Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

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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Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

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

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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Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

Steve Leary and Kelly Semrad in final fundraising stretch for District 5 Orange County race

Steve Leary and Kelly Semrad in final fundraising stretch for District 5 Orange County race

The two are on the Nov. 5 ballot in the only open seat this year for the Orange County Commission

Oct. 18, 2024

By Beth Kassab

Former Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary remains the fundraising leader in the District 5 Orange County Commission race against UCF Professor Kelly Semrad with donors from the tourism and development industries continuing to drive his total.

Leary raised $322,000 and spent $218,000 through his campaign account and a political committee he also controls, according to the most recent filings. The bulk of that came in before the August primary, when Leary trailed Semrad to a second place finish by 2,800 votes.

Recent Leary campaign donations include $12,000 from hotelier and philanthropist Harris Rosen and his companies plus another $1,000 from Frank Santos, a member of Rosen’s executive team.

On Thursday, Leary posted an endorsement from Rosen on his campaign Facebook page in which Rosen says Leary is “the ONLY candidate qualified to serve.” Leary wrote that he is proud to have Rosen’s support and called him a “TRUE tourism expert” — an apparent dig at Semrad, who is known as an expert in tourism economies and conducts research and teaches at UCF’s college of hospitality management named for Rosen.

Neither Leary nor his campaign responded to a request for an interview for this story.

The Central Florida Hotel & Lodging Association’s political committees recently gave Leary $2,000.

Another $2,000 came came from a company affiliated with the developers behind the proposed Sustanee project that includes nearly 2,000 homes on ranchlands in east Orange County. The developers sued the county over the commission’s rejection of the project earlier this year.

Kelly Cohen, a lobbyist for Lake Nona developer Tavistock, which is also attempting to develop additional rural lands, gave $500. Developer Alan Ginsburg and BusinessForce, the political committee for the Orlando Chamber of Commerce, each gave $1,000.

Development of rural lands and how the county should divvy up the dollars collected from the Tourism Development Tax are key issues in the District 5 contest as well as the races for Districts 1 and 3. 

The Nov. 5 ballot also includes two questions for voters related to development. The first asks voters to designate a rural boundary in the county and the second would give the County Commission the power to stop potential developers from voluntarily annexing their land into other jurisdictions such as the city of Orlando.

Leary has said he supports establishing the rural boundary, but has not answered a question that would give the rural boundary measure its teeth: Whether he supports the move to allow the county commission to block annexations by the cities.

Semrad is a vocal advocate of both ballot questions and is also pushing for more tourist tax money to be spent on local projects such as transportation vs needs exclusive to the tourism industry.

She has trailed in fundraising with a total of $86,000 so far, according to the available filings. She does not have a political action committee.

Her contributions include $1,000 from Orlando Democrat Rep. Maxwell Frost’s political committee, $500 from Ruth’s List and $1,000 from the Orange County Firefighter’s Association. Her supporters also include local names such as political pundit and advocate Dick Batchelor ($250); retired Judge Cynthia McKinnon ($100) and others.

Semrad said she knows she won’t make up the fundraising gap between her and Leary, but is focusing on talking with as many voters as possible.

“We’ve got more than 100 volunteers who knock on doors every weekend and waive signs,” she said.

While few voters open to door to talk with canvassers face-to-face, she’s noticed many speak to her or the volunteers via phone through their doorbell camera apps — either from inside their homes or wherever they happen to be.

“Those interactions have been way more informative,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘I love your platform,’ … Our numbers are coming in really strong.”

While Leary has a significant fundraising lead over Semrad, he is behind the top fundraisers in Districts 1 and 3 where  Austin Arthur raised about $500,000 through his campaign account and political committee and and Mayra Uribe has raised nearly $500,000 through her campaign and committees that have supported her.

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Kris Cruzada to seek reelection, but Todd Weaver decides not to run

Kris Cruzada to seek reelection, but Todd Weaver decides not to run

Kris Cruzada to seek reelection, but Todd Weaver decides not to run

Two City Commission seats are up for grabs in the March election — one political newcomer has already filed

Oct. 1, 2024

By Beth Kassab

Kris Cruzada will seek a second term in Seat 3 on the City Commission while Todd Weaver has opted out of running again for Seat 4 ahead of the March 11 election.

Warren Lindsey, a well-known criminal defense attorney who has lived in Winter Park for 30 years, has filed to run for the seat left open by Weaver’s decision.

Lindsey is a first-time candidate for office and currently serves on the city’s Planning & Zoning Board.

Warren Lindsey

That experience, he said, led to a desire to get more involved in city government.

“It’s wonderful — you really see democracy in action,” Lindsey said. “People from all walks of life come up to the podium.”

If elected, Lindsey said his priorities will be keeping taxes low (Winter Park has the second lowest millage rate among local cities) while preserving the quality of city services, including the police and fire departments.

He’s also interested in economic development and improving the health of the Winter Park Chain of Lakes.

Lindsey, who graduated from Stetson University and the University of Florida law school, practices at Lindsey, Ferry & Parker and previously practiced with Chandler Muller and Kirk Kirkconnell, who both died from cancer in 2012. The Winter Park group was known for taking on some of the highest profile criminal cases in the state.

Kris Cruzada

Weaver, an engineer who was first elected in 2019, said his professional responsibilities are taking more of his time so he decided against seeking a third term.

Cruzada, an attorney first elected in 2022, said he wants to continue initiatives he started in his first term such as working with his fellow commissioners to shore up the city’s aging infrastructure, including roads and flood prevention measures. He also wants to continue to make the building code more predictable so that landowners have more clarity over how they can develop their property.

“I want to continue on the path of what I set out to do,” said Cruzada, a lifelong resident of the area.

He graduated from the University of Central Florida and earned a law degree from St. Louis University. Today he practices family and personal injury law and works for his family’s property holdings company.

Todd Weaver

Candidates looking to enter one of the city races must qualify by Jan. 21. They are elected to three-year terms and can serve a maximum of four terms or 12 years on the board.

The March 11 ballot will also include a referendum asking voters whether or not the city should keep in place its ban on gas-powered leaf blowers to help regulate noise and emissions. The current ban, originally passed in 2022, is not yet being enforced after a controversy erupted earlier this year when landscape companies argued the rule imposed too heavy of a financial burden.

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J.D. Vance fundraiser at home of Golden Corral owner shut down residential streets

J.D. Vance fundraiser at home of Golden Corral owner shut down residential streets

J.D. Vance fundraiser at home of Golden Corral owner shut down residential streets

The campaign event also prompted heavy police presence in the neighborhood around Lake Virginia

Sept. 25, 2024

By Beth Kassab

A fundraiser reportedly featuring J.D. Vance at the home of Eric and Diane Holm shut down residential streets off Lake Virginia on Wednesday afternoon as rain started falling head of Hurricane Helene’s projected landfall in the panhandle.

Police from Winter Park and Maitland as well as Orange County deputies patrolled the area, including by boat. From across Lake Virginia, white tents could be seen in the backyard of the nearly 10,000-square-foot residence that belongs to the owners of Golden Corral.

The home of Eric and Diane Holm. (Orange County Property Appraiser’s Office)

The Holms were listed on a flyer posted on social media by Rep. Anna Eskamani for the lunch event (no word on whether it included an all-you-can-eat buffet or a chocolate fountain) as part of the event’s host committee. The flyer for the Trump campaign event featuring the vice presidential candidate also listed as “hosts:” Rep. Aaron Bean; Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson; Rep. Kat Cammack; Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis; Rep. Michael Waltz; Ricky Caplin and Nancy McGowan.

Seats started at $5,000 per couple, according to the flyer, all the way up to $100,000 per couple.

A Harris sign peeks out from a front yard near a fundraiser that reportedly featured J.D. Vance on Wednesday afternoon.

At least one house on a closed stretch of road near the event had a “Harris/Walz” sign in the front yard that was obscured by what appeared to be valet golf carts.

The Holms have hosted a number of charity events at their home, which features a room dedicated to their English Bulldog with a custom carrousel style bed, according to a 2019 story in Winter Park Magazine.

Holm is also known for his charitable work, including a Thanksgiving dinner for more than 20,000 at the Salvation Army in Orlando known as “Helpings from the Heart.”

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Kelly Semrad wins County Commission seat over Steve Leary

Text poll appears to test possible attacks in District 5 County Commission race

Text poll appears to test possible attacks in District 5 County Commission race

Steve Leary and Kelly Semrad will face off on the Nov. 5 ballot for the district that includes Winter Park

Sept. 23, 2024

By Beth Kassab

Somebody is testing potential attack ads against Kelly Semrad, the candidate who finished first in last month’s primary election for Orange County Commission District 5.

 A poll received earlier this month by voters in the district asked multiple questions evaluating possible lines of attack against Semrad – while also testing positive messages for Steve Leary, the former Winter Park mayor who finished second in last month’s primary and now faces a one-on-one runoff with Semrad on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The poll could be a preview of last-minute attacks ads that could surface in the closing weeks or days of the campaign, whether from Leary’s campaign itself or surrogates such as Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer or the Florida Realtors lobbying group, both of which paid for ads helping Leary during last month’s primary.

Semrad, a UCF professor, and Leary are vying for one of three seats up for election this year that will shape the makeup of the Orange County Commission at a time when developers are seeking permission to transform vast rural areas into subdivisions.

The poll stated clear falsehoods about Semrad such as “Kelly Semrad has no plans to protect Orange County’s environment and natural areas from urban sprawl.”

In reality, Semrad is an outspoken advocate for two referendums that will also appear on the November ballot. The first asks voters to designate a rural boundary in the county and the second would give the County Commission the power to stop potential developers from voluntarily annexing their land into other jurisdictions such as the city of Orlando.

The rural boundary and annexations have emerged as key issues in the District 5 race as well as the contests in districts 1 and 3. Leary has said he supports establishing the rural boundary, but has not answered a question that would give the rural boundary measure its teeth: Whether he supports the move to allow the county commission to block annexations by the cities.

The same poll question stated that Semrad’s “husband works for the largest developers in Central Florida helping to prep land by clearing trees, destroying natural habitats and erasing rural and agricultural lands, all to make way for more sprawl neighborhoods. How convincing is that statement as a reason to vote against Kelly Semrad?”

Semrad said her life partner (they aren’t married) is an engineer who works in construction, but considered the statement to be a mischaracterization of his work that she said focuses on roads and urban redevelopment.

His firm’s website lists Universal Orlando, Tavistock and major homebuilders among its clients — the same companies that have contributed heavily to Leary’s campaign fund and political action committee. So, using the same logic, the poll question also appears to suggest those companies participate in “destroying natural habitats and erasing rural and agricultural lands, all to make way for more sprawl neighborhoods.”

Leary and his campaign did not respond to multiple calls and emails seeking comment for this story.

It’s unclear who paid for the survey, which was sent by company called Research Polls that lists its address as a canal-front condominium in downtown Fort Lauderdale. When this reporter went to website linked in the text message for the poll, the page said, “Share your opinions on Orange County” followed by, “Thank you for your interest in this survey. The survey is now closed.”

The survey also attempted to question Semrad’s credibility on one of her central platforms — pushing the county to diversify how it spends the Tourism Development Tax, a levy collected on hotel beds, beyond projects backed by the industry.

“Kelly Semrad claims to be a tourism expert, but she’s never worked in the industry. If she misrepresents her own background, she can’t be trusted to represent Orange County. How convincing is that statement as a reason to vote against Kelly Semrad?”

“Boy, do I wish that were true,” Semrad said in response to the question, noting that she started bussing tables at age 12 and working early morning shifts at a restaurant in Wisconsin to help her mom make ends meet.

It was the first of multiple service and hospitality industry jobs, she said, including server, bartender and housekeeper.

After college, she said she tried working in management.

“When I found out that the work conditions weren’t better, I went back to school and got my PhD and have dedicated my career to making conditions better for people who work in the tourism and hospitality industry,” Semrad said.

She started working at UCF in 2013 after working for several years at the University of Florida. She is considered an expert in market analyses, revenue and risk management and social and environmental justice in the tourism industry. She’s authored papers published in the Journal of Hotel & Business Management and the Research Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management among others.

The poll also asked voters if they have favorable or unfavorable views of “the tourism and hospitality industry,” “housing developers,” “environmental organizations” and “local labor unions” among others.

Neither candidate has shown much financial activity since the Aug. 20 primary, though the financial reports filed with the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office lag by a couple weeks.

Leary has raised the most, but spent the bulk ahead of the Aug. 20 primary. He has collected nearly $200,000 in his campaign fund and has about $30,000 left to spend, according to reports filed with the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office.

Leary’s political action committee called Neighbors for a Sensible Orange County has raised about $43,000 in cash and has about $37,000 left to spend.

Semrad has raised about $60,000, according to campaign filings, and has about $7,000 left to spend.

With six weeks until the election, there is still time for both candidates to raise funds and for Leary to spend his remaining cash.

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