Lingering allegations halt renaming of road in Apopka after local banker

Mayor’s pursuit of ‘Bill Arrowsmith Parkway’ may be continued

Bill Arrowsmith’s public-service resume boasts a long list of leadership roles that Apopka Mayor Bryan Nelson thought was “absolutely” worthy of a special civic recognition — renaming a road in his honor.

A community banker for over half a century, Arrowsmith, now 76, previously led the Apopka Jaycees, the Rotary and Seratoma service clubs. He volunteered as a youth mentor, Little League coach and trustee for a small, taxpayer-funded hospital that later became AdventHealth Apopka.

His nearly four decades on City Council is an elected tenure longer than any other Apopkan except the late Mayor John Land, who held office in Orange County’s second-largest city for 61 years.

But public outrage last month forced Nelson to pump the brakes on “Bill Arrowsmith Parkway.”

“I would probably not have [suggested] it if I thought there was going to be that kind of animosity,” Nelson said of his proposal to rename Harmon Road near the hospital for the former commissioner.

Critics of the mayor, including Dennis New who led an unsuccessful campaign this spring to recall Nelson, spoke out against the proposal to change the name of Harmon Road without specifically mentioning Arrowsmith, but alluding to money-laundering and other allegations from decades ago.

In a Facebook post, New alleged that Arrowsmith was once the “primary person of interest” in the suspicious death of a former bookkeeper at an Apopka bank where the city commissioner worked.

“We don’t need a road or anything named after him,” New wrote.

The allegations have dogged Arrowsmith for years, though he was cleared.

When he lost his 2016 reelection bid, the opposing campaign urged voters, “Google his name.”

“It never goes away,” Arrowsmith said. “It’s frustrating.”

In 1986, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement officer ruled out Arrowsmith and two others as suspects in the 1978 death of Patricia Smith, 35, the bank employee found dead in the bedroom of her home.

Arrowsmith had been implicated in the woman’s death by an informant who told police he was paid $3,000 to drive the banker and another man to her home. The informant lied, investigators later concluded.

“To think I could be sitting in jail the rest of my life for something somebody like that swore to, that is sickening,” Arrowsmith told an Orlando Sentinel reporter at the time.

Three times he was charged with tax conspiracy and three times a judge tossed the case.

New, who frequently offers his opinion during public comment of Apopka City Council meetings, opposed changing the name of the road which connects Binion Road to OcoeeApopka Road, where the hospital sits.

He noted that Willard “W.B.” Benton Harmon, who died in 1986 at age 96, was a historic Apopka figure whose citrus groves are part of the footprint that became toll roads fueling the city’s growth.

“Why is this [administration] trying to erase Apopka history and replace it with a man that has a questionable history,” New demanded of City Council during the board’s evening session July 19.

Arrowsmith was not present. He and wife Janine were at a conference in Arizona.

If he had known of Nelson’s plan, Arrowsmith said, he’d have asked the mayor not to do it.

“I understand it was a very contentious meeting with the usual creeps blasting me,” he wrote on Facebook. “If this had passed I would have rejected it as I would not condone replacing an historical pioneer.”

But putting Arrowsmith’s name near the 120-bed, $203 million, full-service medical campus would be a fitting honor for him, said Verbalee Nielsen-Swanson, a retired administrator who endorsed the change.

Addressing Apopka City Council last month, she recalled that the former North Orange Memorial Hospital, which had no emergency room or birthing suites, was struggling when she began her career.

“Bill was part of the board that looked for options to continue to provide health care in the Apopka community. They put out proposals and did presentations,” Swanson said. “Florida Hospital won that opportunity.”

Nelson said he hasn’t given up on the idea of honoring Arrowsmith’s long public service.

“I’ve got another way of making it happen,” he said.

Nelson declined to offer details in a phone interview.