For more information on the upcoming election, and for deep dives into the issues and candidates, check out Oviedo Community News’ Voter Guide 2023.
In front of more than 50 people in a packed main dining room of The Town House Restaurant, the three candidates running for Oviedo mayor answered questions directly from the voters in the Oct. 25 debate, put on by the League of Women Voters of Seminole County. [Editor’s note: The Oviedo Community News was a media sponsor for the debate.]
The forum allowed Brady Duke, incumbent Megan Sladek and Judith Dolores Smith the rare opportunity to face voters directly, and share their answers to pressing questions. The questions came directly from those in attendance — more than a dozen of whom were donning Duke campaign shirts — who wrote them onto index cards and from moderator retired Seminole judge Fred Schott.
In addition to their answers to the questions, and distinct fundraising efforts, the candidates also answered the questions differently physically. Duke, who was seated on the left side of the debate table, would stand straight up to answer every question, while Sladek, who was seated in the middle, remained seated. Smith, who was seated on the right, would stand up and walk around to answer.
In an effort for readers to hear the answers from the candidates minus the occasional tangent or digression, find a transcription below, which has been edited for clarity and readability. By clicking on the candidates name ahead of their answer, you’ll find the video to hear their answer in their own words. The question order was arranged so that the topics most relevant to how each candidate will plan to lead the city are at the top of the article. You can watch the full debate here.
What are the two most important issues you feel you need to address if elected as mayor of the city of Oviedo?
Duke: No. 1, leadership and inspiration. I think it really matters who you are as a person and if you can inspire people to follow you as you lead them in a direction. And I think that really takes a certain level of genuineness. Something that I’m committed to giving to every single person that I live with and I serve, is a certain level of genuineness because I think in leadership we should be able to trust those that we serve.
No. 2, I think the thing that I hear the most often is development. I feel the same way about [that], and it’s my commitment to make sure that the people’s voices and the residents of Oviedo are heard so that we can do what we can to make sure that we are taking into account every single person’s concerns when it comes to how heavily congested roadways are becoming because of that level of development. We are a growing city, and I want to emphasize growth happens over time. It can happen by a choice or it can happen without any thought or concern. It really takes an understanding of, we’ve got to understand, we’ve got to mature our city so that it will be productive and healthy for the long term.
Sladek: The two biggest issues are traffic and growth. There’s a lot of other tangential issues. We’re always going to fund our police and fire, so we’ll just leave that there. On the traffic front, a lot of our roads are constrained, and it’s not feasible for us to widen roads anymore. So what city council has done is create a mobility plan, and try to start shifting towards where funding is available. Federal funding is no longer being allocated to additional ways to move cars. We can all be sad that there’s no federal funding to move cars, but I think it’s more productive for us to say, “OK, these are the rules. What can we do working within the rules to attract as much funding as possible to Oviedo?” The answer to that is trying to move people, whether it be by getting people out of cars for shorter trips — about 19% of trips in Oviedo are 2 miles or less. That is the lowest-hanging fruit.
We also have, inside Oviedo’s city limits, different road expansions that are not expansion so much as turn-lane improvement. So we can tweak turning motions, but we don’t have enough money available without hiking taxes, which, I don’t want to raise taxes to make roads wider. I do not mind working within a budget that we already have to improve turn movements. So we’ve got a turn lane coming by Walgreens on Mitchell Hammock turning left towards UCF. We’ve got another turn lane, additional turn lane coming, Lockwood going to Mitchell Hammock, another turn lane down on Lockwood going to 426. And there’s also a lengthening of a turn lane on Mitchell Hammock turning into Alafaya Woods Boulevard.
Smith: My campaign slogan is “Let’s change the conversation.” That’s the most important thing we need to do. To do what we need to do and to move forward, we have to get off of the conversation of more roads, traffic problems. Those things are in the pipeline and maybe I have an opportunity to tell you about the roundabouts that are going to be placed on 434. But in changing the conversation, what does that do for us? It helps us to move forward.
We’re stuck right now continuing to talk about the same thing. It does us no good. We are not a community like it was when I was growing up, 2,000 people. We are far from that. Now we are a middle-sized community that has middle-sized problems and yes, traffic is one of them, but again, those things are being addressed. We need to change the conversation so we can move forward into the future.
If you actually want to, how do you plan to slow development in Oviedo?
Sladek: There’s not a whole lot of legal ways to slow development. We can hold fast to the comprehensive plan, which I’ve done with an impeccable record. The only times I have voted to change it is if it would result in less traffic and less pavement than was allowed under the old comp plan. The other thing that we can do is we can insist that developers pay the highest impact fees that we can calculate. And that is something that I’m really hoping that my colleagues will agree to do going forward.
There’s been some talk of making it lower so we don’t discourage development. My take on that is if a developer wants to come and pay their own way, come on over. You have the right to build and we cannot stop you, but we darn well can make you pay your fair share. We are legally able to do that. If you don’t want to develop because the cost of covering your own impact is too high, I don’t care. I think it’s the right thing to do for our community because nobody actively wants extra apartments for growth in general.
Smith: I’d like to ask the question, but when did development become a dirty word? My grandfather came here in about 1900. So I lived here when again, there were 2,000 residents, and each time a new house came online, that’s development. When I built my house, that’s development. When they build the subdivisions that you live in, that’s development. So let’s reframe thinking in terms of development being a dirty word. On the contrary, if we don’t develop and grow, our city will die. A classic example I was talking with my husband about is when the, and you may know more about this than the I do, but they had the route out to California, Route 66. And so when they put the interstate system in, what happened to the small towns on Route 66?
Development is not a bad word. You can manage it. I understand that you don’t want to be in a crowded place. I didn’t either. I look to the future as to what we can accomplish now that we are what we are.
Duke: [Ed. Note: The YouTube video cuts off the first part of Duke’s answer; we included the intro to his answer from the full audio we recorded] When it comes to managing a city, I come from a school of thought that we want our market to be as free as possible to ensure that we have a state of thriving, that the market can compete with itself. The best ideas can rise to the top, the best products can rise to the top. And so, we have to understand that there are big businesses that draw smaller businesses into town, and I think that looking at the impact we have seen as a city, studying those impacts to see if those impacts need to be increased on those who want to develop here, I think is something that is worth looking into, because people are moving into Florida and there is no way to stop it. All that you can do is plan for that. The thing that really makes the development issue hard, or feel hard to people, is the congestion. If you look at the roadways, I think there are opportunities to make more of a grid in the city so that traffic can flow with less congestion, that way we are not going to feel those impacts. I think, many of us, enjoy having things in town, here, to shop at, to eat at, and to enjoy, and we don’t have to drive 45 minutes for this, or 45 minutes for that. But it’s a matter of ensuring that the bulk of Oviedo residents are not footing the bill for people who want to come into our town to do business in our town.
What is your position on the two issues that are on the ballot in November?
Duke: [For] the referendum for the bond for the police station, I am in support of. I am going to check the box for yes because I believe that we need to prioritize your public safety. I think it is paramount that we ensure that our police department has room to grow and that we can actually make it an appealing place for people to come and work in law enforcement because the fact is, they have had people who have come to our police department and walk out the door because they did not like the state of our current police department. And so those men and those women put their lives on the line every single day. And I’ll be completely candid with you, that is a lot of money to ask for. I’m not saying it is not. I personally am willing to pay the cost for that annually. And that’s the decision every single person I think has to make.
The other referendum on the ballot I think can bring competition and can bring business into Oviedo. It is really to give the council or the city the ability to look at certain forms of business and then give them certain tax breaks if they form a business here within the city of Oviedo. I’m still trying to decide on how I feel about that because I think if you want to do business here, it should be fair for everybody who comes here. But I also want to make it as easy for mom-and-pop shops to compete as well.
Sladek: On the police issue, I think the people should absolutely decide that. I am leaning softly toward yes, but the number is incredibly huge and I get that. I’m prepared to move forward no matter what voters decide, and I have, in my brain, already come up with many alternatives, and I’m sure many out there have heard some of the alternatives because if it does not pass, we have to reimagine. If you want our police force to look like it does now, you need to vote for it. That is what I’ve been telling everybody because I don’t know that we can retain quality people 10 years from now if we don’t have a space for them to be.
On the second one, I ultimately voted not to put it on the ballot, though I’m also torn on this one a little bit because we used it very effectively to get a hospital in Oviedo. The Oviedo hospital is now our No. 1 taxpayer, paying about $900,000 a year indefinitely. So was it worth giving a little break to get them here in the first place? I think so.
It bugs me that it’s decided on a case-by-case basis instead of having a consistent policy. I’ve got a real big thing about wanting to treat all equally situated people equally.
Smith: The reason why I’m definitely for it, even though it’s costing a lot of money, is because my job as a mayor, should I be elected, is to protect and defend you. That goes above anything else, goes above real estate, building roads. Because if you are not protected and defended, you’re not going to be living in a city, you’re not going to be living safely. If the experts are saying that what we have now is not good, and it will not serve us into the future, yes, we must pass that amendment even though it’s a lot of money. But I have every faith in the finance department that they will help us to lower that debt. But definitely we need to do it right now. We need to have done it maybe yesterday because what we’re facing in the future, we are going to need a strong police force so that your government can protect and defend you.
And yes on the other amendment.
Candidates for city office should demonstrate their commitment to the community through service. Over the past three years, describe your volunteer efforts in Oviedo.
Sladek: Aside from serving as mayor, I love picking up trash along the side of the road, so I’ve hosted a bunch of community trash pickups. Also the volunteer executive director of the Oviedo Preservation Project.
I also am a permanent substitute Sunday school teacher at CrossLife Church, and involved with the American Legion and the Optimist Club. Anybody who says, “Hey, can you help out?” I try to help out, but those are my main ones.
Smith: I’ll just name one that’s taken up all of my time since 2018 [as president of the Board of Directors of the Historic Oviedo Colored Schools Museum]. It’s taken up all of my time. And you may have noticed there’s a church in Jamestown, a little white church. It’s a historical church and it was a colored school.
It will be a community building. That’s my passion [since] 2018.
Duke: I am involved with my church. I have led a number of life groups, or home groups, where we gather and we read from the word of God and we pray together. I have assisted in coaching baseball for my boys’ teams. And I have done work with the Seminole County SWAT team and just advised for them. Orlando Police Department, Brevard County SWAT team, [also]. I use the experience that I have from the SEAL teams to help give them the tools that they need to better fight against the threats that we have in our communities and to defend innocent people. It’s a passion of mine to teach those things and I do a lot of that just out of the goodness of my heart.
What are your suggestions for the flooding and sewer issues and potholes in the road?
Smith: You have a marvelous public works department. They do a marvelous job with the monies that they have been given. They are very methodical in addressing any situations, but as in anything, it’s a cost and they’ve done the best that they can to utilize that cost system and repair things as methodically as possible. The solution to it is more revenue, and I don’t mean to come out of your pockets. The solution isn’t easy because, again, where we are living and the weather events that happened to us, it was something out of our control. So I can’t say to you, okay, this magically is going to be restored. But you have a wonderful department who’s working with what we have and so we’ll move forward and do the best that we can. I know it doesn’t sound exact, but it is.
Duke: I will second what Ms. Smith said about our public works department. They do a lot of hard work for our community.
I think when I look at flooding and all of the water runoff, this is something that needs to be made a higher priority because people are losing, in many cases, their livelihood, they’re losing their homes because of it. I think making sure that this is taking as much space in our budget, just under public safety, because this is something that has a potential to really create a loss of life in our community if there was a catastrophic event, and making sure that our public works guys are operating as efficiently as possible.
With my experience in the SEAL teams, I’ve been able to get into different team environments and really see how it operates [and ask], “hey, how can we make this run better? How can we raise the bar here? How can we get this job done faster, more efficient?” Money is always an issue. And so making sure that your tax dollars are being used as efficiently and as effectively as possible, I think takes an outside perspective to really look at how things are being done.
Sladek: It all boils down to money. And you touched on two different budgets. Stormwater is supposed to come out of a segregated stormwater fund. We’re in the middle of a stormwater study right now, so I hate to tell you bad news: it’s too low, it’s going to go up. I don’t know by how much yet. Our public works people went in and they looked at all the ages of all the infrastructure.
We’ve got a little sonar-radar thing to determine which roads are most in need of repavement. The money for that typically comes out of the 1-cent sales tax revenue. So that’s not really our tax dollars, but if ever the 1-cent sales tax stops coming, Oviedo is going to lose about $3 million a year that is used for things like roads and to bolster our stormwater, the deficit in our stormwater gap, which hopefully will be able to make up a little bit more. So for the catastrophic events, there’s not a whole lot we could do. These things are already in the works.
Going back to the roads, we have already budgeted for and approved hiring an additional four-person road crew. So that will literally double the size of people working on sidewalk issues and potholes in Oviedo.
If the Oviedo Public Safety Building project, which is the new police department, referendum does not pass, what is your plan B?
Duke: I’m praying that it does pass, No. 1, because if it does not pass, I have a lot of concern for what reasoning people could bring into conversation when it comes to the future of the police department. I think it brings a lot of concern to the residents of Oviedo. And I think the plan B is to come up with another plan for that. Because if people don’t pass this, then the question is, it’s not going to get any cheaper moving on from here.
So this is the fact of, we are where we are because there were things not calculated appropriately back in 2016, and now we have to swallow this hard pill of where we are. And so I think this not passing, personally, brings concerns to the table about what could happen that I would not stand for. So as your mayor, I would never stand for dissolving a police department or anything like that. That is not an option that I would ever bring to the table to solve the needs of our city when it comes to public safety,
Sladek: No matter what, Oviedo is going to have a police presence. When I was talking with the current police chief about the need, I [asked], “what happens if we just stay the course and we power through this building?”
He said, “over time, I think we will be unable to retain people.”
We have to figure out how we can entice people to stay if that is what people want. And how we do that is with money. So if we were to give everybody, let’s say a $10,000 raise. We would have to raise about $680,000. But if we were to give everybody enough pay to entice them to stay, that would be a less-expensive alternative than a $3 million a year building to carry, because that’s what the debt is, $3 million [per year] for 30 years. Or we could figure out how to pay people enough to accept working in the current building.
Smith: If you don’t pass it, and our experts are saying we need this building, then the citizens need to determine what you are going to do. I won’t be a dictator. I’m not going to come in and say, “well since you didn’t pass it, I’m going …” No, it lies in your lap. Just as voting for the mayor lies in your lap. If you have a better solution then you need to provide it for us.
With the limitations of the highly residential tax base in Oviedo, how would you raise revenue to fund the infrastructure that is needed here?
Duke: I think it comes down to we have to have a diverse revenue source for our city, No. 1, because if it is not a diverse revenue source for the city, if we don’t have diversity in that, there can be very, very challenging times when a city is really reaching its max capacity when it comes to development. So No. 1, I think, as I said before, ensuring that we do the impact studies to make sure that those rates are really reflecting the impacts that we’re feeling here in the city. What ends up happening is, if we’re too heavy in one area, in the end it all will fall on the residents of Oviedo to really bear the heaviest burden. And so to ensure that we have a very diverse economy here is something where we have the diverse businesses in scope and in size is something that creates as much competition as possible and ensures that we have enough revenue into the city that then doesn’t translate into overdevelopment in a way that burdens the city where the millage rate has to go up to exceeding levels to then completely crush us years and years down the road. So we have to look down the road on those things.
Sladek: I didn’t fully understand that answer, but I want to make sure that it is clear that we are not allowed to charge impact fees from new development to cover the costs that would have accrued anyway, even if the new development never came. And I got a little bit of a hint that maybe that was what was being suggested. So I just want to make sure everybody knows that’s not legal under Florida law. So one of the ways that we can address a lot of the failing infrastructure that is, it’s kind of on the clock, in Alafaya Woods, a lot of the stormwater infrastructure, it got blown out by [Hurricane] Ian. It was already at the end of its lifespan that wiped up the last five years. And that’s why we’re dealing with the stormwater rate study. We’re also in the midst of water and sewer, all of them. And we had not in the past, collected enough to be ready to save up and buy the new thing when it was ready. So there’s going to be some decisions to be made on how we want to approach budgeting going forward. So if we really bite the bullet and we pay off the debt, because right now as Oviedo is run to date, we always borrow whenever we have an emergency, we never save up. So we have an opportunity through these rates to tweak the rate to a spot where we can start saving up, so when the next purchase comes, we’ll have saved up, maybe not 100%, but something, so that when you go to borrow, we’re borrowing less, and over a few life cycles of equipment, we may be able to ultimately get out of debt, which I hope we can do because we’ve knocked out 24% of Oviedo’s debt since I was elected. And I really hope to see us go that way. And really the path to do that is to have these enterprise funds that are standalone fee, fee-based funds, to have them operate like a real business that it’s a breakeven business, we’re not making any money off of it.
Smith: I alluded to the situation we’re in in my introduction. Oviedo was considered a bedroom community. When I grew up, we had many varied industries and what happened when the citrus catastrophically failed, that was our main industry. And what did we have? We had land. And what don’t you want to have? You don’t want to have empty land. Why don’t you want to have empty land? Because they tax you. So, we had a varied financial base. What we don’t have is a varied financial income stream. A lot of our monies comes from single-family homes. For an example, and I don’t know all of it about Altamonte, I heard they’re debt-free. Why? Because they have a large commercial base and they can draw from that. And so we don’t have that. So part of why I chose “Let’s change the conversation,” if we don’t start changing the conversation now and have conversations about how we can vary our income stream, how can we get more high-paying businesses? And you can, don’t tell me you can’t. I know we’re running out of land, but don’t tell me you can’t because we better do it. And one of the things, when I was on Council, I got consensus from Council when I found out about the simulation industry, $6 billion that’s right next door. And I asked questions, I said, “Well, why don’t we have it here in our city since it’s right next door?” And some of the answers I got was, “Well, we don’t have enough land. We don’t have the …” How do you know? How do you know that there isn’t a simulation business that maybe wants just to have an office building here and maybe can go elsewhere to get manufacturing space. So we had better do that. That was what I tried to do. I was trying to make a partnership with the simulation industry.
In recent years, the Florida Legislature has preempted much of the power of local government, diminishing home rule. How would you address this with our local legislators?
Smith: I think it’s a problem that’s bigger than all of that. When I was on Council, we visited Tallahassee, and I was talking to some people, and it appeared that the Legislature was taking more power away from the cities and I’m not pleased with that because the closer your government is to you, the better off it is. So, anytime you start taking the power away from the local government, I get nervous, because you cannot accomplish as much utilizing Tallahassee as you can utilizing your own council. So you should be nervous, yes, and contact your legislator, but maybe you have to be more vocal than that, I believe, because where we are going now, more and more powers are being taken away from us locally and we’ve forgotten how important local elections are, I believe. So when that power is taken away from you, you better believe they aren’t going to give it up. You need to be aware of what’s happening and say, no, I want control right here locally.
Duke: I think we’re seeing it in many, many areas in our government. This form of power coming from the top down. And that is not at all how our government was meant to be run. It is you who have the power, it is you who grant authority to your elected officials and there are a number of other things that are hindering our ability as a city. I was just sitting with the city manager this morning talking through this. There are a number of other areas that the state is restricting the city’s ability to manage itself. And that is something that I am committed to growing more aware of through this process because I’m not going to pretend to you, today, that I know every single thing in the book. I think it’s absolutely imperative that you are always learning. And I think the real need in our city today, as I said before, is a leader with conviction, a leader with integrity, a leader with genuineness to really get to the root of the issues and someone that you can truly trust to fight on your behalf. Because, I think when the state gets more and more involved in city government, your rights are going to slowly slip away. And that is something that I’m going to fight to resist every single chance I can. Plain and simple.
Sladek: My position’s almost opposite of that. The United States Constitution grants the most power to the states, not the cities, it’s the states. So when the states intervene and they yank back power from the cities, it’s within their right under the Constitution. So just as a general rule, if I like what the state legislators are doing to deregulate cities, then I’m happy when home rule is violated. When I wish we had different rules and they go tinker with that, then I don’t like what they’re doing. So it’s really a case by case sort of a basis. One thing that I don’t like that they did was this Live Local Act. It can really bungle up growth here in Oviedo. They pretty much said that you can build multifamily [buildings] as long as it’s got 40% affordable housing, anywhere that it’s zoned commercial or industrial. We don’t have a plan for students, for people’s families to live in these commercial and industrially zoned places. So that really bugs me. But when they came in a couple years ago and said, “Hey, cities, you can’t keep somebody from working out of their house.” I thought, hallelujah, I’m glad they came and they got rid of the regulations and nullified the regulations at the local level. As a general rule, I am for less regulation. I’ll lean a little bit Libertarian. Of course we have to have some guidelines, especially when it comes to keeping a place we want to live growth wise.
How can the city work with UCF to address the impacts brought by the university and its students?
Smith: Let’s change the conversation using that question. I don’t want to penalize them by any means; I want to incorporate them into what we are doing here. And so definitely I want to take advantage of [the proximity of] UCF. I agree you should pay your fair share. Let’s partner with UCF somehow and then maybe we can develop something that works for both of us. I think we can do more with UCF and make it to all of our advantage if we look at it. How can we partner together to make this area, since it’s so close to UCF, better for all of us.
Duke: I think that there are, and have been, business incubators with UCF that could have been an asset to the city, and I think we still could see that in the future. And so that’s all about relationship building and that’s all about getting to know the people who want to do business and want to grow business. What we can do is build relationships with people that we see are going to bring a certain type of business, in that isn’t going to immediately impact the congestion levels that we feel, but is going to bring revenue into the city at a high rate that’s going to produce high-paying jobs.
Sladek: I think Oviedo dodged a bullet when the incubator went to Winter Springs, who pays [approximately] $100,000 a year to have the incubator be there. I’m a pretty thrifty person when it comes to budgets. I love the idea of partnering. I love the idea of figuring out if they’ll give us some money, but UCF has not been eager to give us money. [Twin Rivers] Golf Course is UCF’s golf program’s course. Guess how much they pay us to use the golf course? Zero dollars. So anytime I hear people talking about let’s improve the course because we’re partnering and helping out UCF, my thought is, how does this help the residents of Oviedo for us to use our money to fix up a course I’ve never played on and I can’t access unless I pay extra money. So there’s some challenges there. As for how we can get UCF money this way, I think we’ve already done a pretty good job by leaning into the reality that housing is the most profitable thing that the private market wants to build here.
In all the other six cities in Seminole County, the mayor presides at City Council meetings. In Oviedo, the mayor may or may not have this role. Do you think that should change? Why or why not?
Sladek: I do not think it should change. I have served as chair in the past, but I like the collegiality that Longwood’s situation brings to it. I don’t think it helps Longwood that the chairman is also the mayor. They change mayors in Longwood every single year. And I don’t think that’s a helpful way to collaborate with other groups at this time. Last cycle, I nominated somebody else to be the chairman, which, by definition of our charter, makes that person also deputy mayor. I think dividing up who chairs the meetings and letting people take turns with that, it gives you a different perspective of who’s speaking, who’s not speaking, how do you moderate fairness and make sure that there’s a good discussion before the outcome. And one thing I’ve been really pleased with this season, probably this is only the last year that it’s happened, we had a lot of 3-2 votes, and who the three and the two are, it’s changing. There’s not teams anymore. We have really good discussions and I’ve had people vote on “my side” that I did not anticipate. But I think that we’re all really listening to each other well and it’s a good thing to not have all the power consolidated in one person.
Smith: I think whatever the Council works out amongst themselves is sufficient. That’s my opinion.
Duke: I know that the City Council is, no one person’s vote, no one person’s voice is the authoritative, dictative voice in the room. And it takes really people who are going to step up and say, “hey, I’m here to serve the people of Oviedo and work together on the City Council. I think it’s something that we don’t have a strong mayor position, and I’m ready to serve. And I don’t presume that if I become mayor that I’m in charge of anything. That I am here merely to be someone who hears the concerns of the people, weighs those concerns with fellow council members and then works alongside council members to ensure that we are presiding over or keeping in account city management. And so this is something that I have done for many, many years in varying team environments, to be able to talk through challenging issues with people, and to be able to get real work done regardless of minor differences in opinion or belief on issues. And so my hope is to become the mayor of Oviedo and really be a voice that inspires people to get involved in their city government process. Because right now there are very, very few people in our city who are truly engaged in this process. And so my hope is to inspire people to do that so that we can really continue on forward in Oviedo in a way that really satisfies what I think many people want Oviedo to be for many, many years to come.
For more information on the upcoming election, and for deep dives into the issues and candidates, check out Oviedo Community News’ Voter Guide 2023
