Every election cycle brings a few surprises. This year, it was our quest to pry out enough information to make an informed endorsement in Lake Mary’s District 2 City Commission race.
We’ll cut to the chase: We failed.
Not for lack of trying. We spent weeks digging through city records (when we could find them). We contacted multiple leaders inside and outside city government. We interviewed challenger Kristina Renteria, who is making her third run at a commission seat. We tried to interview Commissioner George Duryea, who is seeking to extend his astounding 35 years of service on the commission for another term. Though he initially responded, he didn’t follow through.
Along the way, we learned a lot about Lake Mary. Much of it was good: This tidy island of affluence embraces a generous portion of the corporate-HQ intensive community of Heathrow, and endless gated neighborhoods full of gracious homes on coiling streets. As of 2021, Lake Mary boasts a median household income level more than 70% higher than Seminole County’s overall rate, and fewer than 3% of the city’s residents live below the poverty line.
What was hidden
But for decades, Lake Mary has harbored a toxic secret — one that seeped into neighboring communities in the form of 1,4-dioxane, a so-called “forever chemical” believed to be a potentially carcinogenic threat to the city’s water supply. Other potent contaminants were detected near a public-supply water well as early as 2001. The likely source — a manufacturing plant on Rinehart Road that was eventually closed down by Siemens, its last owner — was known to some city leaders as a source of pollution even before it closed down. Two years ago, Lake Mary opened a highly advanced water-treatment plant, funded by a $40 million court settlement with Siemens.
Read Orlando Sentinel’s ‘Toxic Secret’ water contamination series for free here
Yet residents were never adequately informed of the threat until this summer, when the Sentinel launched a series of reports describing the decades-long cone of silence that kept water utility customers in Lake Mary, Sanford and parts of unincorporated Seminole County from knowing about the suspected carcinogen. Even some elected officials said they’d been kept in the dark.
We don’t know how much Commissioner Duryea knew about the Siemens plant or the decades-long saga that led to this summer’s revelations. Mayor David Mealor, whose own service on the commission goes back almost as far as Duryea’s, told us that most of the treatment-plant issues were handled by staff. It’s hard to imagine, however, that something this big would have escaped the notice of someone who is as astute as Duryea’s colleagues on the commission say he is.
Lack of information
Beyond the city’s failure to adequately inform its citizens (and adjacent governments) of potential contamination, however, we also found an overall, distressing lack of transparency at City Hall that makes it extremely difficult for residents to follow what their elected officials are up to. Links to agendas don’t include the backup information that is often essential to understand the decisions the commission makes. Minutes are brief, and the archive of meeting notices and minutes only reaches back to March 2019. There are no audio or video links for residents to listen to meetings remotely, either live or archived. There is a one-way contact form for the commission, but no individual phone numbers or email addresses for commissioners. And the city’s site posts only bare-bones information about city elections.
Almost every other Seminole County city offers these basic amenities. Many of the cities are using the same website vendor that Lake Mary chose. Responsibility for the overall lack of communication is shared among the members of the commission, including Duryea. Whoever wins this race, Lake Mary residents deserve more.
We’ll give Renteria points, then, when she cites transparency as her No. 1 priority. We like her idea of printing updates on the safety of the city’s water supply on utility bills.
But she hasn’t done what she needs to do to be a viable candidate in this race, though she has the enthusiastic support of Seminole County’s outnumbered but active Democratic organization. In two prior election attempts the Sentinel pointed out her lack of preparation for the office she sought. In our video interview (available online) she answered several key questions — about the city’s budget, its city manager and the pending renewal of Seminole County’s 1-cent sales tax — by saying she didn’t know enough about the issue to comment. As a CPA who previously sought election as clerk of courts and is now on her third attempt at a commission seat since 2019, we’d have expected her to have more ideas about what she’d do if elected and a deeper understanding of city government.
She certainly falls far short of making the case that voters should replace Duryea on the commission.
No real campaign
So why aren’t we endorsing Duryea? The answer is simple: He’s not giving voters enough information to know where he stands on the issues that are most important to them. He doesn’t seem to have a campaign website. His Facebook page is devoid of any city issues.
We did find out a fair amount on our own. Both Mealor and Commissioner Justin York give him high marks for his fiscal leadership, saying it’s been critical in keeping city tax rates low.
Reading through our own stories and the limited archive of information on past city commission races sheds a little more light. Throughout his tenure, Duryea has never been afraid of being on the losing end of 4-1 votes — and often, he objected on grounds we find admirable, including his sharp questioning of economic assertions made by city staff and vendors and the need to hold developers’ projects to strict standards. He was on the commission when Lake Mary was chosen to anchor the innovative — and at the time, controversial — development of Heathrow, and saw the potential there, along with the need to occasionally say “no” to some of the developers’ requests.
It took us dozens of hours of research, however, to find out that much. Most voters don’t have that kind of time. Duryea may well assume that — after 35 years of service — voters know him well enough to make up their mind. But many residents don’t even think about city government until election time — or at a point when they need help. Some haven’t been in Lake Mary long enough to make that decision.
We regret that all we can do in this race is share what we’ve found out, and urge voters to look for the candidate who best fits their own values.
The Orlando Sentinel is not endorsing in the Lake Mary City Commission Seat 2 race.
This week, we wrap up our endorsements for the Nov. 7 primary. However, we urge voters to not rely solely on our opinions in deciding how to cast a vote. Voters should check the candidates’ campaign websites and social media accounts (if they don’t have either, that should be a red flag). Ask friends and neighbors what they think. Google the candidates and go to the city’s website to see who’s giving money to their campaigns. In addition, we’ve recorded our interviews and posted them in full at OrlandoSentinel.com/opinion.
Election endorsements are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board, which consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Insight Editor Jay Reddick and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Sentinel Columnist Scott Maxwell participates in interviews and deliberations. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
