John Bridges Center event was second in six-meeting series
By Teresa Sargeant
Reporter
In the second of six community meetings organized in Orange County districts, the 2025 Mid-Decennial Redistricting Advisory Committee (MRAC) held a public input meeting on April 2 at the John H. Bridges Community Center in Apopka, which is in District 2.
Such community meetings give residents the chance to voice their thoughts about the redistricting process and recommend ideas. The MRAC is tasked with the redistricting process which would increase the number of Orange County Commission Districts from six to eight.
Many residents expressed various concerns about redistricting, from asking that the committee not divide communities to claiming that the MRAC already yielded a map with newly drawn boundaries without public input.
Last November, Orange County voters passed a charter amendment for redistricting. In January, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners formed the MRAC to help with the process that includes setting up new boundaries and adding two more districts.
The commission gave MRAC a mandate to conduct community meetings, evaluate census data, and suggest boundaries for the two new districts and how to reconfigure the borders of existing districts. The committee is scheduled to give the Board of County Commissioners a drafted recommendation this September.
MRAC co-chair Camille Evans recommended people visit the website OCFL.net/redistricting, which contains information about the redistricting process and an official repository of maps submitted in accordance with the committee’s rules of procedure.
No map has yet been submitted in a manner consistent with the committee’s rules of procedure, Evans said.
“I just want to remind everybody that you may see maps throughout this process that float around, and they may have good ideas, or they may have ideas you don’t agree with,” Evans said. “However, there is a process for submitting them, and that we do encourage everybody to go on the website and avail yourself of the mapping software.”
Co-chair Tico Perez said he appreciated everyone who attended the meeting and assured them that MRAC is listening to residents’ concerns. He said some comments surprised him about MRAC’s refusal to listen, or that the committee already has a redistricting plan.
“There’s 15 of us here. We signed on for 20 public meetings, one a week for the next five months,” Perez said. “We have canceled our vacations. We have changed our work schedules. We sure ain’t getting paid, unless you want to count the lunch in the back [of the room]. So we’re here to be your partners. We’re here to be your friends. We’re here to be your advocates. We are going to do the absolute best that we can. Nobody’s got maps tucked away. We are just here to do the job that the citizens gave us.”
The MRAC’s next public meeting is 6-9 p.m. on April 10 at Meadow Woods Recreation Center in District 4 (1751 Rhode Island Woods Circle, Orlando).
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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