Latest / Palafox Media Network / Meet the Candidate: HA Duncan Introduces New Approach
Transcript
- speaker-1: Hello folks and welcome to the ⁓ political matrix news. ⁓ we're on the meet candidate issue here today. ⁓ we are joined ⁓ by H. A. Duncan, who's running for State Senate and District Ten, I guess Jason Broeder. How you doing today, Mr. Duncan? Doing pretty good. I think we this is the ⁓ eve here of Memorial Day. Memorial Day is gonna be tomorrow. By the time this airs it'll probably be a Memorial Day. But we just wanted to check in with you and see how the campaign's going. ⁓ it looks like ⁓ you decided to run against an incumbent here and so speaker-0: Very good. How you doing today? speaker-1: You know, tell us a little bit about who you are, first of all, and and why you decided to go down this rat race. speaker-0: My name's H. Alexander Duncan, and I am a native of Semino County, Florida. And the main reason I've decided to run is change and direction. ⁓ so I feel like, you know, at the state level as well as at other levels of government, but obviously this race is for Florida State Senate. I would like to see not only change, but a directional change for both our state overall. And for the communities that I look forward to represent. Okay. speaker-1: Now, ⁓ it looks like ⁓ I was doing some research here. It looks like there's a lot of growth going on in Samoa County. There's a lot of economic development, but a lot of it's real not really managed. So I'm finding out just yesterday that a lot I guess Tallahassee does a lot of dictation of that now. And a lot it used to be at the county level, but now it's more at the ⁓ state level of how the economic development happens and it seems to be or the unmanaged growth is being you know, has a little bit of say so on and you're tell have Tallahassee leadership. And so what do you think ⁓ you can do t here to approach that and ⁓ get that under control. Well speaker-0: I think we need to ⁓ really work on ⁓ a return to more empowerment of home rule for local counties. And I think what we have to do is realize that those at the local level know best for their communities. And as a former member of Development Review Committee here in Semino County, I know firsthand the importance of having local say and stature over development within your communities. So the way I would approach that is to re empower a lot of local counties with home rule again. speaker-1: Right. Now I mean, with you having a background, I guess you were Alexa before you said ⁓ to Soil and Water Conservation Board. Yes, sir. And ⁓ and so and so you you have experience with dealing with people on a very local level. I mean, what are the ⁓ big issues that you see running for the state senate now that you see now being addressed by the incumbent in Tallahassee currently? speaker-0: I always say there are quite a few, but if I gave you a a couple ⁓ important ones off the top, I would say protecting our environment and controlling development, protecting our rights, our constitutional rights, and ⁓ accountability. Right? I would think accountability within government and within government officials is not being addressed. I'd say that protecting our environment properly and preserving our natural resources for future generations is not being properly addressed. And so those would be a couple or a few of the major things that I would ⁓ point out. I mean, but we could go down the list, you know, of from it from home insurance to putting food on the table. ⁓ I think a lot of ⁓ Floridians right now feel like the affordability issue is not being addressed. So there there are quite a few issues that I believe are not being addressed by our local state senator, but also overall by our low ⁓ by our state legislature. speaker-1: Now, right now the state legislature pushed the ⁓ amendment for property taxes to be cut to be on the ballot here for the November election. Now that doesn't really affect anybody in Tallahassee because property taxes, as we all know, are mainly controlled by c local and county ⁓ legislatures. I mean the county commissioners and the municipalities and so on and so forth. So basically they they empower this ⁓ wonderful property tax cut, which I think everybody would loves to have a tax cut, but there's not any repercussions or any responsibility for any of the state legislatures up there in Tallahassee. So do you think that, you know, the the that issue of being on the ballot in November is something that's going to end up, you know, being a catch twenty two to people in Tallahassee because once the ⁓ the states and the municipalities lose funding, where are they going to go to get funding? Are they going to increase local taxes or are they going to go to Tallahassee and say, Hey, we need more money? speaker-0: Well, you know, the funny thing about that is how do you address that, right? When you think about I'm in Semino County and I have five Republicans on the county commission. And without property taxes being removed, they already raised the millage, the ⁓ pro local property tax, they already raised the gas surcharge. All last year they did this. speaker-1: Exactly. speaker-0: So how do I how do I believe that they can address this in Tallahassee if I'm watching it not even be addressed local? speaker-1: I think the issue is that once the funding is cut locally, then and then people are group saying, Well the programs are gonna go away and the c services are gonna suffer and so on and so forth and that is all gonna happen. But at the same time, are they gonna go away and are they really gonna suffer or are they just going to go to a different government trough to get the money and that's where the the leadership or the lack of leadership in Tallahassee is gonna come into play on to see how to fix I think the funding deficit that we're gonna see on a local level because i they keep saying it's just a local thing. I mean we it is what it is, but at the end of the day the rooster gonna come home to roost in some way. Yes. And ⁓ I mean you still need fire, you still need safety, you still need roads. You need that regardless of what piggy bank it's coming out of. And so that being said, I'm all for property taxes and being cut myself. I'm you know, I think it's great, any kind of tax cut. But at the same time If the government can't live within their means then that government's gonna suffer. A lot of municipalities are gonna shut down. And whenever they do shut down, who's gonna I mean, people are still gonna be living there, they're still gonna be breathing. So who's gonna be picking up that bill? speaker-0: Well see, that's where I think ⁓ like I address like one of the things that's not being addressed by our elected officials at all levels of government is accountability. And elected officials, public officials should be held accountable for when we find ourselves in a situation like this, economically and socially. You know, you guys have been up there. I'm I'm running against an incumbent who's held office at the state level for nearly thirty consecutive years. I mean The insanity to believe that if we're if we're right here right now and a lot of these guys have been the same people in position for the last twenty to thirty years, and you believe by re electing them again, you're gonna change the course, the trajectory and the direction of our communities and our states. I'm sorry, but that's insanity. speaker-1: It is. And ⁓ and so w w whenever you're looking at the ⁓ the next steps of the campaign, what are you hearing out there when you go door to door when you talking to the voters and shaking their hands? I mean, what seems to be the biggest I I know you have your top three or four concerns, but what are the big concerns that you were hearing from the voters? ⁓ what's their biggest gripe, I guess, besides gas prices? speaker-0: I would say I know you say besides gas prices, but they fall in there. One of the biggest issues is affordability. So whether people are talking to me about gas prices or whether people are talking to me about home insurance skyrocketing, it's all about affordability. It's about the cost of living, whether you're renting or whether you're owning. So this affordability issue is becoming less of an issue and more of a crisis. speaker-1: Exactly. speaker-0: As we move forward, and it's gonna have to be addressed. And a lot of the very people that continue to be re-elected are the very people that have got us, have taken us down this ⁓ path into this crisis. And so when I'm out talking to people, I am constantly and consistently hearing, they might not say the word affordability, but when you when you bubble down what they just talked to you about, it's like, hey, taking my kids to practice went from costing me $100 in gas a week to costing me $175 in gas a week. Right? So that extra $75 is coming out of somewhere else. And back to what you said earlier, as families and individuals, we don't have a trough. We don't have all these troughs like the state government does. So ⁓ I would say the biggest thing I've heard are issues connected to affordability. I mean you you can slice it how you want, you know, Education costs for parents trying to get their kids in the school, ⁓ health care costs for families trying to take care of elderly parents and such. So it's affordability. It's a huge issue. speaker-1: And so I I spoke to somebody earlier today and I was gonna bring this up with you on the doge cuts that they're doing on a state level and they keep on talking about all these counties misusing money and they're they seem to be forgetting about looking at Tallahassee and how they handle their doge, or even if they do. But my question is, whenever they start looking at all the cuts and all the misuse of money and ⁓ it's still there. I mean, d just because they misuse it or something like that, it's still going to some trough. I mean, if if they want to lean down the government, why don't they just give us our money back? I mean if they d if they don't need it so badly, if they're use if they're wasting it so badly, they're misusing it so poorly, then why just give it back to us the the the amount that they're they're wasting and misusing and abusing. And I think the citizens of Florida will find a way to spend it to to help out the free market enterprise very well. Well that would be great. more carefully and how what the definition of waste really is before they start saying what is mis being misused or being wasted because I think a lot of people have very subjective lenses on all of this. speaker-0: Well, I think ⁓ one thing I'll just be clear cut about this. I don't think a lot of this is about waste or mismanagement or misuse or misappropriation. I think if we really get down to it, it's about open air corruption. Exactly. There's there's no way that I can slice this but to say that I live in a county that has over a one billion to one point five billion dollar budget for education. Yet they're cutting teachers' jobs. They're not nobody's getting pay raises. I mean, you're telling me I live in one of the smaller geographic counties in the state with a multi billion dollar school board budget. Yet we still don't have enough money for education just in this county. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, ⁓ th there's other counties that have a over a one and a half billion dollar budget just for county services and they got potholes everywhere. So you wonder and four or five years ago they were living off a four hundred million dollar budget and their roads were fixed. I mean, and so I I I think you know, where's the money going? Where where's the criminality at? speaker-0: The money's going to Yes. Well, the legislature, since they write the laws, they make sure not to include their corrupt methods and ways within the statutes. I I I I don't want to seem like ⁓ a conspiracy theorist. I just want to be honest and straight up with the public that we're funding our state and local governments at the level of at the state level, hundreds of billions of dollars. And when you say Why are we sending all this state money, lottery money, yet we still fall short of our education budgetary goals? speaker-1: in the state in the country. speaker-0: You feel me? So just I have to tell people we are experiencing an extreme level of corruption in America and corruption festers and it hurts nations historically and around the world. speaker-1: Right. So ⁓ what are the next events you have coming up here for the campaign? Well we're gonna speaker-0: be visiting ⁓ different cities throughout the district, ⁓ covering Semino and Orange County. And we're just gonna continue reaching out to ⁓ voters individually and in groups of ⁓ that we find because, you know, I really believe in being a champion of the people. So ⁓ right. I like to meet ⁓ speaker-1: You're not taking you're not gonna be taking lobbyist money or no or any kind of money like that. You're only gonna be taking local dollars then, right? speaker-0: In all of my political ⁓ undertakings, I've never accepted money from anybody other than the average American individual. I want people to know that I only answer to you guys. That's forever and always. speaker-1: So how can they donate to your campaign? speaker-0: They can ⁓ donate to me at HA DuncanForSenate.com. They can donate at ⁓ they can they can mail donations ⁓ to P.O. Box ⁓ 620092 Ovito, Florida, 32762. ⁓ or they could call my phone and and set it up with me. My phone number is 407-404-1295. I just feel like I should be Overtly open and transparent when ⁓ pursuing service to the public. Right. So I don't mind people having my real mail-in address, my real email address, or my real phone number. ⁓ because one thing I think has happened is we've allowed power distance to become so great between the citizen and the elected official that a lot of times elected officials do not feel that they have to be encumbered with their constituents. I don't ever want to get to that. place where my distance between the people of my community is so far that you can't have my real personal phone number. I believe that's great. I believe in accountability and I believe, you know, a citizen should be able to call me and say, hey Mr. Duncan, I actually feel a certain way about about a statement you made or about a vote you took. And I shouldn't have to fill out a form or go through a queue to get to my state officials. Exactly. It's not like I'm trying to talk to the president. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: I'm trying to talk to a guy elected to represent a county, right? At the state level. So no, you'll never have to fill out a phone go to a queue. Yeah. So speaker-1: That's great. Anything else you want to mention about the campaign before we wrap it up here? speaker-0: Okay, I I want people to know that, you know, I'm a diehard constitutionalist. I believe in our ⁓ founding documents and the way this country was set up. And I believe a lot of people, ⁓ whether it was a Revolutionary War, whether it was a civil war, whether it was civil rights, somebody died for me. Somebody sacrificed their treasure for me so that I could ⁓ pursue whatever goals I wanted in this land of opportunity. This is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. I just feel like we have to we have to bring ourselves back from the brink. And I think we do that through a respect and upholding of the Constitution and a call for better governance of the people through accountability to the people. And ⁓ that's really what I'm running on. I'm really running on upholding the Constitution and returning our government to we the people. speaker-1: Exactly. And that's a b that that's a very good way to end the in end this ⁓ talk here real quick because I mean it's all about we the peoples here speaking about this on the ⁓ precipice here of ⁓ Memorial Day weekend here and ⁓ that's you know, people that's when we're honoring all the people that fall in for us to do what we're doing now. I mean, the freedom to to have this podcast and ⁓ freedom of speech and and for the children in the background to be so happy and everything else but and and in both of our households here. I mean and and those are the freedoms that everybody has died for and sacrificed for and I think that so many people forget about that so much and ⁓ are very happy that you are not one of those who forget about that. speaker-0: Never. I'll never forget. I come from a ⁓ a proud military and law enforcement family and every day, you know, I know from my family to beyond my family the sacrifices that was that were made for me. And I I try to pay it for it every day in my civic duties. speaker-1: Right. Well, I look ⁓ thank you so much for joining me here today and we look forward to definitely talking to you a lot more during the campaign. And it would be great to just jump in with you at least every couple of weeks here and see how the campaign's going. speaker-0: Well hey, any time you guys wanna reach out, I'm more than willing to make myself available and I'm very thankful for you giving me the opportunity to ⁓ grace your platform and ⁓ be a part of your show today.