by Beth Kassab | Oct 27, 2025 | County News, Election, News
Did you mean to sign that ballot amendment petition?
A new Florida law requires Supervisors of Elections to mail letters to petition signers to give them the chance to deny the signature
Oct. 27, 2025
This story is part of the News Collaborative of Central Florida, a group of 10 local news outlets working towards a more informed and engaged region. It was originally published by VoxPopuli.
By Norine Dworkin
If you’re a prolific petition signer, don’t be surprised if you receive a letter from the Orange County Supervisor of Elections asking about the petitions you signed to put amendments on the November 2026 ballot. Is that your signature on this petition? Did you really mean to sign it? Do you want to change your mind?
According to the new Florida law HB 1205 (aka Initiative Petitions for Constitutional Amendments), passed on May 2 and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that same day, supervisors of elections are now required to mail out letters to every person who signed a petition for a ballot measure — say for legalizing recreational marijuana— to inform them that a petition with their signature was received by their office, confirm that voters intended to sign it and provide an opportunity to revoke the signature. (The law does not require supervisors to contact signers whose petitions were rejected, however.)
The Orange County Supervisor of Elections office is still fine-tuning the letters to be mailed out, Supervisor of Elections Karen Castor Dentel (pictured above) told VoxPopuli in a brief interview Wednesday. Voters can expect to receive letters in mid-November. If their signatures are fine, simply ignore the letters, Castor Dentel said.
“There is nothing for you to do. You don’t have to respond,” she said. “People have asked me if their signature was verified on a petition and they get this letter, if they don’t send it in or if everything was okay, will their petition still count? And it will. They’ll still count the petition … But just in case this [signature] isn’t yours, you have a second chance to deny it.”
Under the new law, voters who believe the signature is not theirs or who simply change their minds, can check one of two boxes on the letter, indicating the signature is misrepresented or fraudulent or that they wish to revoke their support for an issue. Those letters will then be mailed to the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which will conduct a preliminary investigation and if necessary report findings to the statewide prosecutor or appropriate state attorney for prosecution.
Still, Castor Dentel worries that even though the letters will contain the title of the petition signed, the added layer of bureaucracy may lead to voter confusion and mistrust.
“Many voters may not expect to receive a governmental letter asking whether they really signed something they know they signed, which could make them question the legitimacy of of the petition or even worry that they did something wrong,” she said. “Others might mistake the letter for a scam or think they need to take action when they don’t.
“Hopefully people will remember signing,” she continued, “and they’ll go Yes! I did that!, and this won’t create many letters going on to Tallahassee [to the Office of Election Crimes and Security].”
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by Beth Kassab | Sep 19, 2025 | City Commission, Election, News, Uncategorized, Zoning and Development
Rethink Zoning Laws? Author Argues Rules Impair Upward Mobility
The Winter Park Chamber offered a zoning history lesson at its annual Outlook luncheon and set the stage for a contested city commission race with Michael Carolan likely to run against Elizabeth Ingram
Sept. 19, 2025
By Beth Kassab
Winter Park Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Betsy Gardner called on city leaders and residents to rethink zoning laws that she says have protected anti-development interests and blunted the opportunities for new housing in Winter Park.
Gardner said the city’s desire to remake Fairbanks Avenue near Interstate 4, now part of the Community Redevelopment Agency, is Winter Park’s next chance to prevent more strip centers and encourage the kind of growth that will attract families and new residents.
“This conversation about land use is also a conversation about who gets to belong,” she said, though she added, “We do not support the replication of the density we see in Maitland.”
Yoni Appelbaum, pictured above, spoke at a lunch hosted by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce on Friday.
Gardner’s remarks came at the chamber’s annual Outlook lunch, which explores topics related to economic development. This year’s keynote speaker was Yoni Appelbaum, who wrote, “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity.”
Appelbaum, also deputy executive editor of The Atlantic and a historian, discussed how Americans “invented a profound human freedom” known as upward mobility. For more than a century, people were free to move beyond the station in life they were born into and toward prosperous city centers with jobs, social currency and a solid supply of housing stock.
That meant families moved many times, each time upgrading the kind of home they lived in.
But that’s not the case today, he said, as housing is often unaffordable and hard to come by in the places considered most desirable because of proximity to jobs and lifestyle amenities. (Case in point: Winter Park, where the median housing price is $700,000 or more, according to some sources.)
“Americans have stopped moving to the most prosperous places. People now move away from those places and to where the housing is cheap,” Appelbaum said. “Many have the sense that something has gone wrong in their lives .. that some element of the American promise has been broken.”
That’s the kind of loss of community and disenfranchisement credited with sweeping President Donald Trump into office and remaking the focus of the Republican Party.
Appelbaum stayed away from politics in his talk, but said the root of that shift dates back to the beginnings of zoning laws that came about as a way for those already settled in a place — mostly rich and white homeowners — to keep out others who were new and different.
He pointed to early laws in Modesto, CA that segregated Chinese laundry workers into what ultimately became known as “Chinatown” because white homeowners did not like that the workers were also living in their places of business. In 1885, Modesto outlawed laundry facilities “except within that part of the city which lies west of the railroad track and south of G Street,” the book reads.
And zoning laws, often dictating where certain types of businesses could operate, were born.
Later came height caps on buildings in New York City to drive up prices and push sweatshops farther to the outskirts. And historic preservation laws in Charleston, S.C. that he says served to stunt the city economically in the name of preserving a past that depended on enslaved people.
“What I find useful about the past is the ability to imagine different presents and different futures,” he said. “I am not here to tell you to abandon historic preservation or abandon zoning. What I do want for us to all think about is what we’re all after.”
In one passage of his book he discusses how he can see three large apartment buildings going up out his own window that will combine to a couple thousand new units, including more than a fifth described as “affordable.”
“Like all new developments, it leaves a good deal to be desired,” he wrote. “The architecture strikes me as blandly corporate. Local regulations, historic preservation and participatory planning have combined to limit the development on the site to just a fraction of what it might have held … Although I have little affection for cookie-cutter six-story apartment buildings, I don’t want to repeat Veiller’s error of mistaking my own aesthetic judgments for the public good.”
Those apartments, he noted, will mean upward mobility for some families.
Gardner said what happens in the Fairbanks corridor is up to residents and called on attendees — which included Mayor Sheila DeCiccio and commissioners Craig Russell, Marty Sullivan and Warren Lindsey along with city administrators — to use their power in the voting booth in March when two city commission seats are on the ballot.
At a recent workshop commissioners discussed potential rule changes, including lowering transportation impact fees, to encourage development. There appeared to be support for “quality, mixed-use development with a multi-family, workforce housing component, and to develop a comprehensive approach with the Planning and Zoning Board and Economic Development Advisory Board,” according to minutes of the meeting.
In a brief interview after the program, Gardner told the Voice that many people “lost trust” in the public process after the original development guidelines for the Orange Avenue Overlay were overturned, in part by DeCiccio and Sullivan.
Asked who she would support in the March election, she introduced attorney Michael Carolan, chairman of the real estate department at Winderweedle, Haines, Ward and Woodman, as a candidate for Seat 1 on the commission to replace Sullivan, who is retiring after two terms.
Carolan, who was chairman of the chamber board in 2020 and has also served on the board of the Coalition for the Homeless in Central Florida, said he plans to run but has not yet made it official by turning in paperwork to the city clerk.
Elizabeth Ingram is also seeking Sullivan’s seat and officially launched her campaign this week with an email to residents that said she is committed to “protect the qualities that make Winter Park special — its historic charm and small-town character, parks and recreation, and strong sense of community — while planning responsibly for the future.”
The trained opera singer currently serves on the Public Art Advisory Board and led the Dommerich Elementary Parent Teacher Association and is the only person who has officially opened a campaign account so far.
Russell, who serves in Seat 2, has said he plans to seek re-election.
The official qualifying period for the election runs from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8.
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by Beth Kassab | Sep 17, 2025 | City Commission, Election, News, Uncategorized
Kelly Semrad Says She is Undecided on Redistricting Maps
Winter Park is making a hard push to move out of Semrad’s district as Orange County redraws the boundaries for how the County Commission is elected
Sept. 16, 2025
By Gabrielle Russon
Where Winter Park will land on a new map of Orange County Commission districts is still unclear as county leaders are divided on which map to pick with Kelly Martinez Semrad, who represents the city on the board, saying she is now undecided.
The commission met Tuesday in a workshop but isn’t scheduled to take a final vote until Oct. 14 on the new boundaries that are being redrawn to grow the board from six to eight commissioners elected by district. The mayor also has a vote on the board and is elected by the entire county.
Mayor Sheila DeCiccio speaks at the 2025 State of the City event.
Winter Park city officials continue to lobby in force for the county to put the city in the newly drawn District 7 along with its neighbors Maitland, Eatonville and Pine Hills, an unincorporated neighborhood in Orange County. That option is Map-1A.
The other option, Map-7B, would keep Winter Park in the current District 5 along with rural eastern Orange County represented now by Semrad.
A redistricting advisory committee that spent months getting public feedback and looking at different options presented Map-1A and Map-7B as the final two proposals to the county board Tuesday. But the advisory committee wouldn’t go as far as picking which one it liked best, leaving that decision up to the county commissioners.
This map shows the way the five county districts stand today with Winter Park in western-most section of District 5. The above maps show the proposed changes.
Three commissioners said they supported Map-1A while two others endorsed Map-7B. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said he supported whatever the majority wanted.
That left Semrad — a potentially key vote and the commissioner whose district is caught up in most of the debate.
At a redistricting advisory committee meeting earlier this summer, Semrad said she initially supported a map similar to 7B to leave Winter Park in her district with the rural east and balance out the unincorporated areas with the municipalities. But Tuesday, Semrad backtracked and said she wasn’t ready to make a decision yet as she got a flurry of last-minute public feedback.
On the day of the county workshop, Semrad said she received 100 emails and hadn’t had time to review them all yet.
“I have the people in the east who really want to stay with Winter Park because they look at it as more suburban and that they have nothing in common with downtown and then I have people from Winter Park not seeing compatibility with the rural area,” Semrad said.
Kelly Semrad
“Does that sound like you can go with either map?” Demings asked her.
“That is the case,” Semrad said.
A delegation from Winter Park has attended the committee meetings and also spoke at Tuesday’s workshop.
Stating her case again, Winter Park Mayor Sheila DeCiccio argued her city should be districted with its Eatonville and Maitland neighbors.
They often work together, she said, pointing to Winter Park and Maitland sharing an elementary school boundary or Winter Park handling Maitland’s emergency calls. Winter Park is also working with Eatonville on a grant for new sidewalks and crosswalks.
“We have no contiguous borders with east Orange County. The gerrymandering and Map-7B to include Winter Park would make Texas proud,” she said. “There is absolutely no compatibility, collaboration, contingent border, or community between us.”
From the public, the county heard a mix of the public’s concerns as some wanted to keep the small cities together in Map-1A while others said Map 7-B made more sense.
Some people feared Pine Hills might get overpowered by Winter Park, so they preferred Map 7-B to keep Winter Park separate from the rest of the urban areas.
One Winter Park resident supported Map-7B for “a pretty selfish reason.”
“I love my county commissioner. I love Kelly Semrad,” the resident said. “During the last election cycle, we had so many people knock doors in Winter Park to understand who Kelly is and why she was a candidate for county commissioner.”
And Ella Wood, a Winter Park resident who is the political director for Unite Here Local 737 representing hospitality workers, argued Map-7B was closest to preserving the historic county boundary lines.
“It helps to maintain people’s connection, people’s engagement, and maintaining their community interests,” Wood said.
Meanwhile, Winter Park already has a city government to advocate for itself. “That’s not what we need the county commissioner to do,” Wood said.
Even though the city of Winter Park runs its own police department and handles its own infrastructure needs, city leaders still believe it’s important to get a voice on the county commission.
DeCiccio pointed to potential rail expansion, a new state law taking away local control for growth which some communities are fighting against as well as a contract with Visit Orlando — an agency that DeCiccio is not a fan of — as some of the countywide issues that Winter Park wants to advocate on at the county level. In addition, DeCiccio also brought up the Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, which the county allowed Winter Park to expand last year to control more tax dollars that would otherwise go to the county for projects like post-Hurricane Ian flood prevention.
“There will finally be an opportunity for someone from Winter Park, Maitland, Eatonville, College Park, or Pine Hills if Map-1A is adopted … to have a seat at the table,” she said, joined by Commissioner Craig Russell and City Manager Randy Knight to appeal to county commissioners Tuesday.
County staff and commissioners answered back at people’s concerns.
“I hear folks saying… ‘we don’t have anything in common with this group or that group of people,’” said District 6 Commissioner Mike Scott, who reminded residents they are all part of Orange County.
And would Winter Park, with its considerable wealth and tax base, dominate whatever district it ultimately lands in?
Demings looked around his board — commissioners of different races and some who had upset victories to defeat better-funded opponents or represented wealthier areas of the county.
Semrad, for example, was a political newcomer who won the seat last year against former Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary who raised significantly more money than her.
“If you’re the right candidate at the right time,” Demings said. “You can get elected.”
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by Beth Kassab | Sep 10, 2025 | City Commission, Election, News, Uncategorized
Craig Russell to Seek Re-Election. Marty Sullivan to Retire, Leaving his Seat Open
The March 2026 election is gearing up to decide two seats on the Winter Park City Commission
Sept. 10, 2025
By Beth Kassab
Commissioner Craig Russell, a Winter Park High School teacher and coach, said he will seek re-election next year while another commissioner is retiring after two terms.
Official qualifying for the March 2026 election is still about three months away, but jockeying for the two seats is well underway.
Russell, who grew up in Winter Park, won Seat 2 in a tight runoff in April of 2024 to finish Sheila DeCiccio’s term when she became mayor.
He made history in Winter Park as the first Black commissioner to be elected in more than a century and, now at age 44, is still the youngest person on the commission today.
Russell has blazed a trail in another way, too. He was heavily backed by business leaders and the political action committee affiliated with the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, but has steadily defined himself as a policy maker who is carving his own agenda with unpredictable votes when it comes to budget and policy issues.
Craig Russell
Winter PAC spent about $30,000 to advocate for him in 2024 and he raised about $100,000 through his own campaign account.
“I don’t just work for one group,” he said. “I work for the residents and the businesses. I work for the entire community.”
Part of what he does, he says, is reach out to “the doubters and talk to them.”
For example, he said he heard “a lot of feedback” after he was one of two votes this summer, along with Commissioner Marty Sullivan, against keeping the city’s property tax millage rate the same. The two men voiced support for a property tax increase.
“I’ve listened to the people and I felt as though investing in the future would benefit the city best,” he said. “I got a lot of feedback and it was mixed, they were kind of surprised and wanted to know, ‘what’s your mindset?’ And I told them and they respected and understood that.”
In another recent discussion, Russell and DeCiccio were two voices who expressed support for a larger increase to electric rates this year to raise capital for infrastructure projects such as undergrounding and equipment replacement. But they were outweighed by the three other commissioners who wanted a smaller increase.
Marty Sullivan
Russell has also spent considerable time advocating for youth on the commission. He helped re-establish a Youth Advisory Council that includes students from Winter Park High, Trinity Preparatory and others.
The group is beginning to meet in the City Commission Chambers and, eventually, will provide reports to the commission on issues that are important to them such as sustainability.
It’s a chance, he said, for students to learn how local government works and also make an impact on decisions.
“They understand the decisions that are made now affect them,” Russell said. “It’s super important to them to understand how that process works.”
Russell is also outspoken on safety and, potentially setting standards, for micro-mobility because he sees electric scooters and bikes, and a fair share of accidents, as students come and go from school. Some of those can move as fast as a car but with kids not old enough to drive in control.
“I’ve seen the broken arms … the road rash,” he said. “The trends are now trickling down to the e-scooters are at the elementary and middle schools and at high school we have the new drivers and the electric bikes — they aren’t bicycles and they aren’t motorcycles they are in between.”
Last year he worked with the police department on a series of educational safety videos and more are in the works this year.
As for his campaign, he said he hopes to continue to broaden his support from 2024.
“I hope to have more support from everybody,” Russell said. “I hope to have support from previous supporters and I hope to have new supporters.”
A spokeswoman for Winter PAC, which supported him last time around, declined to comment on who its leaders will support for either seat in 2026.
Sullivan, a geotechnical engineer who sits in Seat 1, said two terms on the commission have allowed him to accomplish a great deal and won’t seek re-election.
“Six years is enough I believe for doing what I can do for the city,” he said.
He pointed to the expansion of the Community Redevelopment District, which will allow the city to set guideposts for new development near Interstate 4, as one accomplishment.
He is also pleased that there is a new use in the old library building as The Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts has brought a burgeoning music scene there.
He said he was pleasantly surprised to find several commonalities in policy mindset with Russell such as the vote to allow Blue Bamboo and even the idea of a potential tax increase.
“My concern was never to be re-elected,” Sullivan said. “My concern is to do what’s right and if the citizens disagree with me I would have been fine with losing. And I think [Russell] takes that same approach because he has not adhered to the way of thinking that his supporters thought he would, I don’t believe.”
Only one candidate has officially filed paperwork to open a campaign account so far, according to the city clerk’s office.
Elizabeth Ingram, 38, grew up in Winter Park and is a long time resident and community leader. The trained opera singer currently serves on the Public Art Advisory Board is and seeking Sullivan’s seat.
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by Beth Kassab | Apr 16, 2025 | City Commission, Election, News, Uncategorized
Chamber-Aligned Political Committee Changes Address and Agent
Commissioners recently questioned if it was appropriate for the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce to operate Winter PAC, which raised more than $85,000 to influence elections, from a city-owned building
April 16, 2025
By Beth Kassab
Winter PAC, the chamber-aligned political committee that had come under fire from some city commissioners for operating out of a city-owned building leased by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, filed a change of address and change of registered agent with the city clerk this week.
Betsy Gardner, the president and CEO of the chamber, will no longer serve as the group’s registered agent, according to the document filed Tuesday.
Instead, Brian Mills, Winter PAC’s chairman and an attorney and lobbyist at Maynard Nexsen, will serve as the registered agent, the person appointed to receive official or legal documents and notices on behalf of the group. Mills is part of the firm’s “government solutions group” with clients in technology, manufacturing and the commercial space industry, according to the firm’s web site. He has previously served on Winter Park’s Board of Adjustments and was chief of staff to former Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh when Singh first took office in 2013.
An address listed for his law firm at 200 E. New England Ave. Suite 110 will serve as the political committee’s new address.
“Winter PAC was established to support a vibrant, engaged, and prosperous Winter Park community,” Mills said in a press release provided by the chamber on Friday. “After speaking with our stakeholders, many of whom have been lifelong residents of Winter Park, it has become clear that this issue of who collects our mail is a distraction from the more important business of how our community is being served. We appreciate the support and encouragement of the Chamber and its members.”
The decision came just days after City Attorney Kurt Ardaman told the City Commission that his firm would no longer be a member of the chamber because he was unhappy, in part, with how the group provided an option to donate to the PAC on the chamber’s membership renewal invoice.
Ardaman said his firm “inadvertently” donated $25 to the PAC, as result of paying the full invoice amount.
The Voice reported the donation in the context of the investigation Ardaman conducted at the request of several commissioners into whether the chamber was violating its lease on a city-owned building across from City Hall by using the same address for the PAC.
Ardaman said he stands by his opinion provided to the commission last month that the chamber is not in violation of the lease because it has not officially subleased or assigned any legal interest of the building over to Winter PAC, which has raised more than $85,000 over two years to influence city elections.
He said he did not know when he started the investigation based on a request from the commission that $25 paid at the same time he paid his firm’s chamber dues was sent to the PAC in January. The PAC has since returned the money.
The chamber says it has nearly 800 members. According to email correspondence between Gardner and Ardaman’s firm provided to the Voice by the chamber, 82 members have opted to pay an extra $25 for the PAC at the time of renewing dues while “hundreds” have chosen not to contribute.
The statement from the chamber emphasized Ardman’s opinion that the group is not in violation of its lease and said the PAC made the changes to its address “voluntarily.”
Commissioner Kris Cruzada, who Winter PAC attempted to defeat in the March election by backing another candidate, was one of the commissioners who said he still had questions after Ardaman’s report.
Cruzada declined to comment on Wednesday.
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by Beth Kassab | Apr 10, 2025 | City Commission, Election, News, Uncategorized
City Attorney Says His Firm has Left Winter Park Chamber
City Attorney Kurt Ardaman said his law firm is no longer a member of the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce after he was says he was unaware he made a contribution to its political committee at the time he paid his member dues
April 10, 2025
By Beth Kassab
City Attorney Kurt Ardaman told the City Commission on Wednesday that his law firm Fishback Dominick is no longer a member of the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce “based on a number of factors” in the wake of his look into whether the chamber is violating its lease on a city building by allowing its political action committee to reside at the same address.
Ardaman said he stands by his opinion provided to the commission last month that the chamber is not in violation of the lease because it has not officially subleased or assigned any legal interest of the building over to Winter PAC, which has raised more than $85,000 over two years to influence city elections.
He said he did not know when he started the investigation based on a request from the commission that $25 paid at the same time he paid his firm’s chamber dues was sent to the PAC in January. The PAC has since returned the money.
He did not disclose his membership or the contribution in his report. And he did not include that the chamber collects an optional portion paid at the time members pay dues for the political committee, apparently because he was unaware of it.
“I’ve not been happy based on a number of factors with the chamber … So we’ve resigned from the chamber because we’re just not satisfied with it,” Ardaman told the board, noting that no one forced him to make the move.
Ardaman said that the information he obtained from chamber and PAC leaders was not taken under oath, but that commissioners could file a court action if they wanted to attempt to obtain sworn depositions or additional documents from the group.
None of the commissioners expressed a desire to file such an action.
Chamber Executive Director Betsy Gardner, who also serves as registered agent for the PAC, declined to comment. The chamber says it has nearly 800 members. According to email correspondence between Gardner and Ardaman’s firm provided to the Voice after this story was first published, 82 members have opted to pay an extra $25 for the PAC at the time of renewing dues while “hundreds” have chosen not to contribute.
A copy of the Fishback Dominick invoice shows the firm paid for three items on the same invoice: $595 in membership dues; $195 for an enhanced listing and $25 labeled as “optional voluntary contribution to Winter PAC, the Winter Park Chamber’s affiliated political committee.
Commissioner Kris Cruzada, the incumbent Winter PAC attempted to kick out of office this year by spending more than $30,000, thanked Ardman for his “disclosure” and “candor” and asked about other potential legal actions to remove the PAC from the building. The chamber signed a 99-year lease with the city for the building across from City Hall in 2005 and spent $900,000 on its development.
Ardman said he didn’t think such an action would be successful.
Warren Lindsey, a defense attorney and the newest commissioner who took office last month, also thanked Ardaman for his “professionalism” and asked if there were more details about the money paid from the PAC to the Chamber noted in Ardaman’s four-page memorandum.
The report notes $3,600 payments from the PAC to the Chamber listed on the group’s election cycle financial reports as “administrative fees/non-candidate expenditure” or “professional fees/expenditure regarding candidate.”
Brian Mills and Lawrence Lyman, the officers of Winter PAC, told Ardman’s firm that the payments were for the use of equipment such as copies or printers and for the chamber accepting and holding the political group’s mail, according to the report.
UPDATE: This story has been updated to add further clarification that the payments collected by the chamber for Winter PAC are collected at the same time as chamber dues, but are optional. as well as to add additional information based on correspondence provided by the Chamber.
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