"Local news worth reading" — The New York Times
SUBSCRIBE
The independent voice for West Orange County news
Alan Grayson, the former Congressman and current candidate in the Democratic Primary for the Senate District 15 special election, Tuesday held a virtual town hall with The Apopka Voice.
The live-streamed event, moderated by managing editor Reggie Connell, was paid as advertising by the Alan Grayson campaign.
Denise Connell, publisher of The Apopka Voice, explained before the town hall began that each primary candidate — State Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis, Coretta Antony-Smith, former State Sen. Randolph Bracy III — was offered the same advertising opportunity for their own town hall after Grayson had approached them with the idea, but none took the publication up on the offer.
Connell also emphasized that the event was not an endorsement and that Grayson had not received the questions beforehand.
“While this town hall and all advertisements featuring Mr. Grayson were paid for by his campaign, we will conduct it with the same journalistic integrity that we employ with our reporting and any other town hall facilitation,” she said.
Running just over an hour, with a solid mix of questions from the moderator and constituents who were able to text questions to a number featured on the screen, the event covered a lot of ground, including affordable housing, property insurance and public education — and even managed to deliver a few laughs.
This is a key question for any politician seeking to be elected. And given that Grayson, who was last in office during the Obama administration, has thrown his proverbial hat in about six races recently while withdrawing early from three, when Reggie Connell asked what was making him run this time, the question was particularly appropriate.
Grayson responded with an anecdote about asking former Congresswoman Corrine Brown the same question when he first ran for Congress.
“I asked her Why do you want to do it? And she told me Because of all the good that you can do for people. And that’s the right answer,” he said.
Grayson said that one of the biggest challenges facing Senate District 15 now is “the collapse of faith in our public servants to do the right thing and to deliver what we deserve. There's been a failure of democracy now for many years, and the result of that is higher taxes and poor public services.”
Toward the end of the event, he noted that “Republicans have systemically dismembered a democracy in this state” and “have created something verging on dictatorship both here in the state and nationally.”
He said the job of state government is to make sure that citizens have functioning infrastructure — roads, bridges, sewers, water, and utilities and schools. “I mean the things that people really need. And healthcare, by the way. I put healthcare on that list,” he said. “We need to deliver on things like clean air, clean water, clean food, less traffic and lower tolls.”
Affordable housing is among Grayson’s top priorities. He wants to facilitate home ownership, providing assistance with down payments because he notes that one of the biggest barriers to home ownership is not having the 20 percent down payment. He said he would also push for wider use of housing bonds, which he said could lower interest rates on mortgages — “There are other states that do it, why isn’t Florida doing so to make housing more affordable?” — raise the homestead exemption and offer a similar exemption to renters.
Tackling affordability from the insurance side, Grayson said he would explore national hurricane insurance that would spread the risk across multiple states, like flood insurance.
“There’s no reason Florida has to pay for all this on its own,” he said. The hurricanes don’t know where the state lines are, so we have to just apply common sense to insurance. We have to share the risk with the other 49 states.” He said when he was in Congress, this idea had buy-in from representatives from California and Texas.
Noting that Citizens Property Insurance made $800 from him this year, he favors preventing the insurer from profiting from Florida residents. He also proposed putting elected insurance commissioners in charge of regulating insurance rates rather than insurers to keep premiums affordable.
The predictable outcome of the affordable housing crisis is the increase in homelessness as Florida ranks 48th in terms of affordable housing, according to WalletHub, and third in the nation for the number of people experiencing homelessness, many of whom are unsheltered.
Grayson said he would approach the area’s homelessness crisis by improving mental health services, which would decrease homelessness “immediately.”
Additional mental health services would be welcome, particularly as Gen Z struggles more with depression and anxiety than previous generations, according to the Walton Family Foundation.
But that’s not a solution to homelessness. As the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness points out, while many people with mental health issues are homeless, the majority are not, and the majority of the people who are homeless don't have mental health disorders. The main driver, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness is the shortage of affordable housing. Martha Are, CEO of Homeless Services Network, noted last year in a press conference that the “housing market” and the “sudden increase in rent” are responsible for the surge in homelessness in Orange County.
Meanwhile, Grayson said that more "non-coercive shelter" alternatives need to be created while slamming one such alternative — the 407 Connect Project, two converted Greyhound buses that would provide 40 temporary shelter beds, to be parked at the Christian Service Center — as “one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
Grayson lambasted Florida’s voucher program, calling it an “effort to break public education … and foist on us a for-profit system that undermines public values.” He said his five children all attended public schools.
Florida school vouchers are administered under two main programs — Florida Empowerment Scholarships and Florida Tax Credit Scholarships — and have siphoned off nearly $4 billion dollars from public schools this school year alone.
But Grayson said that even if that $4 billion were restored, Florida still doesn’t spend enough on education. “Thank God for Mississippi because otherwise Florida would be at the very bottom,” he said.
Grayson was asked if he would protect state parks from development, and he said that “like Teddy Roosevelt” he wants to ensure “we have nature in our lives … to relate to an environment that doesn’t involve a screen, to listen to the birds, to listen to the crickets, to listen to the frogs.” He said he made sure his children had nature in their lives from an early age. And he pointed to work he did in Congress to get Republicans on board with proposals like preventing offshore drilling.
“I said that in Florida we shouldn't have offshore drilling unless the state approved it. And suddenly I had the 30 votes that I needed to get across the finish line from California, from Florida, from New Jersey, from other places where Republicans have to be sensible in order to get elected at all. My point is, I am sensitive to these things, and I do feel like nature needs to be part of our lives.”
On transportation, Grayson spoke of “get[ting] more money for the roads” but also improving public transportation. He noted his efforts in Congress to get funding for SunRail’s Phase 2.
“The job is not done. We have to continue. We have to make sure that the 20 percent of the population that doesn’t necessarily drive from Point A to Point B, they have access as well.”
In addition, Grayson said he would vote to expand Medicaid, and had done so in Congress. He also supports a prevailing wage law and does not believe the state should attempt to underbid private companies to get citizens to work more cheaply. Finally, regarding property taxes, Grayson said it was important that the money stop flowing downtown into what he called “white elephant projects” like the convention center and entertainment venues.
“The money should go to you. It should go to your utilities, go to water and sewer, it should go to roads and you should get your fair share and that really needs to change.” Grayson was speaking specifically about Apopka, but his words could easily apply to other municipalities.
“These are problems that have solutions. The real problem is that the people whom we elect don't do a damn thing about 'em, and that needs to change.”
A number of questions came from constituents, including whether Grayson could be effective in the state senate as a “member of a 10-Democrat minority facing a 30-Republican majority.”
He said he’d done that in Congress when the Republicans were in charge during his last four years. “I needed to get 30 Republican votes in order to pass anything. I did that 121 times.”
Acknowledging that he is a “serious bleeding blue Democrat,” Grayson said, “The main secret to this is that you have to come up with decent policies that appeal to everybody across the board. Transportation is not a red issue or a blue issue. There's no reason to think of it that way. Traffic and tolls is not a red issue or a blue issue.”
But Grayson acknowledged that “ there are some people you're just not gonna get along with.” He told a story about disagreeing with a Republican member of Congress who did not believe in climate change and believed that carbon dioxide was beneficial to plant growth.
“In a public hearing, I said to him, 'Here’s my suggestion: Take a plastic bag. Put it over your head. Make sure it's really tight around your neck. Breathe out all the carbon dioxide you can and see what happens next.’
“Some people deserve to be mocked," he said. "But underneath it all, what I'm looking for is allies in the common cause of the common good and common sense. I'm always trying to piece together the majority that I think ought to be there, and often is there for making the world a better place.”
