DESPITE ALL THE familiar faces, Orange County’s 2018 elections will bring some big changes.
Still, the 2018 races will be filled with many familiar faces
A little less than a year from now, the Orange County primary elections will herald big changes at the top.
The county will have another mayor, at least two different commissioners and a new sheriff by the end of 2018.
Many of those running or considering runs in the Aug. 28, 2018 primary are relative newcomers making their first bids for office, but almost as many are already in powerful offices and looking for their next step.
“There will be people in new positions,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. “Whether they’re actually ‘new’ people, that’s another question.”
Term limits are the reason Mayor Teresa Jacobs and Commissioner Jennifer Thompson can’t run for reelection. Commissioner Bryan Nelson is leaving to run for mayor of Apopka. Only District 6 Commissioner Victoria Siplin can run for re-election this cycle. She has no opponents.
The primary will be nonpartisan, with a runoff between the top two candidates in each race in November if one doesn’t receive a majority of votes.
The unique nature of nonpartisan elections could lead to the possibility of intraparty runoffs and cross-party endorsements — but on a commission that is 5-2 Republican, the GOP has to de fend three open seats for mayor and commissioner.
“It’s an opportunity for Orange County voters to change direction and policy,” Jewett said. “Over the last 15 years Orange County has grown increasingly Democratic — but the county has stayed surprisingly mixed and bipartisan. … Until voters do something different, I’ll assume Republicans will still have a definite opportunity to win some seats.”
The two open commissioner races have already seen eight people file to run between them.
In District 2, which includes Apopka and northwest Orange County, Democrats Antuan Bibbs and Patricia
Rumph and Republicans Mark Allen Byrd and Fred Brummer are looking to succeed Nelson, a Republican.
Brummer, a former commissioner and state representative, is looking to return to the commission he left three years ago. His familiarity with Orange County government, he said, would help during the upcoming changeover of senior directors.
“I believe I bring the experience which will help me get constituents service in a time of substantial turnover of staff,” he said.
Meanwhile Bibbs, a hotel employee running for his first office, said he was compelled to run because of the increased violence in his Apopka neighborhood and other communities.
“It’ll be great to get some new faces in there,” he said. “Hopefully I can follow in Commissioner Bryan Nelson’s footsteps as well.”
Running to succeed Republican District 4 Commissioner Thompson are a Republican, Gina PerezCalhoun, and three Democrats, Kevin Ballinger, Maribel Gomez Cordero and Nicolette Springer.
The district includes south and southeast Orange County.
“We’re in a position right now to really move the county forward,” said Springer, an assistant director at the Criminal Justice, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Technical Assistance Center at the University of South Florida, who lives in Lake Nona.
“We’re in a unique spot to get big jumps in things like sustainability and climate change that have really taken a back seat here in Orange County,” she said. “[We need] not only just to stay current,
but to move ahead.”
Perez-Calhoun, an attorney, pointed to big issues facing the county in the next four years, including the opioid crisis and SunRail costs reverting to local governments from the state in 2021.
“That bill is going to be a hefty bill,” she said. “We have to plan, so we can grow without having to cut services.”
The biggest race is the one for mayor, where many potential candidates are still scoping things out before committing to run.
On the Democratic side, Sheriff Jerry Demings has jumped in the race and
held his first campaign fundraiser. Property Appraiser Rick Singh also has been mentioned as a possible candidate.
The Republican side could also feature two familiar names, with School Board Chairman Bill Sublette and District 3 Commissioner Pete Clarke preparing to file. Clarke said he would be ready to file in the next couple of months, while Sublette said he was in no hurry to file with the deadline still 10 months from now.
Demings’ filing will lead to a special election for sheriff once he officially submits his resignation, as required by state law. Orlando Police Chief John Mina, former Sheriff’s Deputy Paul “Spike” Hopkins and Danny Banks, Special Agent in Charge at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, have all announced they’re in the running.
Exact dates for that election have yet to be made official, and a lawsuit over whether constitutional offices will be partisan or non-partisan is still ongoing.