The results of Tuesday’s municipal elections are in, and it looks as if an overwhelming majority of local voters who turned out cast their ballots for “happy.” Across five counties, we can only find one incumbent who lost.
That stick-with-what-works mentality definitely includes Orlando, where Mayor Buddy Dyer and incumbent city commissioners Bakari Burns and Patty Sheehan cruised to victory with commanding leads. Granted, turnout was low — but that’s not so surprising, either; voters who are mostly content and only have a few races on their ballots tend to exert less effort.
That won’t make the coming two years of city business any easier. The City Beautiful has some ugly problems. That includes homeless people camped under I-4 overpasses and in city parks; a downtown emptied by the COVID-era shift to remote work during the day and taken over by a rowdy party crowd at night; several historic neighborhoods where gun violence is on the rise and other big challenges. There are also big unknowns, including the real impact of the Legislature’s multiple attacks on local governments’ ability to carefully manage growth.
Overall, however, Orlando’s City Council seems to be doing a good job of balancing those priorities — while tending to local needs including health care, affordable housing, resources for substance abuse and mental illness and impressive new entertainment venues. There are legitimate complaints, particularly from residents of neighborhoods who feel they’ve been left behind in the city’s push for progress. But Burns, who represents some of those communities, claimed a commanding 4-to-1 vote margin in his District 6 race. That’s a substantial margin of trust.
It probably didn’t hurt that, even as mail ballots went out, Dyer was working a last-minute miracle to get the Pulse nightclub property into the city’s hands and pave the way for a respectful, collaborative memorial to the victims of the second-worst mass shooting in the nation’s history. Dyer’s long been known for a take-charge style that sometimes steamrolls dissenting voices. In this case, decisive action was needed — and it’s not the first time Dyer’s vision has led to dramatic leaps forward for Orlando. Voters were right to keep him on the job for what he says will be his final term.
Regional challenges
Among the other cities with incumbents on the ballot — including Oviedo, Lake Mary, Rockledge, Clermont, Tavares, Minneola, Indian Harbor Beach and Melbourne Beach — we can only find one incumbent who lost: James Reitz, the Ward 5 commissioner and current mayor of the north Lake County town of Lady Lake, which has been all but consumed by the sprawling megacommunity known as the Villages.
But there were some portents in Tuesday’s results that should give local leaders more to think about — particularly in Oviedo, where voters slapped down a pair of ballot questions that many expected to cruise to easy victory. One, a $35.5 million bond issue to build a long-awaited police station, could reflect significant voter apathy to anything that might raise their tax burden – especially in combination with Orange County’s thumping rejection of a local infrastructure sales tax in 2022. Seminole County leaders, who have their own sales-tax supplement coming up for renewal in 2024, should pay particular attention. (And we’re pretty sure they are.)
The other Oviedo defeat, a refusal to re-authorize the city’s ability to grant property-tax breaks as incentive for economic development, is more puzzling and will take time to unpack. This might not be a huge issue for Oviedo, who has only granted a few breaks under the economic-development law. But it could be a big deal for other cities facing their own tax-break authorization votes in the near future.
Overall, however, this set of election returns sends a clear message that voters are content with their status quo. Local leaders, particularly in municipalities that weren’t put to the test this year, shouldn’t take it as a license for laziness — but as an inspiration to keep serving their constituents respectfully and responsibly.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
