Ex-mayor seeks Maitland seat
McDonald challenges incumbent for Seat 4 on City Council
Term limits forced Maitland Mayor Dale McDonald to leave office in 2021, but he still attended most City Council meetings.
“I wanted to stay involved,” said McDonald, who served six years as mayor, the most allowed by city charter.
He is now challenging incumbent Lindsay Hall Harrison for Seat 4 on Maitland City Council.
In Maitland, elected officials who serve two consecutive terms must take at least a year off before running for office again.
Hall Harrison, a real estate lawyer, was elected in 2020.
“Since then I have worked hard on council to distinguish myself as someone who asks difficult questions,” she said. “I am not beholden to one neighborhood or one ideology. I have sometimes had the occasion of being the lone vote in favor or against something where it made no sense.”
She said she is seeking reelection because she wants her daughter to “have a bright and happy future in this community.”
Maitland council members are elected at large in the city of about 20,000 residents. Council members are paid $4,300 a year. Voters will decide Tuesday who will sit in the seat for the next three years.
Voters also will decide five city charter amendments, four of which modernize the city charter, including a plan for mayoral succession if the post becomes vacant. The other measure proposes to eliminate runoffs in elections that draw more than two candidates.
McDonald, 70, described a top concern as a “meat and potatoes” issue — the city’s aging underground water and sewer lines.
He said some are more than 60 years old and may be at risk for breaking, which could cause
a crisis.
“No matter how cool the city may seem or how technologically advanced the city may find itself being or how blessed we are with all the things we’re blessed with, if you can’t get good water in and bad water out, you’re screwed,” he said in a phone interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “Nobody likes it. But it has to be done. Sooner or later, you’ve got to put new tires on the car.”
Hall Harrison, 43, described herself as a champion for the city’s parks.
Her campaign website, lindsay4maitland.com, points out she was chair of the Maitland Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.
“A lot of my energy and passion goes into making sure that we are doing the best we can for our parks and improving them and to adding more of them to our city as we can,” she said during a candidates forum Wednesday night at Maitland Public Library.
The forum can be viewed on the Facebook page of Joy Goff-Marcil, who moderated the 45-minute discussion.
The candidates disagreed on the appropriate location for the Maitland Farmers Market, which was moved to Independence Lane next to City Hall in 2021 after more than a decade at Lake Lily Park. McDonald favors returning the weekly open-air market to Lake Lily.
“We had an iconic venue there,” he said, saying the move didn’t make “good business sense.”
But Hall Harrison said the relocation was suggested by city staff to accommodate planned improvements at Lake Lily Park.
The new location is closer to downtown apartments, helping to “activate” Independence Lane, she said.
Early voting takes place 8 a.m.-5 p.m. until Friday at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office, 119 W Kaley St., Orlando. On Election Day, polls are open from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. For more information, visit ocfelections.com/ 2023municipals.