Now. This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is the Jeff lory In Nick Show. The Jefflori and Nick Show is an informative talk show that's focused on finding solutions to today's problems. The show's purpose is to provide healthy discussions that lead to building stronger communities and the stronger nation through promoting good conservative principles, business and bringing people together. Today, we're happy to have with us a great person. Her name is Faith Andrews, and she is the Clerk of Courts for the Great County of Lake County in Ohio. Good morning, Faith, How are you today? Wonderful? How are you just doing? Great? Faith? We're going to just jump right into it. This is an election, see, and we have a big election coming up here. There's primary elections that are going on all over the country. And we know that you as Clerk of Courts in for the Great County of Lake County, you've been doing that for a while. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, give me your background and how did you become Clerk of courts? Okay, Well, I spent most of my career in the private sector, working for CEOs of Fortune five hundred companies and managing partners of large defense law firms. I was also a tech writer into it, and I got involved because I was a little bit of an activist before I came into office. And I was at a Republican roundtable lunch lamenting about the fact that a former Democrat switched parties and decided instead of helping us, to run against the great Becky Lynch, who was the Recorder of Lake County. And I said, this guy can't be, you know, a conservative. He spent a Democrat all his life. Unfortunately, I think what's happening is they're realizing that, you know, they're going to have a harder time winning, you know, because their party is just I mean, if you hit your little red wagon to a party who wants to murder children up to you know, the moment of birth, then you know you're going to maybe have a little bit of a problem getting into office here in conservative Lake County. But my party asked me to run. I was lamenting about the fact that there was no competition for the Democrat who was running for Clerk of Courts, and Dale Fellows said why don't you do it? So I said, okay, and I did, and I won. Now, Now for our listeners, who is Dale Fellows? Oh? Dale Fellows is the chairman of the Lake County Republican Party. Okay, so my party asked me to run. Okay, and Faith, how did you what kind of thing in the private sector kind of prepared you for this office? Oh? Boy? Everything, I mean working for everything is a project when you are an executive assistant working at the level I was working at. I also again had about ten years experience in the legal field, working for a managing partner who did a medical malpractice defense and legal mailpractice defense. So I got to see the court system function from a different aspect. Love law. Literally wanted to be a lawyer, but then I started having children and they came first. So my time with uh Well, the last private sector job I had before I started my own business was working for a Highlight International. I was working for the CEO and CFO of that company, and I was running four programs for North American operations. Furthermore, one of the things I said that I would do is improve efficiency through technological improvements and process improvements. And I did get that. You know that experience in the private sector, I know how software development works. Because I worked for into it and I wrote a software manual called Foresight. It's an advanced budgeting and forecasting application. So I worked with subject matter experts, I worked with the actual programmers, and I wrote the documentation, the user manual. So I believe that my private sector experience, we move at the speed of business, not government, and I have brought that to the office. And both title and what legal and title. Most people don't know that the clerk, of course also runs the title bureau. Faith. It sounds as if your private sector experience that gave you the opportunity to make processes processes work a little faster and more efficiently, and that is great. Tell us what the clerk does. Tell us about the clerk's office. What kind of things do you do? Well, as I said, I have two divisions. I have about fifty employees. The legal division were the keeper of the records and we're also the checks and balances for the court. The High Revised Code says the people want an unbiased third party managing the court's records. They do not want the judges and their staff managing the docket or the court records. Yes, they're the court's records, but the arc and the people want someone like me managing those records. So we manage the docket. I mean basically from you know, we earth cases and we manage the docket. And basically, like I said, keep where the keeper of the records. One of my proudest accomplishments in what I hope is my first term because I'm going for a second, was the centralization of court records. We had records all over Painsville in four separate locations, paying lease a lease on these locations. It made things very inefficient for retrieval. I now have them all in one comprehensive record center, which makes things more efficient for records retrieval. Everything is safe because a portion of the records were stored in a bell tower that was leaky. Records and water do not mix. It took my wonderful staff only ninety days to get this thing put together. Title I run that title bureau as well. I have two brick and mortar locations, one in Mentor near Heinens and one in Wickliffe near Gabes, and we title everything with the motor. We also are a passport acceptance agency. All of my deputies are certified passport agents. And we also provide we started last year providing watercraft registration as well, mostly for convenience. You can title your motor, you can title your boat, and then you can register your watercraft. So your next stop is the boat ramp and Lake Erie. I can monetize title, I can find more revenue streams, and my business experience has really been instrumental. We've run in twenty three new dealers in three years. I title everything in Billy. Tell me about that. Back up a little bit. You said you brought in twenty three new dealers. Talking about that a little bit. Okay. We have what we call casual titles, and those are person to person, like I'm selling you my vehicle, and you know I'm not going to a dealer. Our dealers. We work directly with dealers. And one of the things that I did when I came into office was started a title runner program. We run titles, but basically we have a cadre of dealers that we do their title work for. See, they'll run to us and will run to them. I title everything in Lake County, my friend, and then I take over a million dollars every year from surrounding counties. Why because we provide title runner. We provide a twenty four hour turnaround. And the public service. Our public service is powered by exceptional deputy clerks. They are the best in the state. So folks that are buying vehicles, automobiles, boats, anything that needs a title, they go to your office and you have that's correct, and you have two locations. You said, yes, sir, all right, awesome, that's awesome. What kind of things have you done? What things have you changed into clerk's office since you've been there. Well, I believe in equal justice under the law and access to justice for all. You know, that means no two tier system of justice the first part there. But one of the things that I've done in the legal division is I have made court records available to the public online back twenty eighteen to the current time for the first time ever. Additionally, we are e filing all case types with the exception of Court of Appeals, and that's something that I'm looking to do later this year. Awesome. So I was just going to ask you what are your plans for the clerk's office, and you've just jumped right into it and said that plan. So you're making the clerks office more accessible or should I say easily accessible to the public. We're making records available, yes, and and again access to justice. It's that's very important to me. I'm a public servant first and foremost. I really don't like it when people refer to me as a politician, because that, to me is a dirty word. I am a public servant, so my focus is always on the people, and that is what I do demand of my staff. They need to remember who they've served. Another thing that I've done is I brought in business process modeling. We are actually, you know, flow charting our processes because we want to see where inefficiencies are. And then we will be upgrading our court management system as well. Right now we're running the lowest version of a court view, that's what it's called, and we need to upgrade. So that is my plans. That's also on my radar for my next term. That's awesome. I know a lot of people just don't have time. People like to go into places, and I hate to use this as an example, but for quite some time, a lot of folks who would complain about going to the post office and standing in line and waiting, and I know I've done it on several occasions, and you know, I know things have gotten better at a lot of locations, but there are times where I go to the post office and I'm waiting in line, and I'm waiting and I'm saying, wait a minute, I could go up there and move a lot faster than this. So what you're saying is people don't have to go to the clerk's office and stand in line forever and to get a public record, deal with frustration and those things. You're continuing to make things more efficient for the public to access records and the services that they need that they need. Is that correct? That is correct? And you know that we advertise for our passport services because nobody knows and it's a full service. We do your photo as well, because we've had to turn away their pretty persnicity about their photos and so we've had to reject several so we just decided to start offering the photo where at once to stop shot. And we are way nicer than the post office. Let me tell you, we can make short work of it. Yeah. I didn't mean to make a negative comment there, but because we try to keep things as positive as possible. So that's good to know that if folks want a passport, now do you have? They can come to your office. Do you have to live in Lake County? No? And again, part of the reason why I can take over a million dollars from surrounding counties is cross titling is a thing. I got to make sure nobody's taken anything from me, and they don't. But I'll take as much from Cuyahoga as I can, and Summit and everybody else because again, we provide the highest quality service. I mean, if if somebody's offering you a twenty four hour turnaround, and you're the clerk in your county says, I'm sorry, you got seventy We can't do this three days. You got you got to wait for your title for three days? What are you going to do? And if I'm making it so easy that I'm running titles to you, you know they never go back once they once they try our service. I know that you're a good family person and you love family, and I think that's so important that you love people and you're providing a good service. How can people find out more about you? What if folks you want to help you in your re election? And it's so said that you've got to run for office because you're doing a great job. How can people find out more about you? Get in touch with you? Okay, well there, I am, as you mentioned, up for reelection. The election the primary is March nineteenth, and unfortunately, I do have a primary candidate. I am endorsed by the Republican Party, and I have my experience and what I've done. I mean to run on and I so I am asking for folks to to get in there and vote for me, and you can find out more about me and what I've done. Uh, my website is Andrews for Clerk of Courts dot com. Andrews for Clerk of Courts dot com. My phone number and I'm gonna is that Andrews number four or there's the word the word f O R. Yeah, that's Andrews for Clerk of Courts dot com. Okay, thank you, and then your number. My phone number is four four zero eight for zero one, eight four or five. Send me a text, pick up the phone. I'll be happy to talk to anyone and answer any questions you have. And my face page is Faith Andrew's Lake, Faith Andrew's Lake. Oh, this is awesome. We want you to just keep doing the work that you're doing. Faith Andrews Lake County Clerk of Courts, Again, we want to just thank you, say thank you Faith for just coming on and keep providing these services. And anytime you have an update of new services, we'd like to share that with our audience because we want our audience to enjoy all of the positive things that are going on in life. We all need to stay positive, so I want to say thank you to our audience and remember to keep fighting the good fight and we can all do better. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk Lives is online at FCB podcasts dot com. M
