Apopka mayor’s re-election bid gets challenger

Orange County Commissioner Bryan Nelson, who successfully petitioned the city of Apopka to annex his home last year, said Thursday he will challenge Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer’s re-election bid.

Word from Nelson came hours after Kilsheimer made it official that he will seek a second four-year term — signaling an early start to the 2018 election season in Apopka.

Kilsheimer announced his candidacy at the end of a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying that he wanted to stop rumors he wouldn’t run again.

The election is a year away.

Nelson, 58, a Republican, served four terms in the Legislature, representing a district based in Apopka, Orange County’s second-largest city. He then succeeded fellow Apopkan Fred Brummer on the County Commission in 2014.

He has filed paperwork to begin raising money for his campaign.

Nelson said he believes Apopka is too divided under Kilsheimer.

“I think it’s the whole tone that they set at council meetings,” he said. “It’s not what I would want. Whether you liked Mayor [John] Land or not, his tone was always respectful.”

Kilsheimer, 59, won the mayoral post in 2014 in an upset over Land, who had been mayor for 61 years — including the last 42 in a row — the most ever in Florida. Land, 92, died about eight months after the defeat.

Nelson, whose family operates Nelson’s Florida Roses, will have to give up his seat on the county commission because of Florida’s resignto-run law. His home was in unincorporated Orange County until the City Council approved an annexation of his property and the homes of a few neighbors. Apopka requires its mayor to be a resident of the city.

County commissioners make $78,000 a year while the mayor’s yearly pay is $150,000.

Qualifying for the Apopka mayor’s race begins at noon Jan. 2.

After the council meeting, Kilsheimer said the outlook for Apopka is brighter than ever.

“Since I was elected mayor, we’ve created more than 1,000 jobs in Apopka, brought in more than $1.5 million in grant money to do things like rebuild the community center at Alonzo Williams Park and we’re also going to hire 10 police officers this year as opposed to five using a federal grant,” he said, listing some accomplishments of his tenure.

“We have struck a deal with a developer to build the city center. We have created a far more transparent organization,” the Democrat added. “There’s a number of things that we’ve put into motion that I want to be here to see through.”

The nonpartisan election is March 13, 2018.

Making his announcement at The Catfish Place, Nelson emphasized his deep roots in Apopka and the need for a new direction. “We’ve got a lot of opportunities but a lot of challenges here in Apopka,” he said. “The civility in the city of Apopka, we’ve got to get that back . ... We’ve got to have people talking to each other in a rational way.”

Apopka, in northwest Orange, has grown to about 48,000 residents.

City Commissioner Diane Velaszquez also declared her candidacy for re-election at Wednesday’s meeting. Democrat Patricia Rumph, a probation officer, has taken out paperwork to run for Nelson’s commission seat.