Let us hear your questions for County Commission District 5 candidates
The four candidates for the seat that represents Winter Park will appear at a public forum on Aug. 6
July 24, 2024
Staff Report
Voters will have the chance to hear directly from Orange County Commission candidates for District 5, which represents Winter Park, at a public forum on Aug. 6 at Westminster Winter Park.
The event at 7 p.m. is sponsored by the Orange County League of Women Voters and will be moderated by Winter Park Voice Editor Beth Kassab. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. at Westminster, 1111 S. Lakemont Ave.
The public can also tune in live to watch the forum or watch a recorded broadcast on the League’s Facebook page. 
What questions do you have for the candidates who will be on the Aug. 20 ballot? You can leave them in the comment section below or email WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com.
Vying for the technically non-partisan seat are: Former Maitland City Council member and former legislator Joy Goff-Marcil; former Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary; attorney Joel Antonio Montilla and Kelly Semrad, a UCF associate professor of tourism economics.
Key issues in the race include how to spend the county’s Tourist Development Tax, a levy on hotel beds; how to protect rural lands; policies for improving the region’s overcrowded roads and other transportation woes and more.
The winner will replace Emily Bonilla, who has reached term limits for her seat.
If none of the four candidates receives 50% plus one of the vote in August, then the top two vote getters will face off in November.
What else is on your Aug. 20 ballot? Take a look here.
Requests to cast a mail ballot must be made by Aug. 8 at 5 p.m.
The Orange County Supervisor of Elections office reported that it has received more than 90,000 requests for mail-in ballots so far. That is below the 214,555 requests for the primary in 2020 and 195,935 in 2022.
The lagging number this year is the result of a change in state law by the Florida Legislature, which now says that vote-by-mail requests expire after each federal election cycle and voters must re-submit those requests.
WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
I would like to know whether the candidates would support allocating some of the hotel taxes to local needs such as transportation improvements, schools, and/or affordable housing (for all the folks working in those hotels).
One of Kelly’s goals is to diversify the use of TDT funds — she wants them to also be used in support of infrastructure and transportation solutions. You can learn more at http://www.kellysemrad.com
Kelly is a tenured UCF professor of tourism economics. She’s extremely accessible and will be a terrific County Commissioner.
She is the vice chair of “Save Orange County, Inc.”, a political group that states: “The only way to STOP Urban Sprawl from going all the way to the St. Johns River is to have our Rural Boundary actually written in our County Charter.” Seriously? Have any of their people been to OC/Brevard county line, the St. Johns River? There is at least 60,000 acres buffering the 20 mile long county line. I don’t where the group thinks any house can be built anywhere near the river. Spreading fear and untruths is not good governance. NIMBYism not a sustainable mantra.
About the resort tax,whereas the sun rail is running into required city tax to pay,,isn’t it about time for the millions collected to be shared with other transportation issues created because of tourism
Is this forum open to the public?
Yes. There is likely limited seating. There is also a livestream available and a link to the Facebook page for that in the story.