VoxPopuli

02/09/2024

As you celebrate today, please give a thought to those who labor in unsafe conditions for minimal wages and for those for whom pay equity has still not been achieved.

01/09/2024

ICYMI! Orange GOP State Committeewoman Debbie Galvin faces lawsuit for misrepresenting her legal address on her Candidate Oath during the Aug. 20 primary. This is not insignificant — swearing a false oath in connection with an election is a third-degree felony, punishable by five years in prison or $5,000 fine.

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Attorney Bonnie Jackson (left) filed a lawsuit Friday in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court seeking to disqualify GOP State Committeewoman Debbie Galvin because she "filed a false and fraudulent Candidate Oath" that misrepresented her legal address.

31/08/2024

It has not been a good few days for Orange GOP women. First Carolina Amesty was indicted Thursday on four counts of felony forgery. And Friday, Debbie Galvin, Orange County GOP State Committeewoman, was hit with a lawsuit for lying about her address on her Candidate Oath. Typically, I'd say something like "allegedly," but there's solid evidence that Galvin does not live in the Isleworth house she's been claiming as her address. Read all about it here AND find a link to our first story about the Galvin address question.
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Attorney Bonnie Jackson (left) filed a lawsuit Friday in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court seeking to disqualify GOP State Committeewoman Debbie Galvin because she "filed a false and fraudulent Candidate Oath" that misrepresented her legal address.

30/08/2024

Key election dates for requesting mail-in ballots, early voting and registering for the November 5 election. Mark your calendar!

Keep this url on hand: OCFElections.gov for Orange County election information.

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29/08/2024

Carolina Amesty was indicted on four felony forgery charges and booked into the Orange County jail today. Leslie Postal and Annie Martin's reporting for the Orlando Sentinel paved the way for the indictment, which hinged on a document that Amesty allegedly forged, then notarized.

GOP State Rep. Carolina Amesty was indicted by a grand jury on four felony forgery charges. She turned herself in to the Orange County Booking and Release Center on Aug. 29, 2024. She is up for re-election.

29/08/2024

Charges against Carolina Amesty have not yet been announced. But she has been under FDLE investigation for months, according to FloridaPolitics, for her work at her family's Christian university and for notarizing a document that a man who worked for the school did not recall signing. Leslie Postal and Annie Martini of the Orlando Sentinel broke the stories about Amesty's unpaid taxes, failed restaurant business, misrepresentations about the university's faculty and falsified document.

The Windermere Republican has been under investigation by the FDLE.

28/08/2024

Where does newly elected Orange GOP State Committeewoman Debbie Galvin live? Not in the tony Isleworth house she fraudulently listed in her campaign qualifying documents. Efforts are underway to potentially void her election. And another candidate wants to be seated in her place. Read it here.

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https://www.wintergardenvox.com/vox-primary-election-news/where-does-orange-county-gop-state-committeewoman-debbie-galvin-live%3F%C2%A0?utm_campaign=b9b1ff84-9263-43c7-b041-cb4e2eb1d82b&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail

25/08/2024

New lawsuit filed in Supervisor of Elections race!
Dan Helm for Supervisor of Elections sued to get independent candidate Cynthia Harris off the ballot for improperly paying her qualifying fee. Now she's suing to get him off the ballot for not using his legal name on his candidate qualifying paperwork.
We have the details!

https://www.wintergardenvox.com/vox-general-election-news-stories-1/candidate-booted-from-supervisor-of-elections-race-sues-to-remove-candidate-who-had-her-removed%C2%A0

23/08/2024

Write-in candidate drives District 1 Orange County Commission race to November runoff — NOT recount.
Election watchers say this may be the first time a write-in has had such an impact on an Orange County election. SOE spox says this is proof "every vote counts."

https://www.wintergardenvox.com/vox-general-election-news-stories-1/write-in-candidate-drives-district-1-orange-county-commission-race-to-nov.-runoff%C2%A0

22/08/2024

The Orange County Supervisor of Elections just announced that the District 1 race between OCFL Commissioner Nicole Wilson and Austin Arthur of West Orange is going to a NOV. 5 RUNOFF.

We will have more details shortly.

18/08/2024

Central Florida news outlets represented at the 2024 Sunshine State Awards. Orlando Sentinel picked up several. So did Central Florida Public Media. Megan Stokes of oviedocommunitynews, another independent nonprofit (next to VoxPopuli editor in Chief Norine Dworkin) won Editor of the Year.

Huge congrats also to the Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and Tallahassee Democrat — multiple award winners!

17/08/2024

For our commentary on Winter Garden Mayor John Rees violating the city’s charter. It’s a proud day today.

17/08/2024

We’re in Hollywood at the Society for Professional Journalists 2024 Sunshine State Awards tonight. Fingers crossed for Megan Stokes of oviedocommunitynews who’s up for Editor of the Year!
VoxPopuli is up for commentary along with theOrlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell. 🤞🏼🤞🏼

16/08/2024

OCFL Commissioner Nicole Wilson said she was “honored” to be a part of the celebration as they broke ceremonial ground this morning for the Dyson Plaza that will anchor the Winter Garden revitalization effort in Historic East Winter Garden.

16/08/2024

Winter Garden District 3 City Commissioner Chloe Johnson offers a few words during the groundbreaking ceremony for Dyson Plaza.

16/08/2024

Winter Garden Mayor John Rees shared some comments about the Dyson family’s legacy in Winter Garden during this morning’s groundbreaking for the new Dyson Plaza, considered the heart of the city’s revitalization efforts in Historic East Winter Garden.

09/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT! VoxPopuli ENDORSES John D McCloy McCloy for Congress for the Republican Primary in Congressional District 11.

For those looking for an alternative to Congressman Daniel Webster, who has one of the lowest effectiveness ratings in Congress according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking, and is also known for his no-show voting record, Mount Dora geophysicist and veteran John D McCloy has emerged as a viable candidate. He’s not the perfect candidate, but waiting for the perfect candidate is akin to waiting for Godot. McCloy is a reasonable Republican and those are in short supply.

For starters, McCloy is not an election denier, which is a low bar for holding office, but one that Congressman Daniel Webster cannot clear since he was one of the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election after the Jan. 6 insurrection. McCloy readily states that the 2020 election was legitimate though he told reporter Andrea Charur in his interview for our Voting Guide that only the rioters who were violent and forced their way into the Capitol should be prosecuted, not those who merely entered — which contradicts the restrictions barring entry to federal buildings without authorization. But with many Republicans attempting to whitewash Jan. 6 as a tourist holiday, it’s a plus that McCloy describes the insurrection as a riot at all.

McCloy also earns respect for talking to voters about the rare diseases initiative spearheaded by Barbie Harden Hall, the Democratic nominee in the race. She lost a child to a rare disease, and he is a parent of a child on the spectrum. It may seem insignificant that he's done outreach on her behalf, but it's a sign that if elected, McCloy would likely work across the aisle to get things done, and that speaks to his willingness to compromise for good legislation.

Still, McCloy is a mass of contradictions on other key issues:

*He opposes safe gun storage laws and mandating basic gun-use training, but supports background checks and believes parents should be held responsible if kids commit gun-related crimes.

*He supports investment in green energy and investment in fossil fuels

*He supports r**e and in**st exceptions in Florida’s six-week abortion ban — but believes women will lie about r**e and in**st in order to obtain abortions.

*He’s for school vouchers but opposes religious teaching and compulsory prayer in public schools.

There’s a saying about politics: Voting isn’t marriage; it’s public transportation. You’re not waiting for The One. You’re getting a bus. And if there’s not one going to your destination, get the one that’s going closest.

In the bus terminal that is the Republican primary, the McCloy bus is headed in the right direction.

For more endorsements, please visit, https://www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

08/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT!! VoxPopuli ENDORSES Reelect Judge Tanya Wilson for Ninth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Group 37.

Of the two people campaigning for circuit judge in Group 37 — Judge Tanya Davis Wilson and Jason Willis — Judge Davis Wilson gets our endorsement.

Judge Davis Wilson has already served a decade on the bench — which is how long Willis has been practicing law. And that’s on top of the 27 years she spent as a public defender and federal prosecutor before then-Gov. Rick Scott appointed her first to Orange County Court and then to the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court.

Meanwhile, a look at Willis’ LinkedIn shows that after three and a half years with the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court's Public Defenders’ office following law school, he’s bounced law firm to law firm, leaving each after less than two years. He was terminated from his last position after five months for cause, according to someone familiar with the situation, who spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive matter. Willis refused to answer VoxPopuli's questions about his work history.

Experience matters as we have said so frequently in these endorsements. And as Davis Wilson told reporter Kathryn Brudzinski who interviewed her for her profile, what prevents judges from being thrown by “surprises in court” is —you guessed it — experience.

“Nothing about the legal system is cookie cutter … and if you don't have the knowledge, if you don't have the work ethic, if you don't have the experience to do it, then that's a disservice to the citizens in this market” she said.

Wilson told Brudzinski she bases her rulings on law and mercy, that she doesn’t see a “case number" standing before her in her court room; she sees a human being who may have behaved criminally in the moment but who is nonetheless is still a person, and she considers the totality of their circumstances when she makes her rulings.

We could use more thoughtfulness and more mercy in the criminal justice system. We need Davis Wilson’s continued experience on the bench and not someone seeking a steady job because he may be running out of law firms to employ him.

For more endorsements, please visit,

08/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT! VoxPopuli ENDORSES Jake Petroski for School Board DISTRICT 4!

The Orange County School Board should be staffed by education professionals who have a thorough understanding of both classroom dynamics and administrator demands. This is not volunteer gig — it's a real job with a $48,400 annual salary and requires experience and expertise. That’s why VoxPopuli will only back an educator for the District 4 seat.

Of the two educators running — Anne Douglas and Jake Petroski — Jake Petroski for School Board has our endorsement for his plan to improve teacher training to boost county-wide literacy rates and expand technical education for students who seek a different path to success than college. We also applaud Petroski's outspoken support for the LGBTQ+ community. The most despicable aspects of the Don’t Say Gay law were undone with the March settlement with National Center for Le***an Rights. But LGBTQ+ students, teachers and staff still need people in their corner every day to demonstrate that Orange County has their back, and Petroski is a steady ally. With two kids in OCPS and endorsed by the 7,575-strong Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, Petroski also stands against blanket classroom book bans and Amendment 1’s partisan school board elections. We believe he'll find his way through the ever-present bureaucracy to put students and teachers first.

Of course, schools wouldn’t function without parents who want to be involved and perhaps Kyle Goudy, who handles business development for the tee time reservation site GolfNow, will find his way to the School Advisory Committee at his daughter’s school, but he lacks the temperament for school board.

That's not something we say lightly. But when a media situation did not go his way, Goudy took it out on those on our staff who are young and vulnerable and that doesn't reflect well for one who aspires to the school board.

Goudy took issue with our story about his embrace of Christian nationalist author/radio host Eric Metaxas as the inspiration for his school board run. Our story was based on a Facebook reel on his campaign page in which he credited Metaxas’ book, Letter to the American Church for inspiring him to run. (The reel has since been removed from his page, but a copy exists in our story.) When asked, Goudy professed ignorance about Metaxas’ virulently anti-LGBTQ ideas, which we gave him space to express, both in the article and on VoxPopuli’s page. Still, he complained he’d been treated unfairly on separate occasions to two VoxPopuli interns, neither of whom had written the story, but one of whom was made to feel they were in trouble.

Is Goudy anti-LGBTQ? He says no. But what gives us pause is Goudy’s eagerness to bask in the reflected, approval of Metaxas without looking too closely at the totality of what the firebrand author represents, then crying foul when the ugliness rubs off. It’s the worst kind of naïveté. But to complain about it to college interns who bear no responsibility for the story, demonstrates questionable judgment not to mention an inability to effectively problem solve.

For more endorsements, please visit, https://www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

07/08/2024

I went to early vote with Fletcher today. It was his first time voting and they made a HUGE deal about it at the Winter Garden Library. The poll workers rang bells and clapped and called out, “First Time Voter!”
I thought he’d be embarrassed, but he thought it was pretty cool.
Voting is cool.
Early voting—thru Aug 18, daily 9-7.

07/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT!! VoxPopuli ENDORSES Melissa Vickers for PUBLIC DEFENDER for the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court!

It’s the rare election in which the candidates are both so capable that Orange County residents would be in good hands if either of them wins. Such is the case with Melissa Vickers and Lenora Easter, the candidates for Public Defender of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court for Orange and Osceola Counties. Both are Democrats. Both are dedicated defense attorneys. Both are “down for the cause,” as Vickers says, helping those who can’t afford legal representation, get good representation when they stand accused of crime.

It’s Vickers who gets our endorsement.

Steeped in the culture of holistic or collaborative public defense, which assembles teams of attorneys, social workers and advocates to defend clients and remediate the factors that keep people cycling through the criminal justice system, Easter has an impressive social justice resume working with the Bronx Defenders (the cradle of holistic public defense) and Partners for Justice, which transitions offices interested in embracing holistic defense.

But Vickers has spent 18 years in this public defenders' office, working in every department and effectively running the office as the assistant chief public defender for two years before leaving to prepare for her campaign. She is in the best position to know how this office runs and what needs improvement — perhaps even to bring on Easter in her capacity at Partners for Justice to help the office move closer to the holistic model.

Beyond that, Vickers' biggest asset is her professional network, forged in the two decades she’s been working in this public defenders’ office. As the president of the Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers noted in her own endorsement of Vickers: “The best lawyers I know either worked alongside or under the guidance of Melissa Vickers.” There’s a level of admiration, respect and trust that Vickers engenders throughout the legal community — on the defense and prosecution sides — but also in law enforcement and judicial quarters.

Relationships are the currency of the criminal justice system and as Public Defender, Vickers would start out with quite a bit in the bank.

For more endorsements, please visit https://www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

06/08/2024

Wes Hodge for Orange County Supervisor of Elections, running for Supervisor of Elections in the Aug. 20 primary, on why the Supervisor of Elections should never accept endorsements from other elected officials — subtle criticism of Karen Castor Dentel, also running, who does.

The Orange County Supervisor of Elections office at 119 Kaley Street in Orlando. "This is not just another political office where you can run the same boilerplate campaign you run when pursuing other offices," argues Wes Hodge, who is running for the office in the Aug. 20, 2024, Democratic primary.

05/08/2024

Stay tuned! We'll have more endorsements coming soon!

05/08/2024

REPUBLICAN STATE SENATE DISTRICT 13 ALERT!
NO ENDORSEMENT IN THIS RACE

Republican voters deserve better than the candidates running in this Aug. 20 primary – a political neophyte, an alleged thief and a demonstrated racist.

Supermarket chain owner Bowen Kou is an enthusiastic campaigner with an engaging story of fleeing religious repression in China, and he’s shown he’ll punch back against the truly vile attacks from State Rep. Keith Truenow for State Senate, District 13's camp suggesting he’s a Chinese Communist agent. But even grit and more than $1 million in self-funding isn’t enough to mask that Kou is unprepared to serve in Tallahassee. His signature plan for eliminating tolls for Florida residents doesn’t hold up, particularly as he can’t verify the cost savings. And VoxPopuli has reservations about a candidate who cannot fill out his Form 6 financial disclosure form correctly — surely that $1 million personal donation could have bought some financial assistance.

More importantly, Kou cannot answer key questions about his positions on climate change, homelessness, gun safety. These are critical issues facing Floridians that are guaranteed to have legislation coming for a vote in the next session. When your wife/campaign manager suggests that your opponent is better suited to answer such questions, your argument for running evaporates.

That said, Kou is the least objectionable of the three candidates. The race baiting and nakedly anti-Chinese rhetoric coming from Truenow campaign surrogates, with his approval, should disqualify Keith Truenow for State Senate, District 13 from serving in any public office. When the Lake County GOP State Committeeman describes your political mailers as “the dirty side of Lake County racism that I thought had disappeared,” you've abandoned decency. As for Cheryl “CJ” Blancett, the conspiracy theorist going on trial in Orange County next month for felony grand theft, it's difficult to argue that alleged criminal activity should be disqualifying when the Republican standard bearer is a convicted felon, but a clean police record should be the absolute lowest bar for serving in Tallahassee.

For VoxPopuli endorsements, please visit https://www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

05/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT!
VoxPopuli ENDORSES Bruce Antone Campaign for HOUSE DISTRICT 41

Janét Marie Buford Johnson wouldn’t be the first person to come through adversity — in her case, her Orlo Vista neighborhood’s catastrophic flooding with Hurricane Ian — with the determination to run for office to improve things back home. And her drive and desire to step up to serve is admirable.

But experience counts, so incumbent State Rep. Bruce Antone /Bruce Antone Campaign has our endorsement. While his slippery response to Johnson’s ethics complaint that he does not live in District 41 —“they’ve never proven I do not live in the district” — does give us pause, Antone still has our backing because we want him to deliver on the scholarships for minority students to attend medical school that he's been working on — especially since West Orange County's new medical school, the Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine, prioritizes minority enrollment.

Florida has a critical physician shortage now, and is on track by 2030 to have the second largest physician deficit in the country, according to a report from the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability. But that same report notes that physicians tend to stick around where they finish their training and when physicians do their residency and go to medical school in Florida, about 75 percent stay in Florida. Atone's scholarships would help.

We also want Antone to deliver on his initiative to help reduce maternal mortality. More women die giving birth in America than in any other developed nation — 22.3 deaths per 100,000 births in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black women’s mortality rate is higher at 49.5 per 100,000 births, and in Orange County, it's higher still at 51.7 deaths per 100,000 live births. Both these issues have been on Antone’s radar for a while, and while they didn’t get much traction in the last legislative session, Antone has said they are priorities for the next.

For more VoxPopuli endorsements, visit https://www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

05/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT!
VoxPopuli ENDORSES Senator Geraldine Thompson for State Senate District 15.

VoxPopuli endorses Senator Geraldine Thompson for State Senate District 15 over her challenger, former State Sen. Randolph Bracy III, for her clear-eyed focus on the kitchen-table issues— affordable housing, property insurance — together with her unwavering advocacy for women’s reproductive health decisions, child welfare, teaching factual American history in schools and her efforts to roll back the voter suppression laws that the GOP and Gov. Ron DeSantis enacted in service to false 2020 election fraud claims that the governor now admits “did not prove to be true.”

While Thompson works on constituent-focused issues like the triple-the-national-average property insurance premiums forcing 10 percent of Floridians to go without homeowners’ insurance in the face of more stronger, more frequent storms, Bracy’s entry into the race reads purely like a vanity move after his pasting in the 2022 midterms. His campaign has been long on grievance and short on substantive policy, and he’s been surprisingly reticent to elaborate on how his "Better you. Better me. Better us" sloganeering translates into a legislative agenda.

There was a time when Bracy was interested in passing meaningful legislation. But his rambling Instagram videos and political feud with Thompson have not only raised doubts about his judgment, they beg the question of whether the former senator's heart is still in politics at all. Bracy seems far happier making movies and music and living the life of a gentleman of the “manor,” as he refers to the Lake County estate where he appears to spend most of his time. Private life seems to suit him. Let’s leave him to it.

For more VoxPopuli endorsements, visit https://www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

05/08/2024

ENDORSEMENT ALERT!
VoxPopuli ENDORSES Wes Hodge for Orange County Supervisor of Elections FOR SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS

This is the most consequential race in the Aug. 20 elections, for it's from this office that the trust and validation that every other election in the county is conducted fairly and without interference comes. This office ran smoothly for three decades under former elections supervisor Bill Cowles, and Orange County needs a new leader in this role who will maintain the transparency practices that inspire confidence that our voting systems are secure while implementing new measures to make voting accessible to every Orange County citizen.

That’s why of the four people running in the Democratic primary for Supervisor of Elections — Wes Hodge, Karen Castor Dentel, Dan Helm and Sunshine Linda-Marie Grund — VoxPopuli fully endorses Wes Hodge for Orange County Supervisor of Elections as the next Supervisor of Elections.

Castor Dentel, with her record of service in the Florida Legislature and on the Orange County School Board, would also make a fine elections supervisor. But Hodge has vision. He comes prepared with actionable plans to encourage broad voter participation. One we're especially enamored of is “appointment voting" — akin to the appointment system for renewing driver’s licenses at the Department of Motor Vehicles — to help curb long lines at polls so that excessive wait times do not become disenfranchising.

We also support Hodge's ideas to accommodate voters in their native languages — staffing tables at voter registration events with people who speak Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian/Creole and Vietnamese, and updating touch-screen voting machines with these languages so that people can vote more easily in their primary language. Hodge also wants to partner with schools to pre-register 16- and 17-year-olds to vote; open more early voting sites and ensure that poll locations are near Lynx routes, so that not having a car or a driver’s license does not impede one's ability to vote.

Finally, there’s the election security and integrity piece. Despite statements from the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, 61 court cases that found the 2020 election fraud claims lacked merit, former president Donald Trump’s own advisors stating there was no fraud, and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stating unequivocally, “All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true,” the Big Lie of the stolen 2020 presidential election persists, and the resulting Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power still splits the country. As Republicans openly make plans to challenge the results of the 2024 election, the threat of additional violence, especially in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump, is never far from mind. Just days ago, a commenter on VoxPopuli’s page, who had been arguing with another page administrator about the District 1 Orange County Commission election, put out a $1,000 bounty for their name.

In interviews for our voting guide, Hodge is the only candidate who demonstrated an appreciation of the potential for election-related violence and is prepared to handle any future allegations of election fraud and the turbulence that could result.

For more VoxPopuli endorsements, visit www.wintergardenvox.com/elections/2024-primary-endorsements

05/08/2024

Happy First Day of Early Voting! Polls are open till 7 p.m. and then daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. till Aug. 18. See our Voting Guide for locations and other key voting information.

West Orange County's go-to source for in-depth, fact-checked election information.

02/08/2024

STORM ALERT! The City of Ocoee will open a self-serve sandbag distribution site on Saturday, August 3 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Public Works Department, 301 Maguire Road.

Ocoee residents must bring a valid ID or city utility bill for proof of residency. Each household will be provided 10 empty sandbags to be filled by the resident. Sand is available at Public Works and staff will provide tools to fill sandbags; however, residents are encouraged to bring their own shovel or trowel.

For more information, visit The City of Ocoee or www.ocoee.org.

02/08/2024

STORM ALERT: Orange County Public Works will offer self-serve sandbags to residents 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, August 3, and Sunday, August 4, weather permitting, ahead of potential impacts from a weather system currently in the Caribbean forecast to develop into a tropical storm within the next 48 hours.

Bring your own shovel! Sandbags and sand will be available at the
West Orange Recreation Center in Winter Garden at 309 S West Crown Point Road.

If you need special assistance, please call 311 and detailed information will be provided on securing sandbags.
For more detailed information and additional locations, visit