by Beth Kassab | Apr 22, 2023 | Election, News
Karen Castor Dentel announces run for elections supervisor at luminary-filled Ruth's List event
Gen Z Congressman Maxwell Frost and State Attorney Monique Worrell headlined the event at a Winter Park home to support women candidates
By Beth Kassab
Orange County School Board member Karen Castor Dentel said Friday night she will run for Supervisor of Elections next year as Bill Cowles retires from the position he’s held for more than 25 years.
Castor Dentel, who made the announcement at a Ruth’s List fundraiser in Winter Park, said she is drawn to the position because of the “current state of politics” and a desire to push “clear communication with voters and educate them about the process” amid a national landscape littered with misinformation.
Cowles, who was first elected in 1996, said in February that he will retire when his term ends in early 2025. So far Castor Dentel is the only person filed to run in the race that will be on the November 2024 ballot, according to the supervisor’s website.
Karen Castor Dentel
She was one of a handful of candidates who announced races after U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, who represents Winter Park in Congress, and Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell talked about why more candidates are needed to combat what Worrell called “an unprecedented time” as “democracy is slipping away.”
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” Worrell said amid chuckles from the crowd gathered around a pool deck overlooking Lake Maitland.
The comment was a reference to criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said her office was negligent because she didn’t prosecute a man for a misdemeanor marijuana charge in 2021. That same man is the suspect in a triple shooting in February that killed a 9-year-old girl, a woman and a Spectrum News 13 reporter.
Worrell said mass incarceration will not build a stronger society and she questioned DeSantis’ claim that he presides over the “free state of Florida.”
“I submit to you that Florida is not free,” she said, noting that DeSantis and a “Legislature beholden to their dictator” have pushed new restrictions to what K-12 students can learn about gender identity, made it easier for Florida, which has the highest number of Death Row exonerations, to execute people and passed a ban on most abortions after six weeks.
Worrell, a mom to three boys, revealed that when she was 39 years old she became pregnant with a daughter she had “waited for my whole life.” But when she was 10 weeks along her doctor told her that tests revealed the baby was unlikely to survive.
She had to make a decision about whether to continue or end the pregnancy.
Ultimately, she said she decided to continue the pregnancy and delivered a baby girl who died just three weeks later.
“If I had to make that decision again I would possibly make a different decision,” she said.
Worrell, who gave birth to her youngest son about a year after her daughter’s death, said she shared the deeply personal story for the first time because she knows the toll restrictions on reproductive freedom can take on women and families.
“It’s an insult to call Florida free,” she said, noting the importance of Ruth’s List, which helps elect Democratic women who are in favor of abortion rights.
Ruth’s List was founded in 2008 by former state chief financial officer and gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink. The organization, which has raised $7.5 million over 15 years, is named for Florida Congresswoman Ruth Bryan Owen — elected in 1928 just eight years after women gained the right to vote.
Frost, known as Gen Z’s first congressman elected last year at age 25 to represent greater Orlando, including Winter Park, Maitland and the UCF area in east Orange County, said Ruth’s List is crucial in supporting progressive candidates.
He said he took an interest in politics at age 15 “because I didn’t want to get shot in school” in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.
“Generation Z … we truly are the mass shooting generation,” Frost said. “… We need to elect politicians who will see the world through the eyes of the most vulnerable.”
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Apr 19, 2023 | City Commission, Library, News
In Brief: More money for public art, Dinky Dock changes and the new fate of the old library
Recent action by the City Commission will pave the way for more art as well as changes at two high-profile landmarks
After years of trying, Winter Park’s Public Art Advisory Board won approval this month for what will likely be a small, but steady stream of funds from the city budget to help pay for art in public spaces.
The City Commission unanimously approved a plan to dedicate 10% of any increase in the Unassigned General Fund each year to the project. That’s the same formula the city uses to devote money to the acquisition of park land, a plan that has raised about $1 million since it went into place in 2003 at an average of more than $50,000 a year.
While a lot of variables can impact the city budget each year, officials said they expect the public art fund to perform at a similar level.
Members of the public art board pleaded with members of the commission last week to approve the proposal and expressed concern that the “city of culture and heritage” didn’t have dedicated funding for art. The City Commission rejected a proposal last year to create a stream of art funding from building permit fees.
“We have nothing to make our ideas happen,” said Elizabeth Ingram, a member of the Public Art Advisory Board for about a year who also grew up in Winter Park. “It’s disappointing when there isn’t anything to bring those to our city. I don’t think we can rely on private donors anymore.”
Tinker Marsh, another member of the board, also expressed surprise that board did not have any dollars to spend on its mission.
“We really need to make Winter Park the first-class community we know it is,” Marsh said.
The board has discussed recommending works of art for the new Seven Oaks Park, Martin Luther King Jr. Park and other city gateways.
Commissioner Marty Sullivan called the funding plan a “good start.”
“This is a very good move in the right direction,” he said.
New plans for the old library
Since the new Winter Park Library and Events Center opened, ideas and debate have swirled around what to do with the old library site on the corner of East Fairbanks and Lyman avenues.
Commissioners rejected a proposal earlier this year to repurpose the old building by transforming it into office and business incubator space among other uses.
Now, however, there appears to be agreement among the commission to ask developers for new ideas and, this time around, allow residential units and also permit the building to be demolished rather than reused.
Commissioners agreed at a work session last week to consider putting out a new Request for Proposal as soon as next month.
A spokeswoman for Rollins College said the school is not currently interested in the site and is considering a workforce housing project elsewhere.
Workforce housing is a hot topic in Winter Park as home prices have soared beyond the means of many of the people who work for some of the city’s largest employers such as Rollins, the hospital and City Hall.
More parking at Dinky Dock
The number of parking spaces at the popular Dinky Dock public boat ramp will increase by 50% to 33 regular spaces and 12 trailer spaces, under a plan approved by the City Commission.
Repairs will also be made to the dock’s boardwalk.
The city will spend about $154,000 on the project from the more than $15 million it received from the federal American Rescue Plan Act or COVID stimulus money approved by Congress in 2021.
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Apr 14, 2023 | City Commission, News, Orange Avenue Overlay, Tree Canopy
Winter Park breaks ground on Seven Oaks Park, will seek performance space proposals
After the ceremony the City Commission held a work session and signaled it will ask developers to submit concepts for a piece of the park
By Beth Kassab
A crowd gathered Thursday morning under a tent to break ground at Seven Oaks Park surrounded by the namesake Live Oaks taking root along the perimeter of the wedge-shaped lot that comes to a point at Orange Avenue and Denning Drive.
“In the future you won’t need the tent, the trees will provide the shade,” said Larry Adams, principal at ACI Architecture, who designed the city’s newest park and has been involved in the concept from the start, creating the first set of blueprints pro bono.
A construction manager is expected to be chosen for the 2.4-acre project soon, Winter Park Mayor Phil Anderson said. Renderings call for the greenspace to become a community gathering spot that also helps link Mead Botanical Gardens with Martin Luther King Jr. Park.
Anderson called the park a “three-year work in progress” after delays brought by the pandemic and hurricanes and noted the mature oaks planted last year at the site formerly known as Progress Point are a “symbolic start to putting something in place that will last for generations.” Anderson said Seven Oaks Park is due to open in mid-2024.
In a nod to the city’s love of its tree canopy, Anderson declared April 13 “Arbor Day” for Winter Park, and the Urban Forestry department gave away trees to residents.
Steve Goldman, chairman of the Winter Park Land Trust, thanked city officials and others who helped shepherd the project along to provide a green refuge from concrete and traffic. “It takes a village,” said Goldman, who is also a founder and financial supporter of the Winter Park Voice.
Mayor Phil Anderson gives remarks at the groundbreaking for Seven Oaks Park.
Just hours later Anderson and city commissioners moved beyond symbolism to the nitty gritty of how they want a specific area of the park developed.
For months, Winter Parkers have debated whether the Winter Park Playhouse should move to Seven Oaks Park since its leaders announced the popular theater would lose its lease next year.
Commissioner Todd Weaver proposed a concept that called for the playhouse to be built above the parking lot at the new park along with solar panels.
That idea appeared to gain traction with commissioners, who agreed at the work session that they would soon formally vote on asking for proposals for performance spaces combined with a potential café or other uses in the airspace above the parking lot area.
Heather Alexander, founder and executive director of the playhouse, said she planned to submit a proposal. The building would be paid for by the playhouse and would not require public dollars, she said. But if the theater ever left the park, the building would belong to the city.
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Apr 10, 2023 | City Commission, News, Orange Avenue Overlay, Uncategorized, Zoning and Development
Seven Oaks Park to break ground as commission set to discuss if theater can move there
The new park is designed to be a green refuge along a busy stretch of Orange Avenue and the concept of moving the Winter Park Playhouse there remains controversial
By Beth Kassab
City officials will gather Thursday morning to break ground on the long-awaited Seven Oaks Park at the corner of Orange Avenue and Denning Drive.
The public ceremony set for 10 a.m. comes as the City Commission is set to discuss key aspects of the 1.5-acre park’s future this week at two additional public meetings on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.
Central to those talks is a proposal by Commissioner Todd Weaver for the Winter Park Playhouse, which is losing the lease for its current building on Orange Avenue, to move to the park. A meeting last month some residents expressed support for the concept, but others expressed concerns it would take away from the feel of the park and add congestion to nearby neighborhoods.
Weaver’s plan calls for the theater to be part of the second story of a parking structure that also houses solar panels.
A brief summary included in the agenda for Wednesday’s City Commission meeting notes that city staff met with the executive director of the playhouse, who said the building would need to be 12,000 to 15,000-square feet and sit as many as 175 people, up from the 123 seats at the current theater.
The playhouse will also need 38 to 44 parking spaces to meet zoning requirements, according to the memo. One question is whether there will be enough space to accommodate enough additional parking intended for the park that will help nearby businesses that rely mostly on street parking.
The groundbreaking ceremony is open to the public on Thursday morning. The Seven Oaks name for the site formerly known as Progress Point was selected earlier this year in a public online vote in tribute to the seven large Live Oak trees planted on the property in 2022.
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Apr 7, 2023 | News
Extreme weather is wreaking havoc on Winter Park Chain of Lakes
From the deluge of rain brought by Hurricane Ian to more recent drought-induced algae blooms, the city’s prized lakes are feeling the effects of a warming climate
By Beth Kassab
The Winter Park Chain of Lakes flows north through the city, connecting mile after mile of multi-million- dollar home lots, the Spanish Mediterranean architecture of Rollins College and some of the most popular public docks in the region.
Lakes Virginia, Mizell, Osceola and Maitland – linked by a series of picturesque canals — are at the heart of what makes Winter Park home to some of the most desirable real estate in Florida.
But extreme weather in the last six months brought first by Hurricane Ian and, now, a sustained drought have pointed to the chain of lakes as a symbol of something potentially ominous: severe inland flooding followed by persistent hazardous algae blooms.
“It’s a perfect storm for Florida,” said Gloria Eby, Winter Park’s director of Natural Resources and Sustainability. “If you look at the state’s map for algae bloom sites, you can see dots all over the state of Florida. We’re not in this alone. But it is newer for Winter Park. Our weather pattern has a severe impact on when and where we see this and we’re seeing the intensities from extreme drought to extreme rain.”
Dinky Dock on Lake Virginia, a popular boat ramp open to the public, was closed for four weeks in February and March because of algae blooms that can be toxic to people and dogs. Lakes Virginia, Osceola, Maitland, Sue and Baldwin are now open, but remain under a caution because blooms can move and reappear.
The lack of rain along with hotter than typical temperatures can feed conditions that worsen the blue-green blooms. Samples are regularly collected by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from problem areas.
A family spends time at Dinky Dock last month after it reopened from algae blooms.
Eby said the absence of rain has depleted lake levels and water is barely trickling over the weirs that help control the elevation in the chain of lakes. Without a steady flow of rain, runoff contaminated with nutrients from fertilizer and other sources remain in the lakes and ripen the conditions for algae.
“We need that base rain flow to push out the nutrients,” she said.
Orlando only saw 1.89 inches of rain since the start of the year, more than 5 inches less than normal, according to the National Weather Service. Sanford saw 3 inches, more than 4 inches below normal.
That’s the opposite of the problem the region saw after Hurricane Ian dropped 13.7 inches of rain on Orange County during a 12-14-hour period on Sept. 29 with some areas logging as much as 18 inches of rain, according to Winter Park’s post-storm report. That analysis noted the storm caused sewer overflows that “exposed the vulnerability of the city’s stormwater and waste water systems that are not built or designed to handle this amount of continued rainfall.”
The lake levels rose and nearby docks, homes and streets were flooded.
Pamela Peters has lived in her house on Lake Osceola for 42 years and had never experienced such high water levels as she did immediately after Ian.
A boat house is flooded on Lake Osceola after Hurricane Ian. (Photo courtesy of Pamela Peters.)
Her dock was under water for weeks and her boat house flooded.
“We had never seen this,” said Peters, a former city commissioner. “My concern is that our city leaders are thoughtful about the events and changes in climate and are anticipating and planning what’s next.”
Some potential changes are already in motion.
Eby said city staff has met with the St. Johns River Water Management District, a state agency charged with regulating water bodies and protecting drinking water, to determine if the two fixed weirs that control the water levels on the chain of lakes could be made adjustable in the future.
That could be controversial because if there is too much outflow from the lakes in Winter Park then areas downstream in Seminole County such as Lake Howell could flood. But some ability to adjust the water levels might also be helpful in controlling flooding during storms, Eby said.
“There’s more intensity and more frequency to these storms so it’s really testing the abilities of this entire infrastructure,” said Gloria Eby, Winter Park’s director of Natural Resources and Sustainability. “Inland areas are starting to see a lot more effects with flooding and higher water elevation.”
City staff are also working on a study to determine the sources of nutrients contributing to algae blooms and how to combat them, she said.
And Eby’s department wants to educate residents who live on the lakes about how to take care of them such as the safest fertilizers to use and simple steps such as making sure grass clippings and leaves are not blown into the water.
Earlier this year the city held a meeting with lakefront homeowners in an effort to provide more communication about what’s happening and how they can help.
That means bagging yard waste instead of blowing it, following fertilizer guidelines and protecting native aquatic plants near the shoreline, which function as kidneys to the lakes by filtering out toxins.
“We need our lake communities to be strong stewards of the lakes,” she said.
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Mar 28, 2023 | News
This classical music competition changes lives. Can it also put Central Florida on the map for new music?
The National Young Composers Challenge returns this weekend
When: Sunday, April 2 at 12-4 p.m. (Audience members are encouraged to come and go throughout the afternoon) Where: Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center Cost: Free
By Beth Kassab
Robert Tindle was just 14 when he first entered the National Young Composers Challenge, now a part of UCF’s annual arts celebration every April.
The score he submitted back in 2011 as a high school student in Miami was long shot.
“I wrote something for orchestra, which was quite a stretch because I had never written for strings before,” he said.
But the result was life-changing.
Tindle was selected as a winner, which meant his piece was played in front of a live audience by the Orlando Philharmonic and workshopped in real time with conductor Christopher Wilkins, now music director of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Akron Symphony.
“It was my first chance to really see somebody interacting with my music on that level of professionalism so it made a huge impact on me,” Tindle said. “I then realized this is something I really, really like doing.”
Today, more than a decade later, Tindle is 26 and working as a professional classical composer. He is finishing up a violin concerto to be premiered by an orchestra in Iowa next year and he wrote other recent commissions for orchestra and wind ensemble. He earned a master’s degree in 2020 in instrumental conducting from Wichita State University in Kansas.
“I’m still working with orchestras and large ensembles to this day and a lot of that can be traced in some way back to the connections I made at the National Young Composers Challenge,” he said.
This Sunday there will be two more 14-year-olds (along with two 17-year-olds and two 18-year-olds) on stage when the challenge returns to Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and helps kick off UCF Celebrates the Arts 2023.
This time the youngest composers are from Maine and Minnesota with other winners from New York, Michigan and Florida.
But the founders and judges of the event hope the result will be the same: More young people like Tindle encouraged to keep pursuing their passion.
“To have your music performed by 60 or 70 people in an orchestra and an audience hear what you have to say? That makes a very powerful impression,” said Alex Burtzos, assistant professor of music, endowed chair of composition at UCF and a judge for the competition.
Burtzos understands that feeling on a personal level. He won a composing competition as a 15-year-old high school student in Colorado.
“They are experiencing what it’s like to be in that sphere and that can be kind of intoxicating, you know?” he said.
This year the challenge, which started in 2007, received more than 100 entries from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii. In addition to UCF, the event is also sponsored by Rollins College, Full Sail University and Timucua Arts Foundation.
Winter Park resident Steve Goldman, a composer and philanthropist who founded the competition, said he is impressed each year with the increasing level of complexity and sophistication in the entries.
“The goal is to make Central Florida a national center known for new music,” said Goldman, who is also a financial supporter of the Winter Park Voice.
While industry observers have noted how classical music audiences are disappearing across the country, there are more career paths for composers today in the age of endless streams of on-demand media.
“One of the jokes in the orchestra business is people think they are coming to listen to music by dead white European males, but it’s really a living and breathing art form and there is so much good stuff out there now,” Goldman said.
Burtzos agreed, noting the 12 spots in UCF’s composition program are highly competitive, with 35 applicants this year for just five open seats. A previous winner of the challenge is now enrolled in the program.
More television, films and video games mean a greater demand for new music, which is integral to storytelling.
“As a result of more outlets than we have ever seen before, it’s more realistic to consider a career as a composer,” Burtzos said.
The event on Sunday is free to the public and will feature live performances of the pieces by the six winners.
In addition to Goldman and Burtzos, judges include Dan Crozier, an accomplished composer and professor at Rollins and Keith Lay, who has taught at Full Sail, written music for commercials and film and whose orchestral works have been played all over the world.
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
Recent Comments