Candidate Profile: Ages Hart

Ages Hart walked into Ocoee City Hall on a December morning, with two of his three daughters by his side, and submitted the qualifying paperwork to run for the District 4 seat on the city commission in the March 11 municipal election.

It was a moment he said he had prayed for. 

Hart, a pharmacist for more than 30 years, said he’d often been asked when he planned to run for a full term, especially when he served as District 4’s interim commissioner for 11 months in 2023. He told VoxPopuli in an interview that he waited to run because taking care of his family came first. Now, he said, it feels right. 

He’s running, he told VoxPopuli, because he was disappointed in the current commissioner. and wants to “bring professionalism back to the office.”

“From that podium, you can make a positive influence if you choose to,” said Hart, who until November was a member of VoxPopuli’s Advisory Board. “You also can make it negative, but it gives you an opportunity to help make a difference in lives.”

Hart, 57, faces incumbent George Oliver III, who was elected in 2018 as Ocoee’s first Black commissioner, then re-elected in 2021. Oliver vacated his seat midway through his second term to mount an unsuccessful campaign for mayor against the long-serving incumbent Rusty Johnson. That move prompted the need for a special election to fill out Oliver’s term. Hart served as District 4 Commissioner until that election could be held. 

Ocoee city commissioners serve four-year terms and earn $4,000. They also receive health insurance. 

The District 4 commission election is nonpartisan and open just to District 4 residents. However, there are three city charter amendments on the ballot for all Ocoee residents to vote on. These stem from when the city commission disqualified Oliver from running in the special election and the lawsuit Oliver filed and won, to gain the right to run in the special election. 

Districts 1 and 4 vote at the Jim Beech Recreation Center at 1820 A.D. Mims Road. District 2 votes at the Lakeshore Center at 125 N. Lakeshore Drive. District 3 votes at Ocoee Fire Station 39 at 2515 Maguire Road.  

The last day to register to vote in this municipal election is Feb. 10. Early voting takes place March 3 to 7 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at the Supervisor of Elections Office at 119 Kaley Street in Orlando. Mail-in ballot requests expire at the end of every federal election cycle and must be re-requested. Feb. 27 is the last day to request a mail-in ballot for the municipal election, and it should be returned to the Supervisor of Elections Office by 5 p.m. on March 11 to be counted. (Requests made for this election will remain active through the next general election.) 

“A wonderful experience” 

A Florida native, Hart, worked in the orange groves at age 16, attended Florida A&M, then built his home and moved to Ocoee in 1993 where he lives with his college sweetheart, Dr. Lorraine Hart, an elementary teacher and former chair of the city’s Human Relations Diversity Board (HRDB). Hart also served on that board from April 2021 to December 2022. 

He said moving to Ocoee, given its history as the site of the country’s deadliest Election Day violence, which had eliminated the town’s Black community, worried his parents. The city’s reputation as a “sundown town” is one his mother, now 89, remembers from growing up in Orlando. Still, it didn’t stop him and his wife from raising his three daughters, Ashley, Brittany and Caitlin, whom he affectionately calls his “ABC” girls, in the city. 

“Ocoee has been a wonderful experience,” said Hart, who is a third-generation pastor for the Livingston Street Church of God, during his free time. “If I had a do-over again, I would marry the same girl, move to the same city and live the same life.”

While he understands the impact of Ocoee’s history, he sees how he can make a difference. During the early years of his pharmacy career, when few pharmacists were Black, Hart said he learned how to win his patients and staff by being professional, knowing his job and being courteous. Hart said he wants to use his skills as a pharmacist and pastor to address people's needs and concerns as a commissioner. 

“I want to prove to the [263] people who lost their property in 1920 that this is what the world could have been,” Hart said. “I want to erase the image of Ocoee and just overcome that darkness with light. I just want to make a difference.

Traffic and business

In District 4, traffic is the biggest issue, Hart said, specifically as motorists travel south in Ocoee to the Florida Turnpike. He said Ocoee is sandwiched between Apopka and Ocoee’s growth in population, causing the infrastructure to fall behind. 

Another issue is downtown development. Hart said downtown needs to transition from septic tanks to sewers to attract new businesses. He said he would also like a parking garage built to accommodate the crowds attending Ocoee’s events, like its Jolly Jamboree, HAPCO Ocoee Jazz Fest, Cinco de Mayo block party and community markets and movie nights at Bill Breeze Park. 

As a pharmacist, Hart said he saw a rise in depression and anxiety because of isolation during the pandemic. Hart said he wants to offer more social events to fulfill his campaign promise of happy and healthy living in the city.

Funding SROs 

When asked about the ongoing negotiations for funding school resource officers (SROs) between the Orange County School Board (OCSB) and five other municipalities, including Ocoee, Hart said he thought the school board used children as pawns in a chess game. 

The five municipalities declined OCSB’s initial contract offer, resulting in an email from the school board to parents, urging them to contact their city commissioners to prevent SROs from being replaced by armed Guardians. 

Ocoee paid about $1 million for SROs while receiving $648,000 in reimbursement from OCPS in the last school year. The school district, which maintains its own police department, said its budget for safe school allocations, controlled by the state legislature, is underfunded. If elected, Hart said he would find a way to keep sworn police officers in Ocoee’s schools.

“We would have to find a way to get it paid because I want the best-qualified person at the school,” he said. “What is a society if you can't take care of just these most vulnerable people? That's our kids and our seniors.”

With Amendment 5 approved in the last election by Florida voters, city managers may find budget predictions something of a moving target now that some of a property's taxable value is tied to the Consumer Price Index. Hart said projects may be put on the back burner to ensure other essentials, such as water, sewer, and the fire and police departments, are taken care of first. He noted the potential risk of not compensating staff correctly because of Amendment 5; however, he believes staff retention is also essential. 

Last year, the city received two housing development applications from the developer Ocoee Gateway LLC. One plan includes 542 multi-family units in 22 apartment buildings on the 69 acres at the corner of Clarke and White Roads. The developer submitted the plan under the Live Local Act, which will designate 217 units as affordable for at least 30 years, by Florida Statue. Another proposal was for a 130-unit apartment complex at Clarke and Jacob Nathan Roads. Both applications were denied. The developer appealed the city’s decision. 

Hart claimed the developers applied with the Live Local Act as a “go-around” to the development application. The Live Local Act allows local governments to provide incentives to build affordable housing under certain conditions. The Live Local Act caps rent at 90 percent of the fair market rent for the area. 

Hart said an issue for Ocoee is the lack of land open for development. “We really don't have the land for affordable housing,” Hart said. “And what they define as affordable isn't too affordable to me.”

A temp gig 

Hart said he accepted the temporary appointment as District 4 commissioner because he wanted to ease the animosity that had plagued the HRDB throughout 2022 and into the election, a time, he said, when tensions were high between Oliver and Mayor Johnson. There was turmoil on the Human Relations Diversity Board, where Oliver was the commission liaison, over the board’s mission, programming and budget that eventually spilled into public at a commission meeting. Hart’s wife resigned as chair a month before the 2022 Ocoee Remembers commemoration of the 1920 Election Day Massacre. Oliver circulated a YouTube video defaming board members and accusing the mayor and Commissioner Rosemary Wilsen of violating Sunshine Law. There were questions about Oliver’s branding of an Ocoee Remembers event as a meet-and-greet for himself and another commissioner without HRDB knowledge or approval. 

As a direct result of these incidents, plus budget over-runs on the commemorative event, commissioners dissolved the 13-member HRDB in December 2022 and re-established it as a five-member board with a reduced portfolio.

Oliver denied there was tension between himself and Ocoee’s mayor when VoxPopuli reached him for comment. “As far as I’m concerned, there was no tension,” he said by phone. “It was just me looking to serve the city in another capacity. If there was any tension that was seen by Mr. Hart, that tension was coming from his own personal opinions.” 

Oliver declined to comment on whether he used the board for political gain. 

Said Hart: “I took the job to try to bring peace to the situation.” 

Hart was only meant to serve three months, but because it took longer to schedule the special election, he stayed on the commission for 11 months. 

A high bar for ethics

Hart said his governing philosophy entails limiting personal agendas and fostering cohesive collaboration among commissioners. And Hart said he wants to set the bar high for ethics. During the 2023 mayoral election, Oliver’s expense and discretionary spending became an issue and led to questions about city staff rubber-stamping credit card statements. Commissioners called for stricter policing on city credit card spending and guidelines for the appropriate dispersal of the commissioners’ $10,000 discretionary funds. 

Hart said that he did not spend his fund down while commissioner and he would like the discretionary fund reduced to avoid misuse. He added that his funds were spent on veterans, scholarships and playground equipment.