District 1 Orange County Commission too close to call; Districts 3, 5 go to runoff

ORLANDO, Fla. – The future of three Orange County Commission seats are still up in the air after Tuesday’s primary, with two seats heading for a runoff and one in the midst of a recount due to a razor-thin margin -- 5 votes.

That race is County Commission District 1, incumbent Nicole Wilson and challenger Austin Arthur, and write-in candidate Stephen Davis. The race is under a recount. With all precincts reporting, the Orange County Supervisor of Elections reported Wilson ahead 50.01%, with Arthur at 49.99%.

The Orange County supervisor of elections office says the next step is to go through any vote-by-mail ballots that needed to be cured. Voters have until 5 p.m. Thursday to return those cured ballots. After that, the race will go to a machine recount on Friday. If necessary, a hand recount would happen on Saturday going into Sunday.

And if the recounts end in a tie? State law says the candidates will draw lots.

District 1 encompasses much of southwestern Orange County, including much of the theme park areas, as well as Winter Garden, Windermere, Oakland and the booming Horizon West area. The area is one of the fastest growing in the county. According to the U.S. Census, in 2010, the Horizon West area alone had 14,000 residents. In 2020, that number had grown to 58,101.

In District 3, incumbent Mayra Uribe won with 44.7% of the vote, but because she didn’t get over 50%, she will go to a runoff in November against former Florida Sen. Linda Stewart, who got 34.69% of the vote. A third challenger, Gus Martinez, got 20.61%.

Orange County’s District 3 is located in the center of the county, running from Orange Blossom Trail in the Holden, Edgewood and Taft areas, east across the Curry Ford Road area to Dean Road, and includes communities like Rio Pinar, Belle Isle, SoDo, Conway, Lee Vista and the area around Valencia College.

District 5 was an open seat because Commissioner Emily Bonilla is term-limited. There were four candidates.

Professor and environmental activist Kelly Semrad won the race with 41.08% of the vote, but because she didn’t get over 50% of the vote, she will advance to a runoff in November against former Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary, who got 31.62%

Former State Rep. Joy Goff-Marcil came in third with 15.52%, and Joel Montilla came in fourth with 11.78%.

[RELATED: Here’s what will be on the Aug. 20 election ballot in Orange County | Florida election voting guide]

News 6′s Laverne McGee talked to most of the candidates on Friday at the Tiger Bay luncheon in Orlando. You can watch videos with the candidates for each race below, and read more about them. and the districts they represent.

District 1

Orange County residents in that area are constantly frustrated by the exploding growth not keeping up with infrastructure needs, especially regarding roads and drainage.

One businessman we talked to back in July offered an example.

“(Reams Road) was supposed to be widened and handled like 10 years ago, and it still isn’t done,” said restauranteur Stephen Facella. “So we have... backlogged funding, with a modern growth spurt for the highest growth area of Orange County.”

Incumbent Nicole Wilson is facing a challenge from businessman Austin Arthur and a write-in candidate, firefighter Stephen Davis.

Let’s meet the candidates.

NICOLE WILSON — Campaign Website

Environmental lawyer Nicole Wilson is running for her second term in office as a champion of growth management that also balances environmental issues.

Wilson sided with residents who tried to fight a plan by Disney to build affordable housing in Horizon West, saying the infrastructure wasn’t ready to handle the influx of new residents, but was outvoted 4-2 back in March.

Wilson also supported rolling back impact fee discounts for developers. Those discounts meant the county collected less money from developers for years, which resulted in less money for infrastructure, Wilson told us in May. Now more money is coming in, which will allow the county to tackle some of the infrastructure backlog.

Wilson also touts her support of the 2021 ordinance that banned the retail sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in unincorporated parts of the county, efforts to secure funding for homeless programs like Matthew’s Hope, and her tireless environmental advocacy with pushing for a summer fertilizer ordinance to reduce nutrient runoff, protecting the county’s wetlands, and advocating for the rural boundary amendment, which will be on the ballot in November.

Wilson also supports expanding the way the county uses tourist development tax dollars, which right now are restricted to community venues and tourism promotion.

AUSTIN ARTHUR - Campaign website

Austin Arthur is a longtime businessman in Winter Garden, founder of Gymnastics USA.

Arthur also says he wants to slow growth in West Orange County, build more infrastructure and preserve green spaces, like Wilson. He insists Wilson has not done enough regarding growth, saying she should be meeting more with “certain stakeholders” and landowners. He believes that efforts to rezone areas for multifamily housing need to be met with more scrutiny.

He also opposes tax increases and wants to remove regulations to deal with affordable housing.

Arthur has the support of the business community, along with the mayors of several cities in the area. He also is supported by Former District 1 Commissioner Scott Boyd, a developer who in 2020 orchestrated a write-in candidate in Wilson’s first race against Betsey Vanderley to get the race moved back to August when fewer people vote. Boyd is an outspoken critic of Wilson.

STEPHEN DAVIS — Personal website

Stephen Davis is a U.S. Army veteran and former Orange County firefighter who was fired in 2021 for insubordination because he refused to follow the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. He currently is running a parenting initiative called The Raising Alphas Project, and hosts a podcast of the same name. Davis did not respond to our email regarding campaign websites or social media accounts.

District 3

Mayra Uribe is the incumbent in this district and she faces two challengers.

Lets meet the candidates.

MAYRA URIBE — Campaign website

Mayra Uribe is a business owner who grew up in east Orange County in ZIP Code 32825, an area News 6 highlighted in our WKMG Hits the Road series.

Uribe was first elected in 2020 to represent the area, which she described as a tight-knit community with multi-generational families.

In her time in office, Uribe has focused deeply on the neighborhoods she serves. She says she increased office hours and connected neighborhoods with the sheriff in regular meetings to discuss law enforcement.

Uribe is known for being very prudent when it comes to the budget. She was the only one to vote against a property tax hike for emergency services, criticizing the lack of public input into the tax hike. Uribe says she supports growth limits, but says that doesn’t mean she’s anti-developer.

She’s been in favor of expanding the uses of the tourist development tax, and was frustrated by the preliminary memo recently released regarding an audit of Visit Orlando. She would like to change the way Visit Orlando gets TDT money from the county.

GUS MARTINEZ — Campaign website

A political newcomer, Gus Martinez has a background in information technology and is an ordained chaplain.

Martinez touts his volunteer work as a sign of his community commitment, working with groups like the Orange County Commission on Aging and founding the nonprofit “Miles of Help Through Christ” to help Orlando’s homeless population by providing meals, clothing and other services.

Martinez wants to take what he’s learned from that work to the county commission, where he also wants to focus on crime and public safety, particularly in parks.

LINDA STEWART — Campaign website

Linda Stewart represented Orange County in the Florida Senate from 2016 to 2024 and before that served on the Orange County Commission. Stewart also spent two years in the Florida House.

You can see all the bills Stewart sponsored in the legislature on the Florida Senate website.

A Democrat in the legislature, Stewart prided herself on working in collaboration with Republicans to get bills passed. Sometimes that took years. In January Stewart told News 6 that it took five years to get the Glass Bill passed, which is a law she sponsored to require drivers with windshield damage to go through their insurance companies to get it fixed, rather than a third party. Stewart said they were finding that those third parties were replacing windshields for more than what insurance companies would assess, and thus driving up the cost of auto insurance. That bill was signed into law in 2023.

Stewart also worked with law enforcement to sponsor bills like SB 764, which increased the number of years agencies had to store rape kits in case they were needed for evidence.

In 2022, she also got Miya’s Law passed, which increased safety requirements for apartment complexes.

Stewart also has been criticized for some of the bills she sponsored. In 2024, she tried to pass a bill that would have stopped counties from reducing the amount of Tourist Development Tax dollars it paid to county tourism marketing agencies. The bill came as county commissioners were discussing whether to reduce funding to Visit Orlando. It failed to pass.

District 5

NOTE: News 6 spoke to three of the four candidates Friday at the Tiger Bay Club luncheon. Joel Montilla was not present. He also did not respond to News 6 requests for campaign information.

Orange County Commission District 5 is oddly shaped. It encompasses all of Orange County east of East Colonial Drive and Tanner Road, including the Wedgefield, Bithlo, Lake Pickett and Christmas areas. But then it runs along the county between the borderline and East Colonial, including the UCF area, Winter Park, Downtown Orlando, Eatonville and Maitland.

Representing this district for the last eight years was Commissioner Emily Bonilla, but she is term-limited. Four candidates are vying to replace her in a part of the county known for heated debates about growth, protecting the area’s rural charm and environmental concerns.

Let’s meet the candidates.

JOY GOFF-MARCIL — Campaign website

Joy Goff-Marcil is a small business owner and lawyer who also served on the Maitland City Council and in the Florida House from 2018 to 2020. While there she tried to pass bills regarding education, water quality improvements, and gun safety. A list of bills she sponsored can be found on the Florida House website.

Goff-Marcil says she wants to better balance protecting the environment while fostering economic growth. She says she can be a commissioner who listens to constituents and is “level-headed and fair-minded,” according to her website.

STEVE LEARY — Campaign website

Steve Leary is a small business owner who served on the Winter Park City Commission and subsequently went on to become the city’s mayor.

Leary said he also supports protecting the environment and found ways to do so while in office while also balancing economic growth. He says that getting things done in government involves talking to all stakeholders, including developers, on his website.

Leary says he supports protecting a rural boundary from development and managing urban sprawl. He wants to prioritize investing in updating infrastructure in the district, including roads, sewage and technology networks, and he wants to find ways to reduce housing costs.

JOEL MONTILLA — Campaign website

Joel Montilla is a lawyer who grew up in the district. Montilla says he wants to be a “balanced and productive” representative for the district, on his campaign website.

Montilla says he is also running to restore “honesty and transparency to county government.” He also says he supports having a rural boundary and protecting the east side of the county while trying to balance growth needs. He is especially concerned about how development on the east side of the county will affect Florida’s aquifer and water quality.

KELLY SEMRAD — Campaign website

Dr. Kelly Semrad is a UCF professor specializing in the tourism and hospitality industry, and how communities can build tourism economies that also balance protecting the environment.

Semrad has a long record of environmental activism in the county. She helped found Save Orange County, a grassroots effort to fight overdevelopment, and led the effort to get the proposed rural boundary amendment on the November ballot. She also helped fight efforts to build large developments in the Lake Pickett area of east Orange County.

Semrad says her priorities include requiring developers to pay all of the costs associated with land use amendments, diversifying how Tourist Development Tax dollars are used, cutting red tape to allow for more affordable housing, increasing access to affordable and faster public transit, increasing pedestrian safety and finding ways to repurpose underutilized spaces to create affordable housing and provide support for the homeless.