Candidate Profile: Anthony Davit

There aren’t many people who can say they’ve visited all seven continents, but at least one of them can be found currently serving on the Windermere Town Council. 

Anthony Davit — who goes by Tony — has had an extensive military career as an Air Force civil engineer spanning 26 years that took him around the globe. By the time he retired in 2017 as a colonel, he’d been stationed in Italy and Guam, built a compacted-snow runway for a station in Antarctica and, post 9/11, was deployed seven times to areas in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

But as Davit, 57, moved across the globe and throughout the U.S., there was one opportunity that Davit’s travels couldn’t afford him: “In my military career, I was never able to [run for public office] because I was moving around so much. So when I finally retired and decided to plant roots here in Windermere, I was like, It's time to give back,” he said in an interview with VoxPopuli.

Plant roots he did, and when he ran for Windermere Town Council in 2021, he won. He now serves as council liaison for the town’s Historic Preservation Board and Public Works Department, and as an alternate for MetroPlan and the West Orange Chamber of Commerce. 

In addition, Davit is president of the RED HORSE and Prime BEEF Association, a non-profit veteran organization for the two Air Force civil engineer units that the group is named after. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Lone Sailor Division, a youth development program division within the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps. Recently, he was appointed to the executive board of the Greater Orlando Sports Commission. 

Now, Davit, seeking a third consecutive term, is facing off against council members Mandy David and Tom Stroup and candidates Jessica Lee and Frank Krens for the three open seats on the five-member council. This will be the town’s first contested election and Davit’s second time running against opponents since 2021. The election is nonpartisan. Council members serve two-year terms and are unpaid. 

As he vies for another term, Davit isn’t afraid of a little competition. In fact, he welcomes it. 

“One of the things that we’ve struggled with in the past few elections is finding folks that want to serve their community,” he said. “It’s been disappointing to me that we don’t have more people running for office … so I was really glad to see that we do have some more folks running for town council this time. I think it’s awesome.” 

The last day to register to vote in this municipal election is Feb. 10. Early voting takes place March 3 to 7, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at the Supervisor of Elections Office at 119 Kaley Street in Orlando. The last day to request a mail-in ballot is Feb. 27. It needs to be returned to the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on March 11. 

Preserving a sense of community  

Davit was working in Texas as United Airlines’s southern region director five years ago when he got an offer to become the vice president of attraction development for Universal Creative, which drew him to the Orlando area five years ago. It was then that he and his wife, Maryann Davit, discovered the town they now call home. 

“We drove through Windermere, and she was like, We’re living here,” he said, laughing. 

The couple have been married now for 33 years and have two daughters, Katy, who serves as a U.S. Air Force captain, and Emily, a financial analyst at Universal Creative. 

It was the sense of community he first felt when he moved to Windermere that’s continued to appeal to Davit. But there’s even more he’s come to appreciate over the years, like the town’s walkability and variety of things to do. 

“Me and my dog, we’ll walk down to Town Hall for events,” he said. “There’s always something going on down in Town Square or Windermere Brewing or one of the shops down there.” 

Davit considers his biggest accomplishment in office so far to be his effort to ensure the Town Council is “keeping Windermere, Windermere.”

“Towns tend to change their identity,” he said. “With that, we’ve been very successful in keeping the hometown feel of Windermere as it was.”

There have been a few challenges to keep that “Old Florida” charm that the town is known for. For instance, Davit considers traffic to be “one of the biggest problems” in town, specifically the early evening backups around the intersection of Apopka Vineland and Conroy Windermere Road — a snarl from Town Hall to The Grove shops and even to Olympia High School. 

If elected again, Davit is eager to continue working on that challenge. He said he’s taken an active role as a member in the Municipal Advisory Committee with MetroPlan Orlando and will continue to push for solutions like establishing or enhancing different traffic routes to help eliminate the town’s cut-through traffic. 

“That’s going to be a long-term effort,” he said. “Obviously, the development of Horizon West without the infrastructure to support it is not something we’re going to correct overnight, but I think we’ve got a good focus on it with me sitting on the committee for MetroPlan to help alleviate some of those problems.” 

Traffic isn’t the only threat to Windermere’s charm. The town’s dirt roads are another element of its identity that residents haven’t been keen to get rid of in the past, despite their potential to contribute to runoff and drainage into the town’s nearby lakes. Davit’s opinion, however, is clear. As far as he’s concerned, he said the town is “never going to pave our dirt roads.” 

“There’s engineering solutions for the drainage problems that will help enhance that,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I worked with our Public Works folks using my civil engineering background to identify a better sand base that would compact and hold up better, and the town has been using that … there’s ways to engineer it without throwing pavement around everywhere, and that’s what we’re gonna do.” 

The tree canopy, another notable element of the town, remains on Davit’s list. He said the Town Council recently approved Resolution 2025-01, which increases the tree mitigation fee to $225, up from $75. He describes it as a “huge impact to developers that want to come in and just clear cut it.”

New and continued challenges 

But not all of the issues in Windermere are as cut and dry. 

In early 2024, the town lost a $1 million Foundation for a Healthier West Orange grant to Windermere Rotary Inc. after plans for a pavilion project near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Main Street faced residential pushback, dooming the project. Attempts to then use the funds for needed Town Hall renovations were also unsuccessful. 

Regarding Town Hall renovations, Davit said getting consensus on it is still a work in progress. The building is one of three in town listed on the National Register of Historic Places (the other two are the Cal Palmer building and the 1890 Windermere School), and concerns about finding a balance between needed renovations and maintaining its history are high.

Davit considers that issue to be one of the challenges that the town council will face in the next term, highlighting a desire to determine a plan focused on compromise and resident input.

“We want to keep it historically accurate but maintainable and able to sustain any storms we have or anything that comes about,” he said. “That’s one of the focuses. And then, what are we going to do with the Town Square? We just held a design charrette [collaborative workshop] with our planning group, bringing in different voices to see what the residents of the town want to do.” 

A report from the town planner, Brad Cornellius, analyzing the resident recommendations as well as future public workshops are part of the process to help “dial in” as to what the right look for the Town Square will be, Davit said. He said he also has experience working with state historic preservation offices when he worked for the Pentagon, redeveloping and enhancing privatized housing for the Air Force. 

Then there’s the matter of the longstanding tug-of-war between the town and owners of the five boathouses located in the lagoon in Palmer Park. The current legal battle is over the town council’s decision to terminate the owners’ month-to-month right of access leases in March 2022. The town has spent more than $453,000 to date on the legal fight with another $225,000 budgeted for this year in preparation for the August trial.

Although Davit is unable to comment on the ongoing litigation, he said the issue has been “passed down the line” since at least 1986. 

“They kicked the can down the road several times, where the town council hadn’t taken the stance to solve the problem and really come to a resolution of where the ownership of the boat houses really lies,” Davit said. “So my stance is, we need to solve that.

“Quite honestly, I don’t care how it comes about, I just want the resolution so once and for all we understand where the ownership lies. If it’s with the town, great. If the current tenants are deemed the rightful owners, great. I just want to come to a resolution.” 

As the election draws closer and brings with it a potential for a change in the town council’s makeup, Davit's said his desire to serve his community is one that “still burns bright.”

As for his vision on the future of Windermere? He’s hoping for a lot of the same. 

“Because that’s what makes Windermere,” he said. “It’s the old town charm. I don’t envision a lot of change, and I think the residents of Windermere will be happy to hear that.”

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