Orange signs? All about historic preservation in Winter Park
May marks a time for awareness about historic properties and their value to communities like Winter Park
May 7, 2024
By Beth Kassab
Just as those election yard signs are disappearing, Winter Parkers might notice another sign popping up in yards across the city — Orange reminders of May as Historic Preservation Month.
Residents of historic homes are pulling out their signs as a visual reminder of the importance of preserving past architecture and charm to maintain the city’s vibrant character.
Winter Park’s Historic Register lists more than 120 homes and continues to grow each year.
Historic districts in the city include College Quarter, Virginia Heights East, Interlachen Avenue and the downtown area centered on Park Avenue.
Those in need of signs can contact the following: Sally Flynn: flynnlinks@aol.com; Stephen Pategas: spategas@hortusoasis.com or John Skolfield: john@skohomes.com
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Will city expand parking at Library & Events Center?
Discussion expected at Wednesday's meeting as city also considers lease to allow the Alfond Inn to use the old library as a valet lot
May 4, 2024
By Beth Kassab
Finding a parking spot at the Winter Park Library & Events Center is a growing challenge and commissioners this week will consider options to add new spaces while maintaining amenities at MLK Park, which serves as the backdrop to the buildings.
Staff is recommending a plan known as “Option B,” which would add 49 new parking spaces, but require the demolition of a 60-year-old rental space called Lake Hall Island near the corner of Harper Street and New England Avenue on the south side of the park.
It’s possible the facility could be preserved, but that would mean the park would lose its croquet court, which has a small, but loyal following, according to a report by city staff. Moving the croquet court elsewhere would be costly, according to the memorandum.
The cost of the staff recommendation to demolish Lake Hall Island and add additional parking spaces is estimated at about $618,000.
At least three other options exist ranging from just 14 new spaces at about $209,000 to building a new parking garage to add more than 200 new spaces at a cost of $8 million.
Meanwhile, the city is looking to formalize an arrangement that would allow the adjacent Alfond Inn to use the parking lot at the old and now vacant library building as valet spaces.
Commissioners will consider leasing the 69 spaces to Rollins College, which operates the Alfond, for $45 each per month. The total rent would be about $3,000 each month.
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Other Florida cities issues dozens of citations for gas leaf blowers
While Winter Park will put its ordinance banning the devices to a voter referendum, some cities are enforcing rules against the noisemakers
May 4, 2024
By Beth Kassab
Bill Quinsey hears more about leaf blowers than just about anyone else in Florida, where the deafening gas-powered devices turned into a political rallying cry during the latest session of the state Legislature.
Quinsey, the code compliance manager in Naples, oversees a team that has issued 74 citations and 230 written warnings to people using the banned devices in the southwest coastal town of about 20,000 people.
“Leaf blowers are probably our No. 1 complaint [from residents] now that it’s on the books,” Quinsey said. “Some landscapers adopted it pretty quickly and others were struggling and had to get multiple citations.”
The noise, he said, is at the root of the complaints and also what drove the city to pass an ordinance that took effect in 2021 against the gas-powered machines as well as electric versions that exceed 65 decibels.
The city suspended the ordinance for about eight months during cleanup efforts after Hurricane Ian, he said, but began enforcement again about a year ago.
Education, including signs and emails directly to landscape companies, are a big part of the effort.
“We’re up to 300 unique landscapers we’ve contacted,” he said. “As soon as we get everybody on board, we get new people” who move businesses in to Naples.
Naples, in conservative Collier County where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than two to one, is just one of the Florida cities already enforcing such an ordinance while a state senator turned Winter Park’s version of a ban into the latest poster child against “government overreach.”
The Winter Park City Commission voted last month to let voters decide next year whether its ban — originally passed in 2022 but not yet enforced — will stay on the books.
Naples isn’t alone.
The town of Palm Beach, known as home to the estate of former President Donald Trump, also prohibits gas leaf blowers, along with South Miami, Key Biscayne, Pinecrest and Miami Beach among others.
Since Feb. 1, 2022, Miami Beach, for example, has conducted 675 service calls related to leaf blowers, including complaints and proactive inspections. During that time, the city issued 21 written warnings and 56 violations.
“We’ve seen many benefits since transitioning away from gas-powered leaf blowers, including less noise and no longer needing to utilize gas and oil,” said Melissa Berthier, spokeswoman for the city of about 80,000.
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Craig Russell sworn in and voters will decide next year on gas leaf blower ban
The newest commissioner took his seat just as one of the city's most controversial issues came up for a vote
April 25, 2024
By Beth Kassab
Voters will decide next year whether Winter Park will keep its ban on gas-powered leaf blowers after two tense and divided votes Wednesday that included new Commissioner Craig Russell for the first time.
The debate highlighted the power of the mayor’s role on the board — steering the debate and casting the final vote — with new Mayor Sheila DeCiccio twice breaking a 2-2 tie.
She ultimately sided with allowing voters to have a say about the ban on the March 2025 ballot, when the seats belonging to commissioners Todd Weaver and Kris Cruzada will also be up for election.
Russell and Cruzada cast votes in favor of the referendum while Weaver and Sullivan voted against it.
“At the end of the day, there was such division,” DeCiccio said after the meeting. “After listening to residents on both sides, the voters have to make this decision. Nobody wanted the referendum … the landscapers didn’t want it, but this way — one way or the other — it’s decided.”
From left to right: Marty Sullivan, Craig Russell, Sheila DeCiccio, Kris Cruzada and Todd Weaver.
Just before the vote, Russell attempted to table the matter and order city staff to draw up a new ordinance that would repeal the ban on gas-powered leaf blowers that the City Commission passed unanimously in 2022.
“I’m not going to tell a police officer what kind of gun to buy or a firefighter what kind of hose to buy,” Russell said, noting that he saw it as “obvious” that residents do not want the ban.
Frank Hamner, the attorney for the Holler family, which were among Russell’s biggest campaign donors, watched the meeting closely from the audience and stood up twice to speak in support of motions Russell attempted to make.
“How many man hours have you wasted on this thing?” Hamner, who until last week wasn’t a regular attendee at commission meetings, asked the board about the leaf blower discussion. “If you can’t, as a government, accept oversight or criticism you’re in the wrong business.”
Russell’s motion lost in a 3-2 vote with only Cruzada supporting his effort.
Weaver, who earlier in the meeting was elected as the new vice mayor and was on the commission when the ban was first passed in 2022, explained that the rule came about because of noise, health and safety concerns.
Leaf blowers, like many gas-powered machines, emit known carcinogens. They are also the loudest lawn equipment used on a daily basis.
“They aren’t ‘suspected’ to be cancer-causing, they are cancer-causing,” Weaver said, showing slides from several national studies.
The city’s ban was set to take effect in June, 30 months after it was originally passed, to give landscape companies and residents time to transition to electric models.
But in January the landscape companies organized and complained that they hadn’t had enough time and that the transition was too expensive and detrimental to their small businesses.
“I understand these electric leaf blowers are going to have to be purchased,” Weaver said. “But I don’t think it’s at all fair for the rest of us to subsidize extremely expensive health care when there’s something we can do about it.”
Sen. Jason Brodeur, who represents Winter Park, but calls Seminole County home, seized on the issue as an example of local government overreach even though a number of Florida cities already have similar bans.
Brodeur took up the landscape companies’ cause and threatened to pass a state law to prohibit such a ban if Winter Park did not place the issue on next year’s ballot for voters to decide, according to City Manager Randy Knight, who negotiated the arrangement with him.
Despite that agreement Brodeur inserted language into the state budget, which still hasn’t been signed by the governor, that prohibits cities from enacting or amending gas-powered leaf blower ordinances until next year after the results of a $100,000 study he ordered.
Weaver said he objected to state dollars going toward a study that he considered redundant after a number of other studies have already been done on the topic.
Cruzada defended the new study saying new data is needed. He also noted that the commission’s ordinance came about near the height of the pandemic when more people were working from home and complaining of the constant noise from leaf blowers and suggested those complaints have mostly passed.
Voters will now get to settle the debate on the March 11, 2025 ballot.
Moments after the leaf blower discussion, Russell asserted his new influence once again during the hearing of an ordinance to clean up language regarding how mixed-uses are defined within the Orange Avenue Overlay.
He pointed out where the word “commercial” was stricken and said, “I just think it’s a mistake,” because the word commercial was repeated again later.
Hamner took the microphone for a second time to support Russell’s comment.
“I fear if you take ‘commercial’ out where it’s stricken, it’s going to lack clarity going forward,” he said.
The planning director and DeCiccio explained that the change was to add more specific language about how “commercial” is defined so that developers understand what “mixed-use” means.
Craig Russell shares a moment with his family just after taking the oath of office.
When the McCraney building was up for debate a few months ago it was the first new development to be approved under the new Orange Avenue Overlay rules and there was discussion about whether two different types of offices could constitute “mixed-use,” such as a bank without tellers and a real estate office.
Russell then moved to amend the language with a suggestion from the planning director to add even more specificity, which was approved by the rest of the commission.
Earlier in the meeting he officially took the oath of office with his family by his side after winning the run-off against Jason Johnson by 34 votes.
“I’m just so proud to get to meet and work with so many talented people,” he said at the end of the meeting, noting that he would like to create a youth advisory board or find other ways to incorporate new voices into city government. ” On the record, I have to thank my family — the army I have, my kids and my wife — I wouldn’t be here without them.”
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Craig Russell ekes out victory in close race for Seat 2 on the City Commission
The results put Jason Johnson at just 34 votes behind Russell
April 16, 2024
By Beth Kassab
Craig Russell won Seat 2 on the City Commission on Tuesday by 34 votes, a victory that fell just over the threshold that would have triggered an automatic ballot recount.
Russell, who will become the first Black commissioner in Winter Park in more than 130 years, tallied 2,869 votes or 50.3% while Jason Johnson received 2,835 votes or 49.7%. The totals were separated by .6% and it takes under a half percent to cause a recount.
Craig Russell, a football and wrestling coach at Winter Park High School, is running for City Commission.
The numbers are unofficial until the canvassing board meets on Friday, but a spokeswoman for the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office said the results are unlikely to change because only eight ballots are in question.
Russell, a 43-year-old teacher and coach at Winter Park High School, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
His historic win comes on the heels of another landmark election last month when Sheila DeCiccio became the city’s first woman to ever be elected mayor. Russell will serve out the remaining two years of her commission term.
Johnson said he wanted to wait for the official results after the canvassing board meets on Friday to see if any overseas or other ballots come in, but thanked his supporters on Tuesday night.
“I am proud of the race I have run and am very proud of how we closed a sizeable gap in the past four weeks,” he said. “Mostly, I am very grateful for the support, encouragement and friendship of both my longtime family and friends and the many wonderful people I have been blessed to meet through this campaign.”
Russell ran on a message of “a new generation of leadership” and will be the youngest elected official on the current City Commission by 10 years.
He was the only candidate endorsed by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and significantly outraised and outspent Johnson with the help of high-profile landholders, developers and a political action committee affiliated with the chamber. He said during the campaign that he was open to revisiting the original Orange Avenue Overlay plans as well as the super majority charter amendments that voters passed by a wide margin in 2022.
Jason Johnson, candidate for Winter Park Commission Seat 2.
Russell raised more than $100,000 and Winter PAC raised nearly $30,000 on his behalf compared to Johnson’s $71,000.
Debate over development philosophy dominated the differences between Russell and Johnson, who said he was comfortable with the current OAO that calls for smaller buildings and less density and who supported the amendments that require four votes on the commission for certain zoning changes.
Russell and Johnson, both first-time candidates and both registered Democrats, also sparred over their voting records.
Public records show that Russell, who mostly grew up in Winter Park and graduated from the high school he teaches at now, did not vote in a municipal election until he was on the ballot this year.
Johnson, an attorney who emphasized the need to protect the charm and character of Winter Park, voted in nearly every election he was eligible to vote in.
Turnout in the run-off dropped from about 30% on March 19 to 26%. A total of 5,704 people cast ballots, down from 6,565 in the initial three-way race held the same day as Florida’s presidential preference primary.
While Russell’s victory marks the first time a Black commissioner will be seated on the dais in more than a century, numbers from the March 19 vote show Black voters made up just a fraction of the electorate as the city’s historically Black west side has undergone significant redevelopment and gentrification in the past two decades.
Statistics from the supervisor’s office show only 215 people who identify as Black voted in Winter Park on March 19.
Winter Park voters are largely white. The March election also saw only 229 voters who identified as Hispanic and 344 who identified as “other.”
The current commission includes Kris Cruzada, who is Filipino American, and DeCiccio, whose father is Indian and mother is white.
Demographic statistics from Tuesday’s voter turnout won’t be available until after the results are finalized.
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