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Infrastructure capacity and accounting for Orange County’s residents who are homeless were the top concerns during the Orange County Mid-Decennial Redistricting Advisory Committee’s sixth meeting on April 15. It took place at the Goldenrod Recreation Center in District 5, which encompasses northeast Orange County, extending north from State Road 528 to the Seminole County line and east from I-4 to the Brevard County line.
District 5 Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad told the advisory committee that her district sees a “variety of needs.”
“You've got everything from people who are lacking access to clean and affordable water to municipalities within District 5 that are looking at revenue issues with supporting mass transit,” she said.
Residents, like Zachary Moldof, who lives in unincorporated Orange County, also had questions about the handling of local infrastructure during the redistricting process. He said as the committee reviews citizens' needs across the existing districts, it should consider the “disparity” in infrastructure in outlying areas like his, which rely on well water and have outdated power lines.
“I can't even use the street in front of my house to ride my skateboard and just get my energy out and get some exercise, because it's basically tight, packed gravel,” Moldof said. “My son can't play in the street and learn to ride a bike, and yet a stone's throw away is Costco … They've got plenty of sewage (sic) and power and all sorts of infrastructure over there.”
Bishop Cal Stubbs, of the Church of Freewill Deliverance, representing the Parramore community, asked if the committee had an existing plan for how transportation or emergency services could be impacted by redistricting decisions.
“If we don't have an infrastructure already planned, how are we going to divert different things?” Stubbs said. “...If you've got a good infrastructure plan, I’m with you 100 percent. If you don't have a good plan for infrastructure, then we've got to go back to the drawing board.”
A thorny question for the committee is how the county’s homeless residents will be accounted for. Many have been displaced recently as longtime encampments are being cleared by police because of the new state homeless camping ban.
An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 people are likely to experience homelessness in Orange County this year, Eric Gray, executive director for the Christian Service Center for the Homeless, with outposts in Orlando and Ocoee, told the committee.
“More than 95 percent of those 25,000 people were last housed in Orange County,” Gray said. “They last were in an apartment or home in Orange County. These are not people coming from somewhere else. They’re our neighbors.”
Cynthia Harris, a District 6 resident and one-time candidate for Supervisor of Elections, asked the committee to consider how census data accounts for people who may not reside in a district long term, like those who are incarcerated who relocate after their release or people experiencing homelessness who may get a shelter bed, find shared housing or move into permanent housing elsewhere.
“We have the shelters … we have the jails, we have all the transit houses in District 6, and most of those people are not permanent residents,” Harris said. “When you're looking at those numbers, please take into consideration that District 6 is different from everybody else, and we need some kind of equity in our district when you're doing these maps.”
The question about accounting for homeless populations came back later on in the meeting when committee member J. Gordon Spears asked how residents experiencing homelessness were reflected in the census data and supplemental data that would be used for map-making. Committee staff were unable to answer immediately but said the information would be available at the next meeting on April 23 in District 1.
Semrad urged committee members to continue listening to residents across the county to understand their needs as they began to redraw the county districts.
“I know you're listening to the public input, but that should be the guiding voice — the actual public feedback that's coming in from the constituents,” Semrad said. “Please listen to them.”
The next meeting will take place April 23 in District 1 at the West Orange Recreation Center, 309 S.W. Crown Point Road in Winter Garden. At that point, the committee will also discuss the first sponsored map submitted by member Mark Arias.
To view the map and other future proposals, start here.
