- Website:
- Facebook:
- Twitter:
- Instagram:
Interview Transcript:
Reporter: So my first question is, can go ahead and tell me of, like, what you were inspired to run.
Moran: I was inspired to run because people told me to run. I had my run in, dealing with the city and the communication between the city for about a year now, and it’s. And it got pretty complicated. The, the connection between the city and the people just wasn’t there. And all I really wanted to do was continue my small business. And then, I had end up going to speak at city council. And then for me, standing up for myself and ended up helping others. And then, a lot of people decided that, you know what? It’s time for somebody to stand up and be the voice for more people.
Reporter: Very nice. I just thought, I don’t know if the chain, might be represented.
Moran: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got I got it.
Reporter: Sorry. No problem. Cool. So how do you think your campaigns been going so far?
Moran: So far, it’s been very hard timing because at the same time that we decided this, my mom passed away. And then I got the permits that we had been waiting a year before. Year four at the same time. The thing that has saved everything and actually made it a lot easier than I thought it would be, is the people who came together and said, hey, we’re going to support you no matter what. So let’s get this done.
Reporter: I’m very sorry for your loss there.
Moran: I appreciate that. Yeah.
Reporter: And when did that happen?
Moran: That happened two and a half weeks ago, the memorial, was this Wednesday, which is, and the two days before we had our big party at my, at my venue celebrating the fact that we got all of our permits.
Reporter: I’m sorry. I won’t include that.
Moran: No. Please. No. Included. Yeah. I don’t mind.
Reporter: Okay. One more thing was, Let’s see. Do you have much of the, any kind of, like, background in politics before?
Moran: So my main background in politics would be, would be the events that I have thrown for, for all, all types of political leanings, as, as well as working with non-profits and a lot of non-profits end up being supported by, some political figures. And so that’s my main, my main connection, to politics. But, you know, we’re affected by politics and everyday life and, and, me running a small business and, having the issues that I was having made it so that I had to I had to know some people. And it turns out I knew a lot more than I. Then I realized.
Reporter: Awesome. So you had even more support than you expected.
Moran : Oh, way more support than than I expected. I was a part of, the Juneteenth event. In the community heritage event. Which, I had, Jim Francis on from, city council. We had his support, and he became a mentor to me through that. And then just really just knowing people from helping people and, being involved in the community, then you kind of you kind of just turn around, you’re like, hey, when when did I get the support?
Moran: And how did how did I get involved in politics?
Reporter
It sounds like the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Moran: Oh, exactly.
Reporter: Oh, that.
Moran: Yeah.
Reporter: That’s awesome.
Moran: Yeah. I was just checking. Yeah. Yeah. And, you’re you’re actually, right on my head on that because, when I needed the most support, I turned around and people were. The people were there for me, especially in this past week. We, this past week or two, people were there, and they recognize how much I had been there, and, and they and they showed me that it matters. Standing up for people matters.
Reporter:
Fantastic. Now, you were telling me, like you, once you established, like, more communication between, like, the citizens and the city. Yeah. As well.
Moran: Yeah. That was, one of the biggest issues that I face was, the fact that I was saying one thing. City was saying another thing. I wasn’t trying to skirt any rules. I was just trying to have a business. And then within that, talking to every, every single person that I could. During the past, during the past year, the the priorities of the people weren’t really aligning with the priorities of the city. And that’s not and that doesn’t mean that the city is wrong or the people are wrong. It’s just a communication issue. It’s a communication breakdown. And there’s no reason why in the day and age that we live in, why we can’t have updated information, we can’t have, priorities straight, and we can’t move forward in a way that makes sense for everybody.
Reporter: Yeah, I get that. Like, this is the time where we had more of a say. Like, it’s been the easiest to communicate so easily and so quickly.
Moran: Yeah. Yeah. It’s and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that I have more followers. Than than than the city, that I get more interaction from the people than than the city does. And I don’t think it would be that hard to really connect those dots and bridge that gap in between the the people of Idaho Falls and the city government. And at the end of the day, we’re all just people. So how how can we how can we, bridge that gap, communicate that at the end of the day, it’s simple.
Reporter: Excellent. So now, like with all this talk with communication, and I. That’s a really big thing that people definitely worry about. Yeah. If you’re elected, what else would you like to see? Like change wise?
Moran: What? So I think first and foremost, I, I don’t plan on making a lot of promise. Big promises. What? The only thing I plan to do is. Is do what I’ve been doing for the past ten or so years is is to bridge those gaps and make connections. And the changes that need to happen are going to be the changes that the that the people of the city want. So things like transportation, focusing on the infrastructure, make sure that the growth that’s happening is done, is done in a, in a safe way for the community so that things are still affordable and we’re still keeping the spirit of Idaho Falls while we’re growing, because the growing is inevitable. And, even though that growing is inevitable, we need to make sure that we’re still keeping Idaho Falls, Idaho Falls, and we’re still focusing on the priorities of the people.
Reporter: Wonderful. I mean, that seems to be the main thing I want to cover at this point. Is there anything else that you’d like viewers to know?
Moran: So access is really important, and that’s going to be a very big part of my campaign is the fact that, if you don’t vote, you you don’t have a voice. And if you don’t vote in local elections and you only vote in national elections, you’re losing a big part of your voice. A lot of people don’t know that you can vote at the county elections office from October 14th to October 31st. And so you don’t have to miss out on work on the on November 4th. You can go in at any time to our beautiful downtown. It’s a it’s a 3 to 4 minute walk from most, most parking spots. And there’s parking. Parking right on the street there. Those are that access matters. And that’s how we get our voice heard. A lot of people are scared of losing their jobs, scared of losing their, their time and money because they don’t know that they can vote for a three week period. And I honestly, I do not know why we don’t talk about that more. I feel like that’s when the election should happen.
Reporter: So back to communication.
Moran: Exactly. And, you know, and my whole campaign is going to harp on that. Like all I’m going to talk about it all the time. Just making sure that people know, hey, your vote, vote actually does matter. And you can, you can make that happen. You you don’t have to lose out in order to make your voice heard. And if we and if people are losing out, when they’re making their voice heard, that’s not a people issue. That is a that is a city government issue. That’s that’s where the city government should step up and saying and be looking for people who are underrepresented and making sure that they get that representation.
Reporter: Yeah, I get that. One thing I think I heard recently was that. But there are 70,000 people in Idaho Falls.
Moran: Oh, I heard that. I heard 80,000. That was a couple years ago. The the, I, if I’m not mistaken, we should be over 100,000 in, in about two years, which is a big reason, which is a big reason why transportation needs to be, needs to be addressed a little bit more thoroughly, because there’s going to be a lot more frustrating to try to figure out transportation when we’re at 100,000 people rather than rather than before. And it’s something that would help a lot of people, especially with, close to 45% of of Idaho, Idaho citizens being transportation insecure.
Reporter: So get ahead now while you can.
Moran: Yeah. While we can still have conversations like this before. Before it’s. Well, now we’re doing now we’re doing with 40 other, apartment complexes that need transportation. Let’s try to deal with the, issues that we have right now. And we’re in a in it. And that transportation issue solves even more than we realized because we just had this parking fiasco, which which I was there at some of those meetings. If you want to solve parking, have transportation. If you want more people to go downtown while still solving parking, transportation, if you want less drunk driving downtown transportation. So there’s there’s a lot, a lot of things that transportation solves. And that is a big issue for people. And, we know that trip to a trip to ended up sailing, but, there but I don’t know, when’s the last time you looked at those maps? I looked it up a few days ago. The trip. The maps were all over the place. They didn’t make a lot of sense. We as as people who have been here for a while, know where our main roads are. Let’s make it so this side of town can get to that side of town to make it simple. We know where we need to be.
Reporter: Cut out the flow exactly.
Moran: The most of the time, people like to stack on more issues than you need to, but if you deal with the baseline issue, you’re going to end up having a lot better time dealing with issues that people really care about.
Reporter: Awesome. Was there anything I wanted to cover?
Moran: I’m not particularly. Had any more for me?
Reporter: I don’t think so.
Moran: But, yeah, at this point it’s pretty may I think that might make maybe more a couple more personal things.
Reporter: I don’t know if we’ll have time to put that in, but if you want, just us to have it on camera.
Moran: Oh, yeah. Well, it’s more personal things. Maybe. Asked about my background.
Reporter: With your background?
Moran: So my background isn’t mainly in mental health and in nonprofits. That’s. That’s where I got the bulk of my my experience from working with people, communicating with people here and people. Because in both of those situations, you need to connect with people and you need to know what their core issues are. And, and before you can start solving issues, you have to know the issues. And that’s where a lot of the disconnects have been in the community, where in the city governments is that we don’t connect enough, like we should the city city council members should be fairly known, and they should be known because they are connecting with the community. And and that’s what I intend to do.
