Anderson elected mayor in Winter Park
Voters decide races in Winter Garden, Ocoee, Windermere
Voters in four Orange County municipalities elected several city officials on Tuesday.
Winter Park residents chose a new mayor. Winter Garden voters picked three candidates to fill city commission seats, Ocoee selected two city commissioners and Windermere filled three town council seats.
Winter Park
Former Winter Park commissioner Phil Anderson will be replacing outgoing Mayor Steve Leary to lead the city of about 30,000 residents.
As of about 8 p.m. Tuesday, Anderson had received 4,242 of the 7964 votes counted to rival Sarah Sprinkel’s 3,719, giving Anderson a 53.2% to 46.7% edge.
“This is the place that I’ve loved for 22 years and I’m just really looking forward to
serving the residents here,” Anderson said during a Zoom watch party.
Anderson will face decisions about the city’s redevelopment, including approving a new version of the Orange Avenue Overlay District, a controversial zoning plan for 75 acres along the busy corridor.
The original plan was rescinded last year shortly after its approval by a previous commission that included Sprinkel.
He’ll also face the challenge of repairing the city’s relationship with its Chamber of Commerce, which fractured over an audience question asked at a mayoral debate that implied impropriety by commissioners.
The question led to a confrontation between Anderson and the chamber’s president, for which Anderson later apologized.
Winter Garden
In Winter Garden, incumbent commissioners Colin Sharman and Mark Maciel won re-election, with Maciel defeating his predecessor, Bobby Olszewski.
Maciel, a land developer, won a second term with 61% of the vote to beat Olszewski, who served as District 3 commissioner from 2012 to 2016.
Sharman, who has served as District 4 commissioner for 15 years, easily defeated first-time commission candidate Dawn Antonis, taking 72% of the vote.
In the lone race without an incumbent, Ron Mueller edged Iliana Ramos Jones to claim the District 2 seat with 53% of the vote.
They were challenging one another to replace 14-year District 2 Commissioner Bob Buchanan, who chose not to seek re-election.
Ocoee
The two incumbent commissioners in Ocoee kept their seats.
District 4 Commissioner George Oliver III, the first Black person elected in the city, was elected for his second term.
Oliver won with 744 ballots cast, or 56% of the vote, over challengers Lori Hart, Keith Richardson and Joel F. Keller, who formerly held the seat.
District 2 incumbent Commissioner Rosemary Wilsen easily defeated first-time candidate Knox Anderson with 758 votes, or about 74%.
Oliver and Wilsen will continue to address development issues in Ocoee, which has grown by about 15,000 residents in the past 10 years, and continued reconciliation over the lynching of a Black man who tried to vote on Election Day in 1920.
Windermere
Bill Martini, the only incumbent in the race, won his second term with 423 or about 31% of the vote.
Mandy David and Anthony Davit are joining Martini on the dais. A fourth candidate, Mike Hargreaves, only garnered 132 votes or about 10% of the vote.
During the campaign, all of the winners said they would focus on mitigating cut-through traffic and take care of the town’s many dirt roads.