OP-ED: Leading means asking hard questions

Apopka has a unique history. For more than 60 years, our city was led by Mayor John Land. Since then, only two other mayors served before I was elected. That kind of stability is rare, and there are many things throughout Apopka’s history that we should be proud of. 

But we also must recognize how much our community has changed. 

The Apopka of today is not the Apopka of 20, 30 or 50 years ago. We are now a city of more than 65,000 residents, and we continue to grow. New homes, businesses and families are coming to our community. With that growth comes greater demand on our roads, water and wastewater systems, public safety, parks, technology, staffing and nearly every service City Hall provides. 

In many ways, our growth has moved faster than some of our systems. 

Since taking office, my administration has been looking closely at how the city operates, where we are spending taxpayer dollars, how departments are structured and where we have fallen behind. 

Some of what we have found has been encouraging, but we have also found areas that need attention. 

There is deferred maintenance that must be addressed. There are infrastructure needs that cannot continue to be pushed down the road. Some processes and organizational structures need to be modernized.  

These challenges were not created in a few months, and they will not be corrected in a few months. 

The decisions we make today will determine what this community looks like 10, 20 and even 30 years from now. 

That means we must ask difficult questions, including:  

• Are we structured correctly for a city our size currently and for the future? 

• Are we properly maintaining the infrastructure taxpayers have already paid for? 

• Are we planning for future growth, or only reacting? 

• Are the decisions being made inside City Hall improving the lives of the people who live here? 

When we ask these questions (and more) and something does not look right, we are going to look into it. 

Utility operations and billing is a good example. I will be requesting an independent third-party audit of our water department, including a review of billing concerns, along with a comprehensive rate study. Residents deserve confidence that the numbers are accurate, the system is being operated responsibly, and the rates are justified. 

None of this means everything that happened before us was wrong. It means Apopka has changed. 

A government designed for a much smaller community cannot simply continue operating the same way while the population, infrastructure and expectations around it dramatically increase. 

When you begin questioning the way things have always been done, there will be disagreement. When you start looking at budgets differently, there will be difficult conversations. When you address deferred maintenance and infrastructure that has been neglected or underfunded, there will be costs associated with fixing it. 

I understand that, but I believe residents elected me to deal with those realities rather than pass them along to the next mayor and the next generation. 

We will make mistakes along the way. When we do, we will correct them. 

We will also disagree at times, but that is part of government. Disagreement cannot stop progress. 

My goal is not to erase Apopka’s history. It is to build upon it. 

We should respect the people who helped build this community while also recognizing that the next chapter of Apopka requires us to think differently. 

Apopka did not become the community it is today overnight, and building the Apopka we want for tomorrow will take time. 

I am asking our residents to stay engaged, continue asking questions and hold us accountable. You may not agree with every decision I make, but you deserve to understand why those decisions are being made. 

This administration is not interested in kicking problems down the road. 

We are going to face them.