Police Chief Tim Volkerson said the cameras help enhance safety and could bring extra revenue for the department
Aug. 11, 2026
By Gabrielle Russon
Winter Park Police are looking to double the number of red light cameras in the city, a move that the police chief said would enhance safety as well as bring in new revenue amid talk of cutting the department’s budget as the state is pushing local governments to tighten their belts.
Last year, eight cameras posted at six intersections caught 24,400 violations– from blowing through a light to rolling right-on-red turns without a complete stop – and brought in $3.8 million in revenue.
Police Chief Tim Volkerson wants to add eight more red light cameras at the same six intersections, but facing different directions from the existing cameras.
“For example, Fairbanks and Orlando (Avenue) has a red light camera for westbound traffic,” Volkerson said. “It does not have a red light camera for eastbound traffic and it does not have a red light camera for north or southbound traffic.”
That intersection proved to be the third busiest of Winter Park’s red light cameras when it comes to issuing violations with nearly 3,600 tickets last year, according to police data analyzed by the Voice.
The camera on southbound Orlando Avenue at Lee Road resulted in nearly one-third of all the red light camera tickets last year. The second highest offending intersections were eastbound Lee and Orlando Avenue with 6,260 tickets.
Chief Tim Volkerson
Winter Park’s newest red light camera is at Phelps and Aloma is an intersection with a history of significant crashes, Volkerson said. That camera resulted in issuing about 1,600 red light violations last year.
Most of the violations caught on camera throughout the city are related to right-on-red turns. According to a state-required report that Volkerson is scheduled to deliver to the City Commission on Wednesday, nearly 70% of citations or 17,300 out of 25,000 violations during the 2025-26 fiscal year were for improper right turns on red signals.
Volkerson said safety is more important than money when it comes to adding red light cameras. But the topic came up at a recent City Commission work session as Volkerson presented his department’s budget, which includes keeping a community services position vacant next year to help reduce costs.
“Anyone that has lived in Winter Park would agree that the volume of cars that we have traveling through our city has increased,” Volkerson said. “The more important thing is for us to reduce crashes and even more importantly our goal is always to have zero fatalities.”
People speeding past red lights are most likely to cause T-bone or angular crashes that can have catastrophic results, Volkerson added. And Winter Park roads are active with cyclists heading out on the trails and early-morning runners training on the city streets every Saturday pre-dawn for Track Shack’s MarathonFest.
“If a byproduct is that it brings in revenue, that’s a good thing too, but that can never be and never should be the justification for doing it,” Winter Park City Commissioner Warren Lindsey told the Voice. “I would never ever support something just because it was a revenue producer when it wasn’t emphatically and primarily done for purposes of safety of motorists and pedestrians.”
A typical red light camera fine is $158 and the city of Winter Park collects $75 of that total with $2 going to police training and $73 to help fund the police budget. The rest of the money goes to the state for general revenue, health funds, and helping people with spinal cord injuries.
Volkerson is analyzing crash data to determine which intersections have the most cars passing through and the most crashes. The state requires cities to pass an ordinance in order to add new cameras and provide a reasoning for the locations.
“There has to be a nexus for us putting them there. We can’t just decide we’re going to put one at Park and Morse. We have to justify to the state why this is going there,” he told city officials at the budget work session.
Volkerson added he was not looking at school zones since those areas don’t generate enough traffic volume and are often already patrolled by officers.
Winter Park’s potential red light camera expansion comes as Floridians will be deciding whether or not to approve an overhaul of local property taxes in November.
Recently, the Florida State Fraternal Order of Police and the Florida Sheriffs Association came out strongly against the property tax ballot initiative, arguing the increase in homestead property tax exemptions could result in fewer dollars for essential services like public safety.
Volkerson declined to comment on personal stance on the ballot amendment.
“It’s up to each person to decide and vote,” Volkerson said.
Some, like Orange County Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad, fear that Amendment 3 will shrink funding for local governments.
“No matter how you shake it or how you roll the dice, property tax reform has an impact on the services that any municipality will be able to provide,” said Semrad, whose district includes Winter Park.
Semrad brought up whether red light camera tickets could help supplement the Orange County Sheriff’s budget if Amendment 3 passes as county officials held their own budget workshops last month.
“Ultimately we will have less revenue than than we do now … and we need to look for strategies to fill [revenue gaps]. So red light cameras might be an option,” she told the Voice. “I would rather tax somebody who made a mistake, did something wrong, ran a camera – than finding ways to tax others.”
Lindsey, the Winter Park commissioner who is also a criminal defense lawyer, said the presence of a red light camera has a real effect on drivers to make them more aware of their driving habits.
“The other thing is they’re less expensive to maintain than a police officer obviously,” Lindsey said. “You’re able to have them up there 24/7.”
Lindsey also liked that people who get cited have a process to contest their tickets and not get penalized on their driving records if they pay the civil fines.
According to the city’s report, nearly 74% of people who receive the notice of violations pay them.
In those cases, “It doesn’t affect you in the grand scheme of things on your record,” Lindsey said.
About 16% of civil violations result in a uniform traffic citation being issued because it wasn’t paid. Some drivers contest the citations in court, but the city did not report having any dismissed by a judge, though eight cases are currently pending, according to the city’s report.
There is one way to avoid the hassle altogether, Volkerson said.
“It’s really easy,” Volkerson said. “All you have to do is stop and not run the red light.”
On the Chopping Block: Police, Fire, Community Groups, Trash Collection
This week, in an email to residents, Mayor Sheila DeCiccio asked what should be cut in the city budget as a result of state-ordered reductions
Aug. 7, 2026
By Beth Kassab
After years of stripping power from locally elected mayors and commissions when it comes to everything from regulating where apartments can be built and how tall to whether cities can ban gas-powered leaf blowers or plastic straws, state leaders have reached a new level of micro-managing local governments: mandatory lists of budget fat.
Cities and counties will be required to publish those lists starting next year as a result of a new law (HB1329) signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this summer.
But Winter Park is getting a jump on the exercise.
With potential property tax cuts looming in the form of Amendment 3 on the November ballot, city managers asked each department to lay out cuts to reduce their budgets by 10% (This exercise will be mandatory for local governments next year as a result of the new law.)
The results?
Here’s just a sample of what’s on the budget fat list in City Hall:
Eliminate a code enforcement officer position that is currently vacant ($75,000)
Eliminate funding for the Public Art Advisory Board ($15,000)
Eliminate the mailed printed version of quarterly Winter Park Update newsletter and monthly inserts in utility bills ($71,900)
Eliminate the use of accepting cash for city services like permits or other needs at the City Hall windows ($50,000)
Eliminate two vacant firefighter positions ($200,000)
Close a Fire Rescue engine company ($1.25 million)
Begin closing the library every Monday ($210,000)
Reduce garbage collection to one day per week ($300,000)
Reduce tree plantings, canopy maintenance and eliminate residential tree permits among other changes ($600,000 combined)
Eliminate the Historic Preservation Grant Program ($100,000)
Eliminate four police detectives, one traffic officer, one community service officer and two officers dedicated to homeless outreach ($1.15 million)
Eliminate body-worn cameras and live crime center for the police department ($300,000)
Reduce funding to community organizations such as the Winter Park History Museum, the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, Mead Botanical Garden, Blue Bamboo and more. ($243,500)
You get the idea. And that’s not the complete list.
Also, to be clear, the spreadsheet of potential cuts provided by City Hall included about 45 items. Some of those were ways to increase revenue for the city (such as adding more red light cameras, which could result in $750,000 in new revenue). Even so, the total did not add up to $9.5 million or about 10% of the proposed budget’s nearly $95 million general fund. The proposed all-funds budget, which includes the utilities and other funds, is up to $247 million.
The Voice totaled the spreadsheet to about a $7.8 million overall reduction (including some revenue gains proposed).
“As you can see, getting to a budget cut of 10% would not be painless,” Mayor Sheila DeCiccio told the community in an email she sent out this week. “It could mean fewer police officers and detectives, longer emergency response times, reduced park maintenance, one-day a week trash collection, and fewer community programs.”
She asked residents in the email what they prefer to cut, explaining, “I’m writing this email because I believe you, our Winter Park residents, deserve to see the potential cuts that are being discussed. As always, I’m committed to full transparency.”
Winter Park staff estimates Amendment 3 would require cuts of $3.4 million in 2028 and $6.7 million in 2029. So far shy of the 10% exercise. But not far off once a few years into the new tax structure if it wins by the required 60% of voters in November.
The Voice has heard from some readers who appear to be under the impression that police and fire or other “essential services” can not be cut under Amendment 3, which would increase the homestead exemption ultimately to $250,000.
But that’s not the case. Cities and counties will still provide emergency services, to be sure, but at what level?
Florida House Republicans approved language that would ban local governments from reducing money for law enforcement, firefighters, and first responders below the level in either fiscal year 2025-26 or 2026-27, whichever was higher. But the Senate never approved that version and it died during the Legislative session.
That’s why police and sheriffs’ organizations have spoken out about the potential impact of the amendment and cuts that could result from it.
“The Florida Sheriffs Association is significantly concerned with Constitutional Amendment 3, which potentially allows Tallahassee to control your local budgets, creates longer law enforcement response times, limits communities’ abilities to provide road repairs and stormwater removal — these are a few things voters deserve to be aware of,” the organization said this week on Facebook.
And the soaring cost of police and fire service is a main driver of the growth in the budget the City Commission will consider this month.
Record-high pension costs for police officers and firefighters as well as a new labor contract with the Fire Union that included a 12% pay increase in 2026 will account for 70% of new costs in the proposed 2027 budget.
In 2021, for example, the starting salary for a Winter Park police officer was $22.84 an hour or about $48,000 a year. Today it’s $30.34 an hour or more than $63,000 a year.
Police Chief Tim Volkerson has said the increases are the result of pressure on wages from other departments who have raised pay as they have struggled to hire and retain officer.
The city has 121 full-time police staff and three part-time staff slated for 2027, up from 115 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff in 2023.
The budget for the fire department is up from $13.2 million in 2020 to a proposed nearly $19 million for next year. The department has grown from 81 full-time staff and two part-time staff in 2023 to 84 full-time staff and three part-time staff.
Translated into savings for individuals residents, homesteaded property owners would pay about $818 less per year to Winter Park. The total tax savings per year for Winter Park homeowners if the ballot measure passes would be $1,783, including the reduction paid to the city as well as the reductions in taxes paid to Orange County and St. Johns River Water Management District. (Taxes paid to schools would remain unchanged under the tax proposal on the ballot.)
The City Commission is slated to hear public input and consider portion of the budget at this meetings this month on Aug. 12 and Aug. 26 before final adoption of the budget by the end of September.
Synagogue, Daycare and Townhomes Win Approval from Planning Board
A number of residents spoke for and against the project that will result in the first permanent synagogue in Winter Park
Aug. 5, 2026
By Beth Kassab
After more than 20 residents spoke out during a two-and-a-half hour discussion, Winter Park’s first permanent synagogue won unanimous approval on Tuesday evening from the Planning & Zoning Board.
While some who addressed the board expressed concerns about traffic related to a daycare that will be run by Chabad of Greater Orlando and also noise or other neighborhood disruptions from a rooftop patio proposed for the top of the building, the board members said most of their questions about the development were answered.
The P& Z board added one condition to its approval the development, which also includes five townhomes at the 0.6-acre site at the corner of Morse Boulevard and Knowles Avenue where the El Cortez apartment buildings stand today.
Board members voted 5-0 to adopt the conditions recommended by staff and add a requirement that child drop-off and pick-up related to the daycare take place in the underground parking area planned for the synagogue.(Chairman Jason Johnson and members Bill Segal, Vashon Sarkisian, Samuel King and Charles Steinberg were in favor. Member Alex Stringfellow, who works as an urban planner and was asked to consult on the project before the application was made, recused himself from the vote and member Michael Dick was absent) The other conditions include prohibiting speakers or amplified music on the rooftop patio; requiring all noise and lights from the rooftop end by 10 p.m.; any expansion of the synagogue or daycare must go back to the city for approval and car lines related to daycare drop-off or pick-up can not spill onto the public streets.
A more modern design for the new Chabad of Greater Orlando was favored by the Planning & Zoning Board.
“It’s clear that this property could be developed at a higher capacity, which is going to bring up a whole lot of issues regarding parking and traffic,” said member Vashon Sarkisian, an urban designer. “So I think we have to consider that this is, you know, a coveted area and that there’s going to be redevelopment … so what is the right use? Well, I am in favor of this use. I think it’s, like so many people said, it’s something that’s missing in the city of Winter Park.”
Earlier in the evening, Jewish residents spoke about their desire to have a synagogue closer to their homes and the positive impact of Chabad on their lives.
“Chabad has been a part of my life for a long time. It’s where my parents met. It’s where I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah, and it’s where I’ve celebrated all my holidays,” said Daniel Isaak, 16. “… It’s about allowing a community to worship where it already lives. You know, all of my Christian friends, they all have churches in their own city, and they can practice their faith close to home surrounded by their neighbors. So why should Jewish families have to leave their own community to do the same?”
The 40-year-old organization lost its Maitland building to a fire in 2024 and has been operating out of a temporary space on the far end of North Park Avenue.
Several people who attend Chabad said only 12 to 15 people typically are at Friday evening services.
The proposal, which still must be approved by the City Commission, is capped at 80 seats in the synagogue and the daycare is limited to 60 children. The five townhomes on the site are being developed separately and will be sold once completed.
Rabbi Dovid Dubov said many people who will attend services or use the daycare will walk rather than drive, which will help alleviate traffic concerns. Jewish law prohibits driving on Shabbat, for example.
“Our responsibility is to make Jewish education available where Jewish families live,” Dubov told the board. “And today, ladies and gentlemen, there is no Jewish daycare in Winter Park. We have also worked diligently to be respectful of our neighbors. We voluntarily limited our daycare to just 60 children, approximately one-fifth the size of nearby church schools, and our traffic study demonstrates that that impact will be extremely minimal.”
But some residents who live in nearby townhomes and condominiums questioned the accuracy of the traffic study and noted how congested the small roads already become as a result of the Methodist Church preschool across Morse Boulevard and other church schools just blocks away.
Frank Santos, who lives next door, said the area is already undergoing enormous change and contending with traffic and parking problems. Santos, chief executive officer of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, which has a long history of supporting local Jewish causes led by its late founder Harris Rosen, said his own rooftop living space will be impacted by as many as 80 people using the synagogue’s rooftop deck because of the proximity.
“Chabad of Greater Orlando and it’s member should have a synagogue in Winter Park,” Santos said. “Knowles Avenue is not the right location. Find a site with less density and appropriate parking.”
Marc Hagle, who is known for constructing the largest private residence in Winter Park at 40,000-square-feet on Palmer Avenue and for taking two Blue Origin suborbital space flights in recent years, said he attended the meeting with the intention of speaking against the project, but was impressed by the presentation. Still, he noted potential traffic congestion and also questioned if redeveloping the site mostly as a synagogue would have a negative tax impact to the city because religious institutions are generally exempt from paying property taxes.
“I think the tax implications to the city are a problem,” Hagle said. “The city is facing some really interesting tax problems coming up with the laws that are changing,” he noted, an apparent reference to the amendment on the November ballot that could significantly decrease property taxes collected by local governments.
The El Cortez Apartments along Morse Boulevard.
“By putting something in the area that’s tax exempt, I think you’re creating a potential problem for the future,” he said. “We’re all interested in making sure that the city meets its obligations and it maintains standards that, quite frankly, the city hasn’t done for the past five to ten years. This isn’t the right place to say this, but the quality in the city isn’t what it used to be.”
Several longtime Winter Park residents who are Jewish noted the meaning of the synagogue after a history of discrimination against Jews across the country, including in Winter Park.
“It has been a problem being Jewish in Winter Park, to be candid,” said Barry Render, a former longtime Rollins College professor. “When I moved into my house on Via Tuscany and applied for membership in the Racket Club, which is just a block away from me, I was turned down because I was Jewish.”
He also noted that the holiday celebration in Central Park did not always include a Hanukkah menorah as it does today.
David Jasmund, who lives close to the site on Interlachen Avenue, was one of several people who attended the meeting who said they were “disappointed” that any of the concerns about the development were being linked to bigotry.
“That’s disappointing,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s around us today in society, which I think is really depressing at times.”
Jasmund said he didn’t have any concerns related to the synagogue itself, but questioned the capacity of the roads to handle another daycare in such close proximity to others.
“I think it’s unrealistic to think that someone is going to drive a 1-year-old or a 2-year-old down into a basement … take them out of a car seat, take them upstairs, and get 60 people in and out of there without it being stacked up on Morse, Interlochen, Knowles, and maybe even Park Avenue.”
Hattie Wolfe, another speaker who lives nearby, said parking in the area is already “impossible.”
A rendering shows what the townhomes on the site will look like.
“I’m Jewish,” she said. “I have nothing against the synagogue, but I don’t think it’s the right place for it, judging by what’s happening to the town.”
Becky Wilson, the Lowndes law firm attorney who is representing the synagogue and often represents development projects in Winter Park, said the project is doing everything possible to address concerns about traffic, parking and density.
“I think what occurred to me and that I’ve grown to appreciate while working on this project is how important having a synagogue in the city of Winter Park is to the Jewish residents,” she said. “And, in particular, to have one downtown where many of the other large, important churches are also located. What I’d also say to those residents is I’ve stood here for over 20 years, and I’ve never brought a project forward where I didn’t have to answer questions about traffic, parking and density.”
P&Z Chairman Jason Johnson asked Wilson if Chabad would agree to the condition that daycare pick-up and drop-off must occur in the underground garage to help with traffic flow and she said the group would agree. He suggested parking on the site is likely a “net benefit” for the downtown area once El Cortez is gone because people utilize street parking related to the apartments.
“There are people I deeply respect on both sides of the issue who have made their their comments to the board tonight,” Johnson said. “… My main concern with the traffic was not the number of trips, but rather the flow of traffic through the site for day care drop-off and pick-up. I think if that traffic flow can be directed directly into the garage below the facility, it would help alleviate that quite a bit.”
The next step for the project is a hearing in front of the City Commission.
New Synagogue, Daycare, Townhomes to go before Planning & Zoning Board
Chabad of Greater Orlando is looking for a ‘forever home’ but some nearby residents worry about traffic associated with a new daycare
Aug. 3, 2026
By Beth Kassab
On Tuesday evening the Planning & Zoning Board will hear a proposal to replace apartment buildings that date back 100 years just off Park Avenue with a synagogue, including a daycare, and five townhomes.
The new synagogue would provide a “forever home” for Chabad of Greater Orlando, said Rabbi Dovid Dubov, and would be the only synagogue currently operating in Winter Park.
The 40-year-old organization lost its Maitland building to a fire in 2024 and has been operating out of a temporary space on the far end of North Park Avenue.
“We look at it like it’s overdue,” Dubov told the Voice. “It’s something that many, many Jewish residents of our city have been desiring for a long time … we’re excited.”
A new elevation submitted to the city shows what the synagogue could look like from Knowles Avenue.
A number of residents expressed concerns about the development — not because of a new house of worship — but because they said the original architectural renderings seemed “out of place” and worry about future traffic caused by the daycare.
About 50 people signed a petition that calls on the Planning & Zoning Board to reject the daycare component of the proposal at 210 Morse Boulevard.
“The addition of a daycare center or preschool would generate substantial vehicle traffic during peak morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up periods, increasing congestion, creating safety concerns for pedestrians and motorists, and adversely affecting neighboring residents and businesses,” the petition reads.
Allan Keen, a well-known Rollins college trustee and developer whose credits include Winter Park’s Windsong neighborhood and work assembling land for Universal Orlando, wrote a letter to city officials last month that said the area is already too congested.
“Our residents, and all of the other residents of Winter Park, are already burdened with several daycare and/or church-run schools in the immediate area (Methodist, Congregational and Catholic), that at times, completely block the traffic on Morse, and Interlachen,” wrote Keen, who lives across Knowles Avenue from the proposed synagogue and townhomes in a condo building known as The Landmark, which he also developed.
A traffic analysis cited by city planners concluded that the project is “not anticipated to impact the operations of the surrounding roadway network.”
Keen also wrote that the elevation of the synagogue on Knowles “is over-done and looks greatly out of place.”
An earlier rendering of the synagogue has since been updated.
New elevations submitted to the city show a more modern-looking design with more windows and without large columns.
The proposal, which is about .6 acres in total, calls for El Cortez, three buildings that date to the 1920s with 38 units to be demolished and replaced by five new townhomes as well as an 80-seat synagogue and a daycare capped at 60 children.
The property is within the Interlachen Avenue Historic District and the Historic Preservation Board approved the demolition last year and required a historic marker be added to the site and that the demolition not occur until a building permit is issued for the new development.
The El Cortez Apartments along Morse Boulevard.
The buildings were originally constructed as upscale apartments amid growing demand for more housing in downtown Winter Park and near Rollins College. Over the years, a number of notable people lived there, according to National Register of Historic Places documents, such as “physician Benjamin Hart; Christopher Honaas, director of the Rollins College Conservatory of Music; Flora Magoun, secretary to the Conservatory; Margaret Windau, district director of the Florida Welfare Board; Helen Drinker, proprietress of a women’s fashion shop on Park Avenue North; and William Stein, a Romance Languages professor at Rollins College of Jewish descent who had recently immigrated from Austria to avoid Nazi persecution.”
City staff is also recommending seven more conditions be placed on the new development including that a rooftop deck for the synagogue not include outdoor speakers or amplified music; all noise and lights from the rooftop must end by 10 p.m.; any expansion of the synagogue or daycare must go back to the city for approval; and car lines related to daycare drop-off or pick-up can not spill onto the public streets. Planning & Zoning will hear the proposal at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
A map included with city documents shows where the proposed project will be built.
The townhomes, which are being developed separately from the synagogue, will include underground parking garages. The synagogue will also include underground parking with 22 spaces and 13 more surface parking spaces on the site.
Dubov said his organization is small and the synagogue and the daycare will not operate during the same hours, which will lessen traffic and mean that the planned parking will be sufficient. In addition, he said many people will walk instead of drive to the building for services because many observe traditional Jewish laws that prohibit labor, including driving, on Shabbat.
He said the location at Morse Boulevard and Knowles Avenue will provide a central meeting spot that people can reach on foot from across Winter Park, which is known for its walkability.
“We felt like this was the most convenient location for everyone … a middle ground for everyone to give people the convenience to walk from any point,” Dubov said.
He said he doesn’t anticipate frequent events on the rooftop terrace and sees it like a backyard for the organization because Jewish tradition calls for some events or meals to take place outside.
He also said the organization doesn’t carry a traditional label that accompanies many synagogues such as orthodox, reform or conservative. The group’s website notes it is dedicated to “strengthening Jewish life through meaningful educational opportunities, inspiring programs, volunteer initiatives, pastoral care, and community services.”
“We accept everyone from all backgrounds,” Dubov said. “There’s no specific type of Jew we welcome or don’t welcome.”
Early voting for the General Election will run from Oct. 19 to Nov. 1
Central Florida supervisors say it’s time to get ‘election ready’
The following story originally published by Central Florida Public Media and is being republished in partnership with the News Collaborative of Central Florida
Supervisors of elections from throughout Central Florida find themselves battling misinformation as they promote voter participation and the safety and security of Florida elections.
Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Amy Pennock urged voters to contact their supervisor’s office for accurate information if they read a story that they don’t trust or that gives them “a bad gut feeling.”
“We are in the proactive confusion management business,” she said. “We all are out there trying to get you the right information so that when you get the wrong information you question it right away.”
The supervisors said they’re being transparent so voters can see the processes that keep Florida elections secure from tampering and interference.
That includes testing all devices used in each election, election audits and “layers” of cyber security.
“[I]n order for a bad actor to penetrate our election system with cyber breaches, they have to get on the internet,” said Lake County Supervisor of Elections Alan Hays. “Our tabulation networks are never ever connected to the internet. So you can sleep tight at night knowing that our tabulation system is not connected to the internet at any time.”
Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Lisa Lewis emphasized the security of their elections process. It’s something that she wants skeptical voters to see for themselves.
She said it’s “a little disheartening that people are so quick to believe the bad stuff rather than the good stuff.”
Hays said their goal is get all Americans, regardless of party, to participate.
“If you can fog a mirror and sign your name and you’re a citizen,” he said, “we want you to vote.”
Aug. 18 primary
The supervisors of elections said they especially want people to vote in the August primary, at which voter turnout can range from a dismal 17% to 24%.
Orange County Supervisor of Elections Karen Castor Dentel emphasized that the primary is important even if you’re not a registered Republican or Democrat.
“We have the county mayor, we have county commission, and these are all nonpartisan races,” she said. “School board, judicial, school board chair, some very consequential elections, and most of them will be determined in the primary.”
The supervisors underscored the need to be “election ready” and said they’re working to educate some voters about changes in their polling places due to congressional redistricting this year.
That includes making a plan to vote in one of three ways available in Florida: by mail, during early voting or at their polling place on Election Day.
ICE at the polls?
The supervisors also addressed fears that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers could be at polling places this year.
Brevard County’s Tim Bobanic says the FBI briefed Florida’s supervisors of elections at their latest conference. He cited a statute — Title 18 U.S. Code 592 — prohibiting troops at polling places.
“Armed federal agents,” Bobanic said, “are prohibited from conducting investigative activity in any place where election activity is being held.”
Hays, of Lake County, said Florida law has a 150-foot buffer around polling places that applies to those agents, too.
“There’s nothing in that law that excuses anybody from any agency, no matter whether it’s federal government, local government, or anything else, from being inside there,” Hays said.
He said law enforcement officers also are not allowed there, unless they’re voting, responding to an emergency, or working at the school where the polling place is situated.
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