate for programs that assist seniors and working families with housing stability.
YOUR NUMBER 2 ISSUE and how you plan to address it:
Issue #2: Small Business Growth & Government Efficiency
Problem: Small businesses face lengthy permitting delays, unnecessary bureaucracy, and rising operating costs that slow economic growth and job creation.
My Solution: I will work to streamline the permitting and inspection process, improve customer service within county departments, and increase accountability by setting measurable performance standards. My goal is to make Orange County one of the best places in Florida to start, expand, and operate a business while supporting local entrepreneurs and creating good-paying jobs.
YOUR NUMBER 3 ISSUE and how you plan to address it:
Issue #3: Safe Communities, Infrastructure & Quality of Life
Problem: Residents want safer neighborhoods, better roads, improved drainage, reliable infrastructure, and greater investment in parks and community services.
My Solution: I will prioritize investments in transportation, infrastructure maintenance, stormwater improvements, and public spaces while supporting partnerships with law enforcement and community organizations to reduce crime through prevention, youth engagement, and neighborhood collaboration. My focus is on creating safe, connected, and thriving communities for every resident of District 6.
FOR CHALLENGERS AND OPEN SEATS: Why do you deserve to be elected in this race? I deserve to be elected because I have a proven record of serving our community, not just talking about it. As a Florida resident for 27 years, I have volunteered with the Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and I founded the Haitian Community Center of Orlando to help families navigate complex immigration issues.
I will bring servant leadership, transparency, and accountability to Orange County government while focusing on affordable housing, supporting small businesses, safer neighborhoods, and improving the quality of life for every resident of District 6. My commitment is simple: put people first and deliver results.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue? Affordability starts with lowering the cost of housing and making government work more efficiently. As County Commissioner, I will support more affordable and workforce housing, streamline permitting to reduce construction costs, and cut unnecessary red tape that drives up prices.
I will also support local businesses to create higher-paying jobs, invest in transportation to reduce commuting costs, and ensure taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly. My goal is to make Orange County a place where families, seniors, and young professionals can afford to live, work, and succeed.
Will you vote YES or NO on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position. How would you replace lost revenue – fees and/or service reductions? I support providing meaningful property tax relief to Florida homeowners because affordability is one of the biggest challenges facing families and seniors. However, any tax reduction must be implemented responsibly. Essential local services—including public safety, parks, road maintenance, and infrastructure—must continue to be funded.
If the amendment is approved by voters, I would oppose replacing the lost revenue by simply increasing local fees on residents. Instead, I would prioritize improving government efficiency, reducing waste, seeking state and federal grants where available, and encouraging responsible economic growth to broaden the tax base.
Any service reductions should be a last resort, and core public safety and essential services must remain protected.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond? Florida’s utility regulators should protect consumers by ensuring that the costs of new infrastructure needed for large energy users, such as data centers, are not unfairly shifted onto residential customers and small businesses.
Utilities should be required to invest in grid modernization, improve energy efficiency, and expand reliable energy sources while maintaining transparency and accountability in rate-setting. My priority is to keep utility bills affordable while supporting responsible economic growth and a reliable electric grid.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue your government should address in Florida? One of the biggest environmental challenges facing Florida is **protecting our water resources while managing growth responsibly**. As Orange County continues to grow, we must invest in stormwater infrastructure, protect our lakes, wetlands, and groundwater, and improve flood prevention.
I also support expanding parks, preserving green spaces, and encouraging smart development that balances economic growth with environmental stewardship. Protecting our natural resources today will ensure a healthier and more resilient Orange County for future generations.
Lawanna Gelzer
WEBSITE: www.lawannagelzer.com/
Top issues in your race
If elected, what are the THREE most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them? In the boxes below, please list each issue and how you will address them:
YOUR NUMBER 1 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Transparency. My first priority is to launch a unified Inter-District Neighborhood Advisory Council. I’ve spent over forty years organizing on the ground, and I know that real change only happens when the community drives the agenda. I will bring together neighborhood presidents, HOA leaders, and grassroots organizers from every corner of District 6 to form a regular, completely open council. We won’t be meeting in a sterile government building downtown; we will rotate these meetings right inside our local neighborhoods, so everyone has access. This ensures that before I cast a single vote on the county commission, I am hearing directly from the people living with the consequences.
Second, I will immediately launch a comprehensive audit of our public infrastructure. For too long, working-class communities in District 6 have been ignored while county resources are funneled into wealthier areas. We aren’t going to just sit around and wait for the government to notice our crumbling roads, broken sidewalks, or failing drainage systems. We are going to empower neighbors to snap pictures of potholes, broken streetlights, and flooding issues to upload as immediate, unignorable evidence. We will use these photos to build a data-driven map of exactly where the county has neglected us so we can aggressively demand our fair share of the budget.
Finally, we will centralize all of this into a user-friendly District 6 Transparency Dashboard and Communication Hub. Real transparency is meaningless if information is buried in 500-page county PDFs that regular people don’t have time to read. This platform will be a plain-language online center where residents can easily submit their infrastructure photos, see upcoming zoning requests, and view county meeting schedules. Crucially, we will use this hub to run regular, broad community surveys to gather real feedback on what our neighborhoods need, from public safety to housing. Backed by a weekly newsletter detailing what the commission is up to, this will give our community the exact tools we need to stay informed, stay organized, and hold local government accountable.
YOUR NUMBER 2 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Transportation: (Mass transit vs. road expansion). Transit has been the greatest blind spot in planning in the county over the decades, with the Orlando metro area being the highest density area in the country to not have a light rail. This cannot continue. We must transition into a transit-oriented development instead of the car-centric sprawl we have now. Inside these new transit zones, not only can we make up the value as I stated above, by leasing the land, we can ensure it serves us by having high-density mixed-use zoning, connecting the people with the places they need to go.
It’s not just “build new transit hubs” and modern light rail either. We need to look at our existing bus stops and seek to improve them. Our buses should be electric, which over the long term will save us money, and benefit the environment, and bus stops need to not have benches, but act as cooling spots while we deal with the reality of climate change and extreme heat.
Finally, we need to ensure that what we build is sustainable, that means no passing through conservation areas, and when we do need to pass through areas, to create wildlife over and underpasses, connecting the fragmented habitats we create.
YOUR NUMBER 3 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Tourism Development Tax (TDT) reform. For me, responsible development is sustainable, obtainable, and accountable. It thinks beyond the immediate and considers the future. It protects our environment, and our livelihood. Everything the tourism development dollars was not built for. If given the opportunity, of course I would make spending restrictions on the TDT far more flexible. It’s the local population that bears the impact of our state’s overreliance on tourism, and therefore that money should be free to spend on infrastructure and amenities we desperately need.
Once again, I will say that we fight for the future but also deal with today. We can try and maximize the benefit of the TDT by being creative. Visit Orlando’s global campaign, for example, should feature local small businesses, not just mega attractions, and quite frankly should be subject to local approval. We also can use that money to buy local labor at living wage levels, and not just contracting national corporations, reinvesting the money into working-class people who made it possible. If we want to stretch the current language to the limit, we could even say that public transit IS a tourist attraction, like the railways in Japan and China, or the subway in New York City. In that way, we could use it to fund the transit that the region desperately needs.
As far as urban development and infill, let me make my vision clear. We need not just infill, but transit-oriented, human-scale walkable planning that clearly defines rural and urban boundaries. If it were not for SB 180, I would go much further and say we need form zoning instead of the archaic codes we have on the books now, and definitely, as stated above, we need to increase density. What’s missing in all of this is not only smart growth, but environmentally sustainable growth, that considers that we are ground zero for climate change in the United States, so we need to consider canopy cover, green spaces, the aquifer we sit on, as well as extreme heat. Urban development must be holistic.
FOR CHALLENGERS AND OPEN SEATS: Why do you deserve to be elected in this race? Ms. Gelzer did not respond to this question.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue? There are only two ways to truly solve the affordability crisis: we must aggressively increase local incomes, and we must systematically bring down the cost of living. To do that, we must implement bold, structural changes that protect workers and build a resilient future for the next generation.
Right now, Orange County is trapped in a devastating hourglass economy. We have a massive pool of low-paying, dead-end jobs at the bottom, a concentrated layer of high-paying executive positions at the very top that require decades of connections to reach, and a hollowed-out center completely missing the middle-income, career-starter jobs that young people need to plant their roots. It is a failure of leadership that we host the University of Central Florida, one of the largest research institutions in the entire country, yet our local government remains fundamentally codependent on corporate hospitality and low-wage tourism. We are actively handicapping our future by forcing our brightest young graduates into a massive regional brain drain because they cannot find viable careers here. We must use county incentives, infrastructure investments, and incubation partnerships to build diversified economic ecosystems in technology, research, and green energy, while passing stronger local labor protections to ensure those new jobs are safe, dignified, and high-paying.
But boosting incomes means nothing if those bigger paychecks are immediately swallowed up by a skyrocketing cost of living. Bringing those daily expenses down is a difficult battle, but it is entirely doable if we change our priorities. First, we must break our region’s expensive car dependency. For a student or young professional, being forced to own, insure, and maintain a vehicle just to get to class or work is a regressive, mandatory tax that bleeds thousands of dollars out of their pockets every year. By building reliable public transit and creating truly walkable communities, we instantly give young people a massive financial raise. Second, we must directly confront the housing crisis. We need to cut through bureaucratic red tape to ensure our housing supply aggressively matches real demand, which is the only way to naturally cool the market and force rents down. Beyond just increasing supply, we must directly protect tenants and aggressively expand our public investment into permanently affordable housing options so that rent stops acting as a wealth-stripping machine.
Will you vote YES or NO on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position. How would you replace lost revenue – fees and/or service reductions? NO.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond? I absolutely pledge to block the creation of any new data centers in Orange County through strict zoning laws. These facilities are an environmental nightmare, sucking up millions of gallons of water every day to cool servers and putting an unprecedented strain on our electrical grid. We cannot ask working families to conserve water and pay skyrocketing utility bills while letting tech giants drain and contaminate our aquifers just to power AI slop.
Florida is ground zero for climate change. We are already fighting tooth and nail to protect our water table, our wetlands, and our neighborhoods from reckless development. Bringing hyperscale data centers into our backyard is a direct threat to our public resources, and I will use every zoning tool available to stop them. We cannot ethically sign on to our own destruction.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue your government should address in Florida? My position on the environment is absolute: environmental justice is public health, economic equity, and a fundamental civil right. And that’s important because we have a myriad of issues currently plaguing District 6’s environment that affect us all. I’ll share a few here, but there are many more.
Converting to sewer county-wide: 29% of the nitrogen contaminating our aquifer and springs comes from the outdated septic systems, especially on commercial properties. We need to expand the Septic Upgrade Incentive Program (SUIP) and work diligently using biochemical denitrification systems to clean the damage we have already done.
Ground Contamination and Aquifer Risk: My team has identified and mapped 434 contaminated lots in Parramore alone. We already know the legacy of the Gasification plant on Robinson, and the Chevron superfund site. Our solution to this was to dig into the top of the aquifer and bury these VOCs. The sad reality is that with the fast-expanding population in the area, we will need to tap into the shallower parts of the aquifer soon, and we risk a public health crisis. We need to go back in and aggressively remediate all the ground contamination across the district, in order to safeguard the health of the community.
The Destruction of our Wetlands: Beyond contamination, we are losing our wetlands at an alarming rate. For every single acre of wetland destroyed in our local basins, 0.9 acre-feet of natural flood storage is lost, expanding local flood zones by 0.6 acres during a storm. We fight this with a charter amendment in the form of a Right to Clean Water. This amendment should use language to protect wetlands from stormwater runoff, that causes algal blooms from eutrophication and encourages smart development when new construction and infrastructure upgrades are needed. This will require a fight in Tallahassee for home rule, but it’s a fight we must have if we are to protect our local environments and want any agency in the future of our community.
These are just a few examples; we haven’t touched on cooling stations to combat extreme heat, rewriting building codes to ensure structural stability with the increased storms raising the rate of sinkholes, and a deep look into smart, sustainable (and transit-oriented) development. For decades we have fallen behind in the conversation around the environment, when the reality is we are ground zero for climate change. This must change. With me, Orange County will become a leader in the global fight for sustainability.
Cynthia Harris
WEBSITE: www.facebook.com/cynthiaharris4D6/
Top issues in your race
If elected, what are the THREE most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them? In the boxes below, please list each issue and how you will address them:
YOUR NUMBER 1 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Housing Access and Housing Stability. Too many working families, seniors, and young adults are being priced out of their communities. I will prioritize expanding attainable and workforce housing, strengthen tenant protections, support responsible redevelopment without unnecessary displacement, and work with nonprofit organizations and private partners to increase homeownership opportunities and housing assistance for residents who need it most.
YOUR NUMBER 2 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Economic Growth and Career Pathways. Residents deserve access to family-sustaining careers and opportunities to achieve long-term financial stability. I will support local small businesses, expand workforce training, apprenticeship, and skilled trades programs, create more internship and mentorship opportunities for young adults, and ensure County investments benefit local residents and businesses while strengthening our neighborhood economy.
YOUR NUMBER 3 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Open Government and Public Accountability. Residents deserve a County government that is transparent, responsive, and accountable. I will advocate for greater openness in County spending and decision-making, improve public access to budget and policy information, encourage meaningful community input before major decisions are made, and ensure every resident has a genuine voice in shaping the future of their neighborhoods.
FOR CHALLENGERS AND OPEN SEATS: Why do you deserve to be elected in this race? I deserve to be elected because I have spent my career serving the people of Orange County—not from the sidelines, but by working directly with families, seniors, veterans, small businesses, and community organizations to solve real problems. My experience in housing stability, community development, public administration, and neighborhood advocacy has given me a deep understanding of the challenges District 6 residents face every day.
I am committed to listening first, leading with integrity, and making decisions based on what is best for our community—not special interests. As your County Commissioner, I will focus on expanding housing opportunities, creating economic growth, improving public safety, protecting our neighborhoods, and ensuring County government is transparent and accountable.
This campaign is about putting residents first. I am ready on day one to be a visible, accessible leader who works collaboratively, delivers results, and fights for every neighborhood in District 6.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue? Florida’s affordability crisis affects nearly every aspect of daily life—from housing and insurance to childcare, transportation, and everyday necessities. While some of these issues require state action, Orange County can take meaningful steps to reduce the financial burden on residents.
As County Commissioner, I will support expanding attainable and workforce housing, preserving existing housing, and encouraging responsible development that includes homes for working families, seniors, and first-time homebuyers. I will advocate for workforce training, apprenticeships, and small business growth to help residents earn higher wages and build long-term financial stability.
I also believe County government must spend taxpayer dollars responsibly by prioritizing core services, improving efficiency, and increasing transparency so residents know how their money is being invested. Finally, I will work with community partners to expand access to childcare, transportation, and workforce resources that help families reduce costs and improve their quality of life.
Addressing affordability requires practical, local solutions that strengthen household finances, expand opportunity, and ensure Orange County remains a place where families can live, work, and succeed.
Will you vote YES or NO on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position. How would you replace lost revenue – fees and/or service reductions? I would vote NO.
Floridians deserve relief from rising costs, but eliminating or substantially reducing property taxes without a realistic replacement plan would shift the burden rather than solve the problem. Counties rely on property tax revenue to maintain roads, support public safety, improve parks, operate libraries, address stormwater and drainage, and provide many of the services residents expect every day.
Before asking taxpayers to support a constitutional change, I believe there should be a detailed, transparent plan showing exactly how local governments would replace the lost revenue and what the long-term impact would be on our communities. I am not willing to support an amendment that creates uncertainty for essential services or forces future leaders to choose between higher fees, reduced services, or both.
Instead, I support providing targeted tax relief for homeowners, increasing government efficiency, carefully reviewing spending priorities, expanding our local economy to grow the tax base, and pursuing additional state, federal, and private funding opportunities. Tax relief should be thoughtful, sustainable, and fiscally responsible—not a promise that leaves local communities with fewer resources to meet residents’ needs.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond? Florida’s growing population and economy require a stronger, more resilient energy system, but residents should not be expected to subsidize unlimited growth. As demand increases—particularly from energy-intensive industries such as data centers—we need policies that protect consumers while encouraging responsible economic development.
I believe utility regulators should reward efficiency, innovation, and long-term planning instead of simply approving higher rates. Utilities should be expected to reduce waste, modernize aging infrastructure, and invest in technologies that improve reliability and lower operating costs over time. Large commercial customers whose operations require extraordinary amounts of electricity should bear the costs associated with serving that demand rather than shifting those expenses onto households and small businesses.
Florida also has an opportunity to diversify its energy portfolio through practical, cost-effective solutions that strengthen grid reliability and reduce pressure on future rate increases. The goal should be a utility system that is dependable, financially sustainable, and focused on delivering value to consumers—not one that automatically passes rising costs on to families.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue your government should address in Florida? The biggest environmental challenge Florida must address is building resilient communities that can withstand flooding, protect our water resources, and support responsible growth. As our population continues to grow, development must be balanced with investments that protect neighborhoods from flooding, preserve natural areas, and safeguard the quality of our lakes, rivers, and groundwater.
As Orange County Commissioner, I will support smart growth policies that incorporate effective stormwater management, protect wetlands and green space, and invest in infrastructure that reduces flood risks before disasters occur. I also believe we must hold developers accountable for mitigating the impacts of new development rather than placing those costs on existing residents.
Protecting our environment is not just about conservation—it is about protecting homes, businesses, public health, and our local economy. By planning for the future today, we can leave a healthier, safer, and more resilient Orange County for the next generation.
Hedder Pierre Joseph
WEBSITE: votehedder.com
Top issues in your race
If elected, what are the THREE most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them? In the boxes below, please list each issue and how you will address them:
YOUR NUMBER 1 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Diversification of Tourist Development Tax. I will work with my colleagues to optimize and broaden the benefits of the Tourist Development Tax (TDT: $300 Million+ in 2025) equitably in support of access to small and emerging business, improved and targeted transportation infrastructure.
YOUR NUMBER 2 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Affordability of housing and the impact on homelessness. District 6 is one of the top 2 districts with highest number of Low / Moderate Income households. I will work with CDBG Program leaders to ensure that we maximize the number of homeownership opportunities and transition as many people from rental properties to homeownership.
YOUR NUMBER 3 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: The lack of safe community spaces for our children. Advocate for more community centers with sustainable programs within District 6. I will address the gaps in the services provided for our youth at existing community centers and programs through the District 6 Youth Innovation Center Lab and the Youth Career Pipeline Initiative.
FOR CHALLENGERS AND OPEN SEATS: Why do you deserve to be elected in this race? I am humbly asking the residents of District 6 to entrust me to be their voice on the County Commission. I am not controlled by special interests, and I have not sold the power of my voice before even getting into office. My voice belongs to the people.
I have advocated for others and for myself my entire life. I have lived many of the same struggles as the residents of District 6, and I have overcome many of them. I want to use my voice and my experience to help those who find themselves struggling.
As County Commissioner, I will be accessible and keep the residents of District 6 informed. Residents should not be left in the dark because they cannot attend a County Commission meeting on a Tuesday morning. I will make sure they know what is happening at the county and how those decisions impact them.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue? I hear about affordability every day while canvassing and talking with residents throughout District 6. Families are struggling, and affordability is one of the biggest issues facing our community. I will advocate for Orange County to declare a state of emergency on housing so we can seriously address some of the issues that are contributing to homelessness.
I also want to start the conversation about temporarily suspending the county gas tax to give families some immediate relief at the gas pump.
We also need to focus on bringing economic development and better-paying jobs into District 6. UCF’s economic data shows growth in professional and business services, education and healthcare, construction, and technology. I want to work to bring more of these industries and jobs into District 6.
Will you vote YES or NO on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position. How would you replace lost revenue – fees and/or service reductions? I would vote NO on slashing property taxes. However, as I have been canvassing throughout District 6, I have heard from residents who are struggling because of high property taxes. I have spoken with people who have lost their homes and are now homeless. I have also heard from residents on fixed incomes who are afraid they may lose their homes because they can no longer afford their property taxes. Homeowners and business owners are also telling me that property taxes are too high.
I urge our state elected officials to hear the cries of Floridians and work on addressing the high cost of property taxes and the impact it is having on our communities.
If the amendment passes, I would work with our local and state leaders to address the loss of revenue. I would advocate for more flexibility in how Tourist Development Tax dollars can be used and begin conversations about whether the tourist tax should be increased to help cover some of the county’s losses.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond? Florida’s utility regulators should protect the residents of Florida, not the profits of utility companies and large corporations. Families are already struggling with high utility bills, and they should not have to pay more because data centers use enormous amounts of electricity.
I support bringing new industries to our communities, but data centers should be responsible for the cost of the energy and infrastructure they use. Those costs should not be passed on to our residents.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue your government should address in Florida? I believe one of the biggest environmental issues we face is elected officials ignoring the will of the voters when it comes to our protected lands. If the voters decide that land should be protected, elected officials should respect that decision and not vote to use that land for development.
Once we lose our protected lands and natural habitats, we cannot recreate them. I will respect the will of the voters and fight to protect the lands they voted to protect.
Michael “Mike” Scott - Incumbent
WEBSITE: mymikescott.com/
Top issues in your race
If elected, what are the THREE most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them? In the boxes below, please list each issue and how you will address them:
YOUR NUMBER 1 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Housing: Continuing the investment in the affordable housing trust fund approved by voters and diversifying the housing inventory. We need more than just single-family homes and apartments.
YOUR NUMBER 2 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Job Creation/Economic Development: Continue to find and attract employers to Orange County.
YOUR NUMBER 3 ISSUE and how you plan to address it: Family and Community Services: Continue to work and find opportunities to support families, such as investing in mentoring programs, senior services and educational and vocational opportunities.
FOR INCUMBENTS: Why do you deserve to be re-elected in this race? I believe I have made myself and my team available to everyone and advocated for their issues when I was made aware of them. I have always worked in the service industry and construction/labor jobs over the years. I understand what it is like to work two jobs just to be able to provide for my family. I understand what it’s like to be on public assistance, food stamps, rental assistance and unemployment because I have experienced these challenges within the past 10 years, most recently in 2022. I have worked in restaurants, hotels, theme parks and urban schools. While many elected officials say they understand the issues you face, I understand because I have lived and survived through them. When residents bring concerns to my team or I, we respond promptly. Many times, I will personally visit their homes to see their concerns firsthand. I believe I haven’t lost the trust of the residents I serve. However, my goal has and currently remains to make sure I am transparent with the information.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue? I believe bringing more diverse job opportunities and housing opportunities here is a priority. I believe ensuring any entity wanting public funds should provide a public benefit, ideally over a period of time. What I have seen is some companies come into an area, they ask for different tax incentives, once they get their profit, they leave the community. Economic development should benefit the local communities, specifically the local businesses and local workers. Yes, I think any large corporation, whether it’s tourism or otherwise, should consistently demonstrate their willingness to compromise and be a good neighbor. Elected officials should always be a representative voice and ensure there is always a path to conversation and compromise when necessary. Nobody likes demands; however, everyone can understand the need for dialogue. I believe elected officials should call corporations in and call them out whenever necessary.
Will you vote YES or NO on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position. How would you replace lost revenue – fees and/or service reductions? This question is a personal one that each family should have to decide for themselves. While there will be challenges should this amendment pass, I do believe we can overcome those challenges. I do not want to share how I am doing to vote, because honestly, I am still undecided on the question of property taxes.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond? I have worked with both our utility providers to secure rebates for customers, funding for those who have challenges and improvements in infrastructure that would result in reduced costs. Both the Tangelo Park and Orlo Vista communities have benefited from these actions financially and I will continue to advocate for more opportunities to help families save on their utility bills and get help with them when needed.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue your government should address in Florida? We have to ensure the appropriate safeguards are in place for our water supply and that we do not allow additional harm to the Florida Aquifer. We also need to start the local conversations about data centers and better understand the short-term and long-term impacts to our community.