Candidates admonished to create solutions, rather than problems
While nothing official came out of an emergency Kissimmee City Commission Thursday, commissioners hope that a willingness for 2024 city election candidates to stop infighting would result.
The meeting, requested by Commissioner Janette Martinez, was called in hopes of revising or modifying the city’s policy on signage allowed at the Kissimmee Civic Center, an Osceola County early voting site, during elections.
With early voting ahead of the Aug. 20 primary election ongoing, the Civic Center and its parking lot has been where to find candidates running for the Kissimmee Commission. They have vehicles festooned with their campaign signs, and some of the candidates are there each day, sitting under canopies, hoping to sway voters on their way in.
But city leaders have been receiving complaints from some candidates and their representatives – oversized signs attached to the vehicles, parked against city guidelines, parked overnight. Disputes have led to calls to Code Enforcement, and even the police, to respond. The city, which normally does not allow campaign signs on public property, has special rules for the Civic Center when it serves as a polling place.
After hearing from some of the candidates and other concerned citizens about the issues and complaints, city leaders made no changes to policy – but did admonish the candidate teams for some of their behavior.
“How did we get to where we have to regulate adults, and update or change an ordinance we've passed?” Commissioner Angela Eady exasperatedly asked. “This is embarrassing to have to take someone off the streets fighting crime over kerfluffles over candidacy. If that's the case, how are you going to get along up here (on the dais)?
“I've never seen anything like this. These candidates think their opponent is the enemy. But they're just someone who wants the same thing you want. Until you fix that ... it looks like a campsite out there ... change your mindset and everything else will fall into place. How you're talking, the voters are talking amongst themselves."
"I had no time to argue when I ran twice. I didn't hardly campaign,” Mayor Olga Gonzalez said. “It's a shame we had to come to this, a special meeting because we can't get along. Let's be part of a solution rather than a problem.”
The major clash seemed to come from two mayoral candidates, downtown Kissimmee entrepreneurs Olga Carino and Jackie Espinosa. Carino, already a city lightning rod when the city approved her to be on the ballot when some questioned if she actually lives in the city limits, has been accused of violating the sign and parking guidelines. Members of the Osceola Action Committee have emailed numerous complaints to commissioners and other city staff.
“All challenges we've made have been valid according to the policy,” Osceola Action Committee representative Jeremy Fetzer said during the Thursday meeting. “Those who want to represent us can't follow simple rules. The policy is good, if we can enforce it."
Carino defended her campaign, railing against the OAC tactics and noting as soon as she was aware her campaign violated the city policy, like parking the RV over two Civic Center spaces or having oversized signs, they immediately fixed them. Then she turned the blame to the city and the policy.
“I disagree with removing any of a candidates’ signs, and codes that restrict the size of signs,” she said. “It hinders the candidates.”
It was the volume of those challenges that Martinez said she’d had enough of to make her call the meeting and discuss with the board in the open "to find a resolution” at the Civic Center.
“It’s terrible, the amount of resources being spent to babysit all the negative complaints and issues", she said. “We have to come to an agreement. I don't think it’s appropriate to waste taxpayer money having police parked there watching adults who should know how to act.
“We're getting resources exploited over things that are petty, for a group that will have to sit up here together and make sound decisions. This should be about the voters.”
But while Martinez said, “This meeting was for peace,” Espinosa spoke out, not against what Martinez said, but how she said it.
“The tone it was brought to us is unacceptable,” Espinosa said. “This must be a meeting of the minds. Kissimmee is better than that, and we should all be embarrassed. I'm not going back to the Civic Center to engage in this circus. I will lead by example.”
John Cortes, also a candidate in the mayor’s race and a former state representative, said this is has been the most trying election he’s been a part of in 28 years on the campaign trail.
“Signs are disappearing, and there’s no room for them in places we can put them when one candidate places numerous ones of theirs in a small area.”
The fourth member of the race, Commissioner Olga Castano, was not present at the meeting.
City Manager Mike Steigerwald said all candidates receive copies of sign rules and ordinances from the city and the Supervisor of Elections office when they qualify. He noted canopies weren't covered in this policy, and wasn’t sure how they were allowed. Development Services Director Craig Holland said city code notes tents smaller than 10x10 feet don't need a permit, but they can't take up parking spaces or traffic lanes. And while city code regulates the size of permitted signs, the city cannot limit the number of signs a candidate puts up; the 1st Amendment covers that.
Fetzer said the law states nobody can touch another candidate’s signs, which is why some are placing several signs in the spots where the canopies go up to sort of “save” their spot in the morning.
After the meeting, Martinez showed off a stack of emails she’d received from the OAC.
“It’s just so much,” she said. “It hurts, they’re wasting money. The hope of the meeting was that everyone would come to an agreement, and understand we can do better.”
Carino seemed overwhelmed by it all.
“After this meeting … I don’t think anything’s going to change.”
