Orange County Mayor's Candidates Square Off as Early Voting Begins
Monday, August 9, 2010
By: Judith Smelser

August 9, 2010 -- Early voting started today ahead of Florida's August 24th primary election. Orange County residents will be choosing a new mayor to replace Rich Crotty, who cannot run for re-election because of term limits. Three of the main candidates in the wide-open race squared off at the 90.7 studios last week in a debate that will be broadcast Tuesday morning on WMFE's "Ballot 2010 An Intersection Special." Businessman Matthew Falconer, former County Commissioner Teresa Jacobs, and current Commissioner Bill Segal sparred about everything from public transportation to growth and development to the county's multi-billion-dollar budget deficit.

Click here to listen to a preview of the debate.

Asked for specifics about what they would cut from the budget, Jacobs said the declining jail population creates a possible savings.

"I would take more money away from jail operating expenses, the personnel costs,” she said, “and I would preserve more funding for our sheriff's office. Because the better job we do keeping our streets safe, the more money we save."

Falconer took a more personal approach.

"The first thing I'm going to cut is my own pay,” he said, “I have pledged to cut my own pay by 10%.  I'm also never going to accept a public pension, because I don't think that government officials deserve a better pension than the taxpayers they support."

Segal suggested turning to the private sector.

 “Perhaps privatize some of our road maintenance,” he said, “we already do that with our mowing and I think we could look at privatizing some of that maintenance.”

County Commissioner Linda Stewart was invited to participate in the WMFE debate but could not attend.   Two write-in candidates, Tim Adams and Akinyemi Agbede, round out the field of contenders for the mayor’s post.

If no-one gets more than 50 percent support, the top two vote-getters will face each other in a November runoff.

Click here for links to more information about the mayoral candidates.

Listen to the full debate on 90.7FM at 9:30am on Tuesday, August 10.