By Teresa Sargeant and John Peery
Apopka Chief Staff
Apopka City Council Seat 1 candidate Suzanne Kidd has dropped out of the runoff race, making her opponent Alexander H. Smith the commissioner-elect for the office.
Kidd, who finished first in the four-way race for the seat in the Tuesday, March 13, city election and moved on to the runoff with Smith, filed a document with the Apopka city clerk’s office on Monday, March 19, stating her withdrawal from the race.
Kidd’s decision means there will be just one race on the April 10 runoff ballot. The Seat 2 runoff features incumbent Commissioner Diane Velazquez against challenger Alice Nolan.
Smith will take over for longtime City Commissioner Billie Dean, who chose not to run again after serving for 24 years. The swear-in ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, April 24, that will include both Mayor-elect Bryan Nelson and the winner of the Velazquez-Nolan runoff election.
“Alexander Smith is the new Apopka city commissioner,” said Bill Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections.
In the March 13 general election, Kidd received 37.44 percent of the race while Smith got 30.03 percent. Gene Knight and Theresa Mott finished third and fourth, respectively.
In the race for Seat 2, Nolan outdistanced Velazquez with 39.7 percent for Nolan and 37.49 percent for Velazquez. Leroy Bell was third and Alicia Koutsoulieris finished fourth.
Cowles said the vote-by-mail ballots were scheduled to be dropped in the mail on Monday night, but now that was delayed by 24 hours. “We are not mailing vote-by-mail ballots tonight (March 19) because we are reprinting the ballots with no Seat 1 race on it. I want voters to have the correct ballot,” Cowles said.
He said his office will send out 5,300 of the vote-by-mail ballots.
Smith acknowledged his status as the new commissioner-elect at Kit Land Nelson Park on Tuesday, March 20.
Surrounded by family, friends, and supporters inside the park gazebo, Smith began by thanking God, his wife, campaign manager, members of his church, the citizens of Apopka and his Reverend H.L. Dericho.
Smith also thanked the other election candidates for their “willingness to sacrifice to serve the citizens of Apopka.”
Echoing his campaign platform, Smith said he strives to “be a voice for all the people.”
“We want to do the things that the citizens would like to see done here in the city of Apopka and make Apopka all that it can be, and all that it shall be,” he said. “Now, I thank you for your support financially, spiritually, your prayers, and all the physical support you have given during this campaign.”
As a keynote speaker at a Teamsters Union convention several years ago, Smith was given a Teamsters pin, which he wore on his lapel during his speech.
“The pin says ‘Teamwork leads to success.’ I firmly believe that teamwork leads to success. That’s why we’re out today, because of teamwork. There is no ‘I’ in team. Together, we all can make this city what we all would like for it to be and what God would have where it needs to be. He got us.”
Smith encouraged those in attendance to call him with any issues and concerns.
With teamwork, the City Council and Mayor-elect Bryan Nelson will move Apopka forward, Smith said. That direction will also include Apopkans who do not live within the city limits, he added.
On her campaign website, Kidd released a March 20 statement about her runoff withdrawal, thanking her supporters, volunteers, and the 2,309 voters “who believed in my vision of a brighter future for Apopka.”
The outcome of the mayoral race affected her decision to withdraw from the Seat 1 race.
“Had Mayor Kilsheimer won re-election, there is almost no limit to the positive forward strides we as a city were making,” Kidd wrote. “But when 80 percent of Apopka’s voters chose not to vote, declining to express at the ballot box their hopes for progress, they allowed 4,100 people to change the direction of this city in a way I could not, in good conscience, and in loyalty to my volunteers and supporters, allow myself to agree with or participate in.”
Kidd explained her original decision to run for Apopka City Council, which was “to realize the vision of Apopka’s future, and to face head-on the severe financial needs of this city.” She didn’t refer to Nelson by name in her statement, but wrote that he, as mayor-elect, “would stand in the way of needed progress.”
“His vision is one of austerity and retrenchment,” she wrote. “Because Apopka’s charter places all the power for setting the City’s agenda in the total control of whomever is Mayor, to continue to run would be to do so while knowing I could not fulfill my campaign promises.”
In spite of her decision to withdraw from the race, Kidd said she will keep fighting for the Apopka community and its progress.
“I saw this election result as a return to the old ways of doing things, and I refuse to go backwards. Even more, I refuse to abandon the shared vision for progress expressed by the voters who supported me. Instead, my efforts will continue as an advocate for the people of Apopka, and for anyone who wants to see our city move forward. Our fight has just begun.”
