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Chapter 1: Why is Richard Lamondin running for Florida State Senate?
Hey, Roy. Yes? I'm wondering, would you ever run for office? No. I'm glad you took a moment to think about it. Too many skeletons in the closet. Is that right? Is it when we just learn a little bit too much about you? Did you have to take that moment to think, okay, what's the worst thing someone could say about me or know about me? Did you do that exercise in your head that quickly?
Yep.
I don't believe that. I feel like you've thought of running for, like, you know, I don't know. A class president? No.
Chapter 2: What challenges does Richard face as a young candidate?
No, I ran for class president my senior year. I did. I won by about, I think, 75% of the vote, I think I obtained. Yeah, it was really, really worth it. The thing that they don't tell you about that is that, like... Ten years later, you're like responsible for the class reunions. So it's like a lifetime job. Oh, I'm getting those messages right now. Yeah, as the president of the senior class.
And I really, I think they can impeach me at this point because it's sheer dereliction of duty. But I thought maybe you'd run for prime minister of Miramar or whatever they call it. I don't know what the position is. I haven't read the city charter in Miramar. No. But no, you never thought of running.
Chapter 3: How does Richard's background influence his political views?
You never been so pissed with like just, I don't know, your trash pickup, painting lines on the street, just something that just got your goat where you're like, you know what? I should run and I should stop complaining and I should start doing something about it.
No, I'll just leave that up to Luther Campbell.
Exactly.
That's right. Luke is right. Have we had him on since he started? No. We had him on when he was thinking about running like two years ago, but we haven't had him on since he actually... Well, we had him on a couple of months ago.
Right, but not about... But that was before he officially dove in and had his candidacy.
Right, up there in... Yeah. So I'm always curious about this, why people decide to run for office, particularly when they're young, they're young parents. It's no holiday, right? Happy Purim. Richard Lamondin is an environmental entrepreneur.
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Chapter 4: What issues are impacting Coconut Grove and its community?
He is also a candidate for Florida State Senate in District 38. He is running against Republican incumbent Alexis Kaladiud, a name that may mean something to people who listen to some of the podcasts on this network. Richard, no relation to Tony Kaladiud, right? I believe there is relation. Is there? What is that relation?
I've been informed recently that they are siblings.
Oh, no kidding. How about that?
Yeah, how about that?
Did you know that, Roy? Yes. Richard, let's get into it. Why are you doing this? You're a young guy.
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Chapter 5: How does David Villano describe the state of local journalism?
As I said earlier, I think you have a relatively young kid. Now seems like... a really bad time in your life, in your child's life, in your marriage to do this. So why? Yeah, you have to be a little bit psychopathic. I got to tell you, for the record, I live in this district, so I'm going to be voting in this race.
I haven't made any decision yet, but I will say I appreciate that honesty about your own psychological frailty in entering this race.
The number one question I've gotten since I first informed my friends and people who know me about running has been like, seriously, why would you want to do that? That's honestly what's part of what's messed up with our system. Right, is that people think there has to be something wrong with you in order to make this decision.
Is there something wrong with you, Richard?
Not that I'm aware of, but you'll have to bring my wife on for that one. Absolutely. No, I'd love that. No, really, I...
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Chapter 6: What role does accountability play in local governance?
That's what we should start doing. Forget the candidates. We should start interviewing the wives. I can't wait to get Gabella's wife on here.
Gabella's gone wild.
Holy moly. So tell me, what was the threshold here for you?
Well, I'm born and raised here in Miami. For the last 13 years, I've built a company called EcoFi that fights the climate crisis by upgrading old buildings to save energy and water. I did that because 13 years ago, I felt that we weren't doing enough to make our environment more sustainable. I saw that businesses were not getting into it. And I did something really sexy.
I learned how to change a toilet to save water bills, because 20% of all toilets are leaking. So Billy, just like how politics is not sexy, I promise you, neither is going in your bathroom and swapping out your toilet
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Chapter 7: How is the city budget affecting public services in Miami?
But that's interesting, though. We have a lot of old buildings down here, a lot of old infrastructure. Is that a problem, like leaky pipes? Obviously, older buildings had different kind of shower heads that were a little more aggressive. So is there a lot of water waste in older buildings?
Enormous. We waste, as a country, we waste a trillion gallons of water every year just on water waste, not including leaks. I talk about 20% of all toilets leak. Here in South Florida, we obviously have the aquifer right beneath us, and we're dealing with saltwater intrusion. We're dealing with
cooling canals out at Turkey Point that they never quite line properly, so there's always salt in our drinking water. We have a huge amount of problems, but we built the company from my brother and I going door-to-door to nationwide across the country. We operate in pretty much all markets across the U.S. They all have different problems.
So accustomed to dealing with shit all day.
Chapter 8: What is the future of Coconut Grove and its independence?
So that perhaps suits you for politics, particularly in the state of Florida. Why this race?
So I have a four-year-old son now. As you mentioned, I am a father. And the one thing that caused me to get into politics is the fact that when I had him, I started thinking about what's the world going to be like when he gets older. It's going to suck. Spoiler alert. Sorry. It's going to suck. I'm an optimist at heart. I think it doesn't have to suck, but it's trending towards sucking.
And I've looked around. I've seen the kind of dysfunction that's happened from local government all the way up to D.C. And I'm tired of Democrats getting their ass kicked in elections because they can't connect with voters in the way to win.
You're so good at it, though, Richard.
So good at losing the Democrats. It's been a deep frustration of mine for a long time. And after Trump won the 2024 election, I kind of felt the call. And I thought that if not now, then when? Initially, I was running for the US Congress against Maria Salazar. And I switched over a few months ago to run for the state Senate simply because
There's just absolutely absurd amounts of corruption happening there, whether if it's giving away Miami-Dade College land for the Trump Hotel and Casino, whether if it's over almost a billion dollars to put Alligator Alcatraz out in the Everglades, naming the Palm Beach Airport after the president when he gets to profit off the trademark, on and on and on.
And so the fact of the matter is we don't have people solving the issues up there, and I got sick and tired of it.
It'll give you opportunity to spend less time with your family. So there's that. I'm reminded when Urban Meyer left the University of Florida, he said to spend more time with his family. And then like almost immediately got that job with Ohio State. I presume he was going to make a statement. So now I can spend less time with my family. I don't know.
I wouldn't want to miss my four year old kid's life spending any amount of time in Tallahassee. Not that lawmakers spend a lot of time in Tallahassee, to be fair. It's not like Congress, which is kind of in session. Right. It's very much a part-time job. But to that end, Republicans have a super majority. The Democrats have been a non-entity in the state of Florida.
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