Dhiren Shah: Welcome to this interview Ms. Hilbert. Why are you running for Mayor of Orange?
Quantavia Hilbert: I made the decision to run for mayor because a lot of the residents came to me for their concerns and their issues. I realize a lot of the stuff is beyond my scope in my authority as a council member, and I wanted to work with the administration, but I felt that the office of the mayor is not being used effectively. I felt like there was a presence of the current mayor and there was a lot of discomfort and distrust in our community for the local government and I wanted to offer new opportunities and a new type of leadership in this community.
DS: What do you feel is the biggest issue in Orange right now?
QH: The biggest issue right now is affordability. A lot of people are complaining about their increase in tax, their increasing rent. A lot of them don’t understand why there is such a large increase.
DS: How will you govern the city with established figures against you?
QH: To be honest, I don’t feel like, when I become the mayor, I don’t think of anything against me. “Against me” is probably a negative repetition the city has, and I am open to working with a lot of people here in the city, in the county and in the community. But the key is establishing relationships and partnerships. That is the only way the city gets more funding and recognition.
DS: What do you think is Mayor Warren biggest success and biggest failure?
QH: I would say his biggest success is that he is able to mobilize a lot of people to support him in his last 12 years. He was able to have a lot of people buy his plan. I believe his biggest failure is turning his back on some of the same people who were expecting to come out with some solutions for this community. They were looking for real progress in this community, transparency and responsibility from the mayor and they did not receive that in return. We’ve received negative press regarding embezzlement and his lack of judgment he brought in our city.
DS: As councilwoman, what is your biggest success and biggest failure?
QH: As a sophomore councilperson, my biggest success is the relationship I am building with my community, my constituency. I met a lot of people, heard their stories, and I try to keep in contact with everyone and help them to the best of my ability. I would say my biggest failure is waiting. I spend a lot of time waiting for a response from my colleagues. I spent a lot of time emailing and entertaining conversations with the people that I thought were there to work with me and not against me. While I was waiting, I missed our remaining opportunities to pass legislations, to facilitate certain programs in our community. That is something to learn from. I want to be the person moving forward. I am the person who is always about action, never waiting to validate someone for my interest or people’s concerns. I want to be there to get the job done.
DS: You put forth anti-nepotism legislation. Will you abide by it, meaning that your husband Jean Michael Batiste will not be involved in city of Orange’s affairs?
QH: I do stand by anti-nepotism 100%. I believe that we should hire people based on their qualifications, their merit and their good character. The anti-nepotism policy I introduced in the past did not affect the current people who are hired by this administration. It was really an initiative that we are really looking forward to as a community. Because we want to make sure that we have a healthy culture in our workplace here in the city. My husband was a former employee of the city of Orange. He is no longer working for the city of Orange. He was actually running our businesses, help me to raise our family. You will probably see him at the functions, fundraisers, or events volunteering for seniors. Because he has a huge heart for the older adults in our community, because he used to work for them.
DS: If you become a mayor, will you fire all the employees hired by the mayor, his family members or his friends? Will you go against those employees?
QH: I wouldn’t say fire; that is extremely negative and toxic. I do have a human resources background, so I know that there would not be an appropriate approach. I would like to an assessment and evaluation of everyone in city hall, and if they are working in other departments, they will not be evaluated with a biased scope. I will build a positive workplace and healthy work culture. We need to talk about everyone being a part of the vision, to bring change about in this community and in our city as a whole. I want all the city employees as a part of that. I don’t want to create a chaos or negativity or division. I serve the residents, and also serve them as their leader, not coming up with any negativity or biases or no grudges towards anyone.
DS: Why do you feel the mayor’s campaign team has fired off a high level negative campaign against you?
QH: Because they see me as a threat. I am simply the representative of the people. I am very relatable. I am a young woman in her late 30s. I am a mother in a blended family. I have an African American and a Caribbean background. I have business experience. I am also educated and am still looking for further my education. I work very well with a lot of people. I focus on partnership, I focus on diversity, and I focus on integrity. Being all that, people look at me as a candidate. These are a lot of qualities our current mayor does not have and that is why he feels challenged with the success of my campaign.
DS: When you mention your Caribbean background, from what area?
QH: I have family members who are from Jamaica, Haiti and the Bahamas.
DS: The mayor’s supporters sent three court cases by making a fake newspaper, according to you. In the first case you were a plaintiff, and the other party was defendant. The newspaper has given the wrong perception, I understand. However, you have two cases against your company and in both, your company lost. What in your response, and why you have not paid the judgment amount?
QH: The most recent case is still pending, to settle it was an effort of my company to sell some of our assets. A lot of people know that I am working very diligently to build my company and focus on its development. It was not my first (business), it was not my last company. So, I was not always successful, especially after becoming a council person, there were a lot of things out of my control. During the pandemic, we had a lot of people that were overpricing, overcharging. There were companies over my company who were shuttered by mismanagement and congestion during the pandemic. Unfortunately, we had a lot of clients who did not pay us. And in return, we did not keep some of our bills, and at a point in time, I wanted to stay away from the trucking company completely, because I did not want it to affect my role as a leader in this community. I did not go into the trucking business because I loved it, but because I have a skill set, and it is going to help me provide for my family. I do love being a part of the community, and I never, ever, use my role as a council member to advance myself or my career or my business. Unfortunately, there is a lot of focus on these court cases, and I am still working out the resolutions with my partners and my legal team.
DS: In your opinion, have you ever cheated someone?
QH: No. Never. I am still working on resolving some of the issues. We have good relationships with a lot of these companies. I had to let go part of my business. It was my baby. I had built up this business with no assistance or outside funding, and to this today, I am the same person. I like to build with my hard work ethic. I don’t take from other people. I don’t take people’s hard earned money. I learned a lot as a young entrepreneur, and I will continue to grow from this and apply better business practices and better safeguards for my next business.
DS: Do you have relations with the companies you lost the two cases against?
QH: If I call them, they will definitely answer my call and speak with me. It wasn’t an unfriendly exit. It was just the time. They understood, we understood, we did not take it personally. We tried to liquidate some assets. Tried to take extra work from other places to make up the balances. Unfortunately, I was not 100% into my business, because I was running for office.
DS: How would you describe the state of the country right now?
QH: In 2024, America is still a young country. We still going through trials and errors. We are still trying to figure out who is on the top and who is on the bottom. We are still building on alliances, and having backroom conversations, and at times all about who you know, not what you know. A lot of that has led us to nepotism. A lot of that led us to losing good people in our country. Because we pushed our favorites in front of hard working, good people. Look at the climate of war happening, issues with health insurance, retirement, the inflation, the possibility of more people being homeless in couple of years. I pray that in the upcoming election, we are not divided like we were before.
DS: Residents have expressed concerns about the rising taxes in Orange over the past 12 years. Although some revenue has increased due to new developments being approved, this additional revenue has not yet offset the continuing increase in taxes for homeowners. During your last two years as Councilperson, you voted both years for budgets that increased the tax burden for residents. What is your plan to address current homeowner concerns over these continuing tax increases?
QH: In regard to previous budgets, I agreed to them on the basis of what we needed to pass the budget in order to serve our community. But I would say on the last budget review in 2023, I was reluctant to pass the budget because I felt like there were some departments that were heavily inflated. I felt that there was no justification for the increases in some areas, and I also recognized that our Library, our institution, was underfunded and they were struggling and needed additional funding. So, I pushed for appropriations to be funneled into the library in order to help the communications workers there and make sure that the community has access to that public space.
In regard to our development, you are right. We have not seen an offset to other taxes or even a stabilization of the taxes from the developments we have already. In a lot of those developments, they are supposed to provide community benefits, and we don’t see that impact either. I believe that as a local government, we have not gone to the developers or the private investors. It has tangibles and deliverables we needed from them. We did not have meaningful, impactful things to ask from them. We have not seen the money applied to the community.
We were offered additional parking as a part of the community benefit. To my understanding, the additional parking will come as $125 per month to the community. That’s not a real benefit. We have to overhaul the community benefit policies and we really need to do an assessment, what is going to come to the community from these new developments. I did ask the questions from our budget consultants, and I am still waiting for those answers.
DS: You have said “YES” to the budgets. However, except once you have said no to tax abatement. Why?
QH: I say no to tax abatements where I believe that there should be stronger community benefits policies. I believe that we should increase requirements for affordable units. I believe that it should not be 10%, it should be 15% or 20%, because we don’t want to displace Orange’s residents. And I do not believe we should not have 30 years or 20 years tax abatements, because our residents should have full revenue in the tax base and pressure should be taken off of homeowners.
DS: What is the reason Mayor Warren is raising the taxes?
QH: I believe he is increasing the taxes because his budget every year is increased based off of salaries and other miscellaneous things. But I don’t think he understands what he is doing with his budget.
DS: Thank you very much for your time.
