John Hugh "Buddy" Dyer (born August 7, 1958) is an American politician who has served as the Mayor of Orlando since 2003.

Dyer received the support of many of the local churches as well as the endorsement of Tim Adams and Dotti Wynn (loser of the district's Republican primary), while Crawford relied on State Representative Alzo Reddick.

In 2002 he ran for the office of state attorney general, losing to then-Republican (later Democrat) Charlie Crist.

[4] Buddy Dyer was once again re-elected mayor in November 2015 with 62.5% of the vote for his fourth full term in office.

"[7] According to his re-election campaign materials, he led Orlando out of a financial crisis and made public safety a top priority.

He attracted state-of-the-art health care facilities and created a regional medical area at Lake Nona,[2] and has worked to improve all of the city's neighborhoods.

During his term, Orlando has had three consecutive years of employment growth and a 2.2 percent decline in unemployment.

He worked with then-Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty to get approval for using US$1.1 billion of the county's Tourist Development Tax money, collected as a surcharge on hotel rooms, to fund construction of a new arena, a new performing arts center and large-scale renovations of the Citrus Bowl.

Later that month, local hotelier Harris Rosen launched a drive to get initiatives on the ballot to allow citizens to vote on whether they wanted public money spent on these projects.

[citation needed] Mayor Dyer has attracted criticism from homeless advocates due to his support for an Orlando ordinance (passed in July 2006) that requires permits for "large group feedings" in downtown parks.

An investigation into the matter by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement led a grand jury to bring charges against the mayor, his campaign manager, and an election consultant for allegedly paying someone to gather absentee ballots[10] in Orlando's African American community.