Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

by Beth Kassab | Nov 5, 2024 | Election, News

Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

The UCF professor delivered a clear victory despite being outspent by the former Winter Park mayor

Nov. 5, 2024

By Beth Kassab

Kelly Semrad, who ran on an Orange County Commission race focused on limiting sprawl and diversifying how tourist tax dollars are spent, clinched a decisive victory over Steve Leary, who outspent her by 4 to 1.

Semrad took 57% of the vote compared to Leary’s 43% of the vote for the commission’s District 5 seat, which represents a swath of Orange from downtown Orlando through Winter Park to the eastern rural edges of the county.

“Orange County stood up really loud and proud and said they’ve had enough with irresponsible growth and development,” Semrad said Tuesday night.

She also pointed to clear victories for county charter amendments that voters approved by wide margins to protect the rural boundary and give the County Commission veto power over landowners who want to annex into another jurisdiction such as the city of Orlando.

“It’s really clear that people are fed up with overdevelopment,” Semrad said.

That trend appeared across the county where Nicole Wilson hung on to her District 1 seat and and Mayra Uribe defended her seat in District 3.

Wilson, like Semrad, was far outspent by her opponent, Austin Arthur, who was also heavily backed by development interests.

Leary spent more than $400,000 through his campaign and a political committee he controls compared to about $100,000 spent by Semrad’s campaign, according to campaign finance reports.

“We made a commitment to refuse special interest dollars to prove we were without a doubt standing with the community when it comes to decisions that affect our quality of life,” Semrad said.

Leary did not respond to interview requests throughout the campaign season. Late Wednesday, he posted on his campaign Facebook page that he conceded to Semrad.

“I am very proud of the race that we ran and the support we had district and countywide,” he wrote. “I spoke to Kelly earlier and congratulated her on her victory and offered my assistance in any way possible moving forward.”

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Steve Leary goes negative against Kelly Semrad in final week of county race

by Beth Kassab | Oct 31, 2024 | Election, News

Steve Leary goes negative against Kelly Semrad in final week of county race

The attacks in the race for the District 5 County Commission seat, which represents Winter Park, lack context

Oct. 30, 2024

By Beth Kassab

With less than a week until Election Day, the battle for the only open Orange County Commission seat on the ballot took a negative turn.

Steve Leary, the former mayor of Winter Park, unleashed a barrage of attack ads against Kelly Semrad, a UCF professor who bested Leary in the Aug. 20 primary by 2,800 votes.

The contest has pitted Leary, who is heavily backed with financial contributions from developers and the tourism industry, against Semrad, an outspoken advocate for checks on growth, particularly in the still rural areas of the county’s eastern edges.

But in a television spot, Leary attempts to paint himself as the environmental advocate and Semrad as supporting sprawl.

Semrad has “no plans to protect Orange County’s environment from urban sprawl,” the ad’s narrator says, going on to say that Semrad’s neighborhood is the “very definition of sprawl” and that her husband works for a developer.

Leary did not respond to a message seeking comment for this story. The Voice reported last month on a text poll sent to some voters that attempted to test potential attacks against Semrad, including the line about her husband. 

Semrad called the assertions “outlandish” and pointed to Leary’s list of campaign donors that include companies tied to proposed developments in Orange County that she has worked to stop.

Semrad is an officer in Save Orange County, a group that dates back more than a decade to protect rural lands and fight some proposed housing developments. The group was instrumental in building support for two county charter amendments that will appear on next week’s ballot. One would protect the rural boundary and the second would require county approval for voluntary annexations into other jurisdictions such as the city of Orlando.

She lives in a subdivision just south of Lake Pickett Road in the eastern section of the county where a number of development fights have unfolded. She purchased the home in 2013, according to property records, as she left a job at the University of Florida to become a professor at the University of Central Florida.

She said plans began to unfold in the 1990s for her subdivision to replace diseased citrus crops, a history she learned after moving to the area and said she began to understand what was at stake across east Orange County.

“The entitled rezonings that I live in were the first step in losing the east,” she said. “I didn’t know that when we purchased our house … So we had two choices: to move out or to try to stand up and advocate with (other east Orange residents) and I have been very relentless about trying to advocate for them and with them for a very long time. I’ve never hid where I live.”

Her life partner (they aren’t married) is an engineer who works for a Sanford-based contractor that prepares development sites with clearing, paving, utilities and other services, according to the company’s web site.

Semrad said her opposition to sprawl and her push for more checks and balances of large tracts of land being turned over for development should not be mistaken for a blanket opposition to all development.

“We need development and we need growth,” she said. “If I could say anything about my partner’s line of work it’s that he designs the infrastructure that Orange County needs so desperately,” though she said he does not work on projects in Orange County.

The ad promoting Leary also says that he “turned developers down” as mayor of Winter Park and “put a stop to out-of-control growth.”

It’s not clear what specific developments the ad is referring to and the campaign did not respond to a request for an interview.

As mayor, Leary oversaw major zoning changes to the stretch of Orange Avenue between Park Avenue and U.S. 17-92. The changes to the area known as the Orange Avenue Overlay raised concerns among some residents in the city who did not want to see six-story buildings there that they believed would erode Winter Park’s small town charm and character.

The City Commission elected after he left office took swift action to alter the overlay rules, reducing building heights and adding more green space, among other changes. Those changes prompted large landholders along Orange Avenue to sue the new commission.

Another Leary ad says Semrad has “extremist ideology” and has “met with leaders from Iran and Palestine.”

The basis for those claims?

Semrad spoke at a 2013 meeting in Turkey on behalf of the University of Florida, where she worked as the assistant director of the university’s tourism institute. A number of tourism leaders, including from Iran and Palestine, attended a meeting of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

“This was an organization that was trying to use tourism as a catalyst to alleviate poverty and provide a catalyst for peace between nations,” she said.

According to notes from the meeting on the organization’s web site, Semrad gave an academic presentation about the costs and benefits of tourism in the least-developed countries.

“When you take something so far out of context to try to manipulate someone’s mind, I’m just going to call that a lie,” Semrad said of the assertion that she’s a political “extremist” because she attended a conference related to her job.

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