Kidd exits Apopka council runoff race
Suzanne Kidd unexpectedly withdrew from next month’s runoff race for a seat on the Apopka City Council, lambasting the weak turnout for last week’s election and Mayor-elect Bryan Nelson.
Kidd, a retired teacher and supporter of ousted Mayor Joe Kilsheimer, said in a statement Tuesday if Kilsheimer had won re-election “there is almost no limit to the positive forward strides we as a City were making.” She said Nelson, now an Orange County commissioner, on the other hand, “lacks such a vision, or the openness to explore every revenue-raising opportunity available to the City, and would stand in the way of needed progress. His vision is one of austerity and retrenchment.”
She suggested Nelson’s election was a step backwards for the city.
He said she made a mistake by dropping out.
“You’ve got to scratch your head,” said Nelson, who learned of Kidd’s remarks after Tuesday’s Orange County commission meeting. “You’re leading and you’ve got all your supporters out there. I mean, she had some really dedicated supporters, waving signs and making calls and walking neighborhoods. Wow.”
He said he hoped Kidd, 71, would “still be part of the process” to improve Apopka, Orange County’s second-largest city.
“Obviously we’re going to have workshops on the [city] budget and we hope she’ll show up and she’ll give us her two-cents worth,” Nelson said.
Kidd’s exit from the runoff race Monday hands Seat 1 to Alexander Smith, who will be the third African-American resident to serve on the council.
In her missive explaining her decision, Kidd thanked her supporters and criticized voters who didn’t cast a ballot.
“When 80% of Apopka’s voters chose not to vote, declining to express at the ballot box their hopes for progress, they allowed 4,100 people to change the direction of this city in a way I could not, in good conscience, and in loyalty to my volunteers and supporters, allow myself to agree with or participate in,” she said.
Kidd’s decision gave the former seat of longtime commissioner Billie Dean to Smith, a first-time candidate.
Like Dean, who decided not to seek re-election after 24 years, Smith is African-American and will be the council’s lone black representative.
Smith said Dean, his high school agriculture teacher, accompanied him to his first council meeting in 1969 to receive an award from the Apopka chapter of the Sertoma Club.
“I’m humbled to have the opportunity to sit in the seat that was once held by [commissioner] Alonzo Williams Jr. … and commissioner Billie Dean,” Smith said of the only African-Americans to previously win election to the council.
Williams, elected in 1971, preceded Dean on the council.
Smith will be sworn into office April 24.
Kidd was the leading vote-getter March 13 in the four-person race to replace Dean, taking 37.4 percent of the vote. Smith finished second with 30 percent, Army veteran Gene Knight got 19.4 percent, and Theresa Mott received 13.1 percent.
Under Apopka rules, a council candidate in a race with more than two candidates must win more than 50 percent of the ballots or the contest will be decided in a runoff between the top two vote-getters.
Council Seat 2 is still set for a runoff April 10 between incumbent Diane Velazquez and Alice Nolan, who was the leading vote-getter in the four-person field with 2,478 votes or 39.7 percent. Velazquez, seeking a second four-year term, got 2,340 or 37.5 percent.
Kidd, a 16-year Apopka resident, was engaged in city affairs, often speaking at public meetings.
Her website rallied her supporters after the election saying, “The fight is not over.” But now, apparently, it is. Smith, a retired agriculture teacher, serves as an associate pastor at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church on Central Avenue on Apopka’s south side.
He taught for 39 years in Orange County schools.
Responding to a pre-election questionnaire from the Orlando Sentinel, he listed transparency, accountability/accessibility and opportunities for youth as his top three issues.
Smith also said he would work to promote “economic development that will create jobs with diverse occupations; managed growth that does not disturb the atmosphere that attracted families to Apopka; venues where youth can be involved in wholesome activities without fear of endangerment.”
Dean, now 87, announced last year that he would not seek reelection, telling the Orlando Sentinel, “I think it’s time.”