Mayor-elect Nick Nesta announced his transition plans in a Wednesday Facebook post, a week after he won an April 14 runoff to become Apopka’s next mayor.  

“Now that the votes have been counted, I want to begin by saying thank you,” Nesta said. “I’m honored by the trust you’ve placed in me, and I’m excited to begin the work ahead serving our community.” 

During his time as mayor-elect, Nesta has primarily devoted his time to building a “transition team,” who will aid him “in meeting with departments” and “gathering information,” according to his post. 

“We’re making sure residents that have a background or an interest in a certain area within the city, or that they have a lot of information on, that they get plugged in properly,” Nesta said in a Wednesday afternoon interview with The Apopka Chief. “They start having the meetings with those individual departments or department heads or those that work in that area, and then reporting back and providing information in an advisory capacity back to me and my team to see what needs to be changed.” 

Nesta said his time as commissioner has enabled him to determine which issues are most pressing for his transition team to look into. As a result, Nesta said his team has several areas of focus, one of which is the city’s current budgeting process. 

“Historically, in the previous administration, the commissioners, the public — they get three workshops close to the required time to submit our budget to basically dive through hundreds of pages of information and not really understand how it compared to last year, the year before that, and the year before that,” Nesta said. “So it was a lot of limited information to make very big decisions.” 

Nesta envisions a process that is largely the “opposite” of that currently in place, which would allow “commissioners to have input up front on this process.” 

“This budget workshop that we have at the end really turns into a mess, as we’ve seen in previous years, so it’s time to get everybody’s input up front and adjust from there,” Nesta said. “I think that’s going to be huge and build confidence in the residents and where their money is going — and it builds transparency.” 

After his swearing-in on Tuesday, Nesta said he will continue to provide office hours for residents and plans to give each commissioner a dedicated space for similar meetings. He will also meet with various city staff to lay out the “new priorities” and build a culture of “autonomy” and “confidence building.”  

“What I really enjoy about the majority, if not all, of our employees that are currently hired is that they have a passion for serving the residents,” Nesta said, after saying he is not yet set on hiring plans for city staff. “Everyone has a really unique passion for what they’re doing, which I love, so it’s just making sure that we’re able to support them in that capacity. Because what’s cool now is that I’m able to talk to the employees and staff members of the city of Apopka on a deeper level, and so they’re able to really tell me a lot more than what maybe they didn’t feel comfortable telling me before.” 

Nesta also emphasized the importance of meeting with sitting mayor Bryan Nelson to ensure “nothing falls through the cracks.” However, he believes that meeting will likely occur only after the transition of power, due to the application of the Government-in-the-Sunshine Law. 

“We’re in a unique position where we’re still technically serving on the same board, and because Sunshine Law applies, you can’t just meet with another elected official on your same board and talk about everything you want,” Nesta said. “I want to make sure that we’reabove reproach transitioning this. I don’t want to muddy the waters with an unnecessary meeting that may not be in compliance, so we’re timing it correctly.” 

Nesta and Nelson have often disagreed on various issues while sitting on the dais, one of which was the placement of the public comment period at City Commission meetings. When Nelson moved public comment to the end of each meeting, Nesta livestreamed it on Facebook until it was brought back to the beginning.  

“My goal is to have a workshop before every evening meeting for an hour, and basically it’s an opportunity for the commissioners to give out some ideas — something that’s on their agenda or something they want to accomplish,” he said. “Residents can come in and give their opinions, maybe give some of their advice, say what they want to have, and then that’s kind of the opportunity for us to have some dialogue. I think that’s what residents really are missing right now.” 

Nesta will take his oath of office alongside commissioners-elect Sam Ruth and Yesenia “Jesi” Baron and current vice mayor Diane Velazquez at noon Tuesday. Community members are welcome to attend the ceremony at the Apopka Community Center, which will also host a cake cutting and reception shortly afterward.