Chris Messina, Tiffany Moore Russell, Stephanie Murphy and Mayra Uribe shared their plans for promoting affordability, enhanced public transportation, and improved government spending during the Orange County Mayoral Debate, aired Wednesday night on WESH 2 News.

“The office of Orange County mayor is one of the most influential in the region and the state,” said co-moderator Greg Fox, WESH 2 News investigative and political reporter. “Orange County is the largest of the nine counties that make up Central Florida, and one-and-a-half million people live here. It’s also one of just two counties across Florida with a strong mayor.”

After candidates’ opening statements, co-moderator Stewart Moore noted that this year’s property tax cut proposal, if approved by voters, would reduce Orange County’s funding by approximately $160 million in the first year. Uribe, who currently represents District 3 on the Orange County Commission, assured viewers that the county has “a lot of ability to cut.”

“When you look at the org chart, we actually have fiscal departments in eight divisions,” Uribe said. “We’re going to streamline this, make one department in charge of the fiscal part of Orange County, and stop finding ways of hiding money.”

Russell stressed the plausibility of introducing fees to compensate for the potential decline in public services’ funding.

“Around a month ago, Orange County was conducting community meetings to discuss a potential stormwater fee, and it was tabled,” she said. “The commission decided to hold off on that, which exposed the fact that we need a dedicated funding source just for stormwater, and so there may be some fees we have to explore.”

The candidates also discussed the potential redirection of Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funds to improve transportation, infrastructure, or entertainment. Russell mentioned her desire to expand the county’s investment in the arts, noting Apopka Amphitheater as a potential opportunity to do so. Messina shared his desire to give downtown Orlando residents “an equity stake in whatever sports franchise comes here” and to “redevelop Church Street.”

Discussion of the TDT also extended to candidates’ solutions for affordability and housing concerns.

“If you also look at TDT, if we were able to reduce what Visit Orlando gets by $45 million, we could actually put that into bonding and build 200 units a year,” Uribe said.

Murphy, Russell, and Messina all agreed the housing problem resulted from a lack of supply.

“I understand the vulnerability that people who are hardworking in this community feel in this moment as prices are outpacing their salaries,” Murphy said. “I think that if you look across the country, places who have met the affordability issue by increasing supply to meet the demand that exists in the community have found that they’ve been able to drive down rates.”

To increase supply, Messina suggested developing the county’s “derelict shopping centers” into “mixed-use and multi-purpose housing” and taking advantage of laws like the Live Local Act. He also discussed illegal immigration as a key factor in the county’s current demand for housing.

“We have between one-and-a-half to two million people living here in Florida illegally, and data from the Center for Immigration Studies says for every million people in the country, there’s a 1% increase in housing costs,” he said. “Florida’s a tenth of that. If you multiply by 10, that means our housing prices are 10-20% higher than they should be because of illegal immigration here.”

Fox then briefly noted the importance of increasing housing’s affordability alongside the further development of public transportation. Messina advocated for a “shift from a hub-and-spoke model to a point-on-point model.” Both he and Uribe also discussed the success of Scout, Seminole County’s microtransit system.

“When you actually look at the Scout program, they actually incentivize people who go to the SunRail and get on it, and that’s how we’re going to get those suburban areas to connect there, where you can park, get downtown, and get somewhere,” Uribe said.

To watch the full debate, visit wesh.com/article/commitment-2026-orange-county-mayor-debate/73220941.