Marcos Lopez Q&A on transparency, reform and winning the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office primary

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  • Marcos Lopez campaign photo
    Marcos Lopez campaign photo
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Marcos Lopez won Tuesday night’s heated Democrat primary race for the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office. He defeated incumbent Russ Gibson by 616 votes, as well as former deputy Mike Fisher.

In November, Lopez will face no-party-affiliation candidate Tony Fernandez.

We sat down with Lopez the morning after his victory to discusses the win, campaign strategy, his thoughts on transparency and his plans moving forward.

 

Osceola News-Gazette: So many people considered you the underdog in this primary between you, Russ Gibson and Mike Fisher. The sheriff’s race was the upset of the night. What do you think led to your victory?

Marcos Lopez: It wasn’t just me: It was my team and the community...These people were so dedicated. I had about 10 solid people I could always depend on, and probably 25 people total who would dedicate their time when they could.

And I think Mike Fisher running helped me in some ways.

 

ONG: Why do you think that?
Lopez: I think he got a solid base from the community that was really anti-Russ Gibson. People could relate to that. And I got a little bit of everything.

A lot of people, believe it or not, weren’t familiar with who Russ was. Maybe two out of 10 people I spoke with were. And if they did know who he was, they weren’t happy with his performance.

 

ONG: Do you think being Hispanic gave you an edge in the primary?

Lopez: Not really. I include everyone. A lot of the people on my campaign team are white. Why would I discriminate against anybody? That’s just not me.

 

ONG: Where were you when you heard about the results?

Lopez: I didn’t think results were going to come in until 8 p.m. I was at the polls, trying to catch the last couple stragglers before the polls closed. Then I picked everything up and said, OK let’s get out of here.

Around 7:07, I got a call saying, “Dude, you’re up by like 1,000 votes.” I fell back. I almost passed out.

Then he said, “Wait, now you’re only up by 100 votes.” Man, you’re killing me! Then it went to 22 votes and I started to wonder if we were going to be able to pull this off. People were saying there might be a runoff.

By the time I got to Martin’s Barbeque where we had our little gathering, people said there wouldn’t be a runoff. I was up by a few hundred votes and that was enough...

So many people sent me messages Tuesday night that I’m still answering texts. I got like 498 texts.

 

ONG: What was this campaign like for you?

Lopez: People don’t realize there’s no second place in campaigning. You work and work and work. And for what? First place. So, it can be like borderline insanity what a lot of candidates go through. It really sunk in when a neighbor had told me, “Marcos, you work so hard for something where there’s no second place.”

The sacrifices we make for our families, for our children — it can be incredible. It can be hard on them. You’re never home and there’s so many long hours.

The political path is something I never thought would be this strenuous. The walking around, knocking on doors, talking to people — that’s the easy part. The hard part is doing it all day, every day.

But it paid off. It’s exciting. Now we have to focus on November.

 

ONG: In November, you could be elected the first Hispanic Sheriff of Osceola County.

Lopez: I didn’t go into this with that mindset. I believe in diversity. I’m for everybody. I just didn’t like the direction the Sheriff’s Office is going in.

I knew I had a passion for law enforcement. And I think it’s important that if you really have those passions, you can’t sit back on the couch, crying and complaining about it. We need to get out there and do something.

That’s always been my mindset. To have a good reform plan and do the right thing once we’re in office with the right people.

 

ONG: Gibson fired you from the Sheriff’s Office when you announced plans to run against him last year. Now you’ve defeated him. Have you thought about that?

Lopez: That’s a good question, but honestly, I haven’t given it much thought. Yes, he did fire me. But that gave me strength and courage to push even harder. Because I figured: OK, you tried to crush me. Take the food off the table for my family. It was hard.

But I just kept pushing. Every time I felt like giving up and wondered if it was worth it, I knew I had come too far.

 

ONG: Do you think people underestimated you?

Lopez: Oh, I’m sure. The underdog. All that. People asked me how I could beat Russ because he’s running on the tax dollar with a campaign war chest of money.

But I have faith. I think making those one-on-one contacts is really the determining factor. I sent personal letters to everyone who helped me qualify.

I knocked on almost 15,000 doors, believe it or not. On each of those 15,000 doors we placed mailers. When we knocked, we would have a good interaction, then a bad one. Good, bad, good, bad.

When COVID came in, it made things hard because we couldn’t knock. We had to just leave literature at the house. That really killed me because I wanted to talk to people. But even after that, if I caught someone outside, I’d strike up a conversation from a distance and leave them some information. It ended up working out.

 

ONG: What are your biggest challenges for November? What do you think will be your greatest obstacle?

Lopez: There’s a Democrat-Republican factor right now...I go up to people and say, “Hey there, I’m running for sheriff.” And right away they say, “Democrat or Republican?” When I say Democrat, some of them go, “OK, thank you, have a nice life.”

Just because you’re a Democrat, people think you want to defund the police. We all don’t think like that.

I think we need to sit down and speak with the Republican and non-partisan community and let them know that our reform plan is not only going to benefit the Sheriff’s department — it’s going to benefit the community. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or your party.

I think it might be challenging to convince the other parties that we have the best intentions in mind and we’re not here to defund the police. The police have been underfunded for years.

We definitely need to put more money into mental health for our deputies so we can help them offset some of the anger they have from dealing with so much negativity. That way, we can potentially avoid any kind of police misconduct or brutality cases.

We just need to sit down and start working soon, like next week. We need to win the hearts and mind of Republicans and let them know that we’re here for them, too. We don’t want them to automatically pick the other candidate just because I’m a Democrat.

We want them to know that we’re here to enforce law. We’re constitutional officers. We’re here to uphold the constitution. We want everyone to understand that’s what we’re going to do.

Implementing good reforms at the department, changing how we do business and serve our community — these things are going to benefit everyone.

 

ONG: What are the key pillars of that reform plan?

Lopez: Starting with a community advisory review board. I call it the CARE program — Community Advisory Review Board of Enforcement Standards. We get a panel of citizens from the different districts. We get attorneys so they can answer any sort of legal questions people might have when it comes to officers doing certain things. And a budget review board is going to explain exactly how we’re spending the money.

It’s not only going to show people how we discipline officers; it’s going to actually show how we operate day-to-day. Transparency.

I’d like to put the policies and procedures online too because a lot of people don’t understand how we function. This is a public entity. Those are our guidelines from the state of Florida, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement gives us our accreditation. And we have to abide by that.

Those are two things we’re going to create right off the bat to improve transparency.  If you’re a part of something, you’re going to understand and accept it better.

If I’m an elected official, I work for you. So, why wouldn’t I open that door of communication? This isn’t the FBI or CIA. It’s the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office. 

We’re trying to reform not only our deputies and how we do business, but also the way the Sheriff’s Office has functioned for the last 20, 25 years. Just because you’ve been doing something for over 30 years doesn’t mean you’ve been doing it right.