I was born and raised in Pine Hills and, God willing, I hope to stay and retire there. I went from a young person supported and surrounded by loving elders who instilled wisdom in me, to an adult with the weight of caring for our youth to protecting and supporting the development of our growing community. The Orange County redistricting process reminds me why the responsibility of caring for our community is so important: we’ve been historically disinvested and dismissed as a crucial part of Orange County. If we continue to lose the ability to advocate for our community, all of our history and traditions will be at risk. Thousands of families will be hurt by the lack of services and governance that they’re owed if Orange County doesn’t create an equitable map for redrawing County Commission seats.
We face a crossroads: Do we invest in long-neglected communities to make all of Orange County whole, or continue catering to the interests of our most privileged areas. Showdowns like this one are how we either break the cycle or dig our heels in deeper. Communities with access to power use it in their favor while working-class citizens fight and fend for whatever they might be able to keep. That is not justice in practice.
Seven Charlestin. (Courtesy photo)
On Sept. 16, the first Orange County Commissioners’ redistricting meeting, we got our first glance of the power imbalance that could likely get worse if this redistricting process goes in favor of the powerful. Over three-quarters of the attendees came to speak in favor of Map 7B, the Orange County map we created. They arrived unprompted from all over the county to support fairness and equity for all communities. We warned that Map 1A, the only other option, would increase the potential for disenfranchisement. This map places Winter Park in a new district with unincorporated communities that share little common ground. Despite pleas from residents, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings appears to have misinterpreted this critical point.
We are concerned that the involvement of the city of Winter Park and Mayor Sheila DeCiccio has been used to dismiss our valid arguments. The evidence is difficult to ignore: DeCiccio was allowed to speak for over five minutes, while all other community members were cut off at two. This is precisely the kind of unbalanced treatment that could come the norm if their map is approved, leaving lower-income and unincorporated residents to fend for themselves.
Where does Winter Park fit in Orange County’s redrawn commission districts?
The arguments from Winter Park seem to be that they don’t have anything in common with communities from District 5 and that they have more in common with communities like Pine Hills, Maitland and Eatonville. We believe they’re using that as an excuse to go to another district where they can have more control over who will or who won’t become the commissioner. For starters, Winter Park’s level of home-ownership (66% homeownership) resembles Bithlo (74%) and Christmas (86%) more than Maitland (44%). Both Winter Park and East Orange are auto-dependent, car-owning, commuter-heavy communities (average two cars/household, low transit usage). Both Winter Park and Christmas trace back to 19th-century land-based settlement identities, unlike Pine Hills or Maitland’s mid-20th-century suburban expansion.
Furthermore, Winter Park isn’t actually aligned with the communities it claims: Pine Hills, Eatonville and Maitland are all renter-heavy and transit-dependent. Pine Hills and Eatonville are minority-majority areas. Winter Park is an affluent, majority-white, homeowner-heavy community.
Combining them risks diluting representation for historically marginalized communities, since Winter Park’s economic and demographic weight could overshadow the priorities of other communities in the district if Map 1a were to be put into practice. Functionally, Winter Park’s structure (property tax base, land-value protection, auto-reliance) is more aligned with Rural East than with Pine Hills, Eatonville or Maitland.
For me, my community, and my organization, this process is about fair representation and equity for all of Orange County. But we get the sense that Winter Park is in this only for Winter Park, siloing affluent communities in the center of Orange County into one district. The deleterious effects of that action would be a plague on the democratic capabilities of our county.
This is not about Pine Hills or Winter Park. this is about Orange County, making sure that both marginalized communities and unincorporated areas in all of Orange County have equitable access to representation. The purpose of this process is said to be about fairness and equity and if that is true then there’s only one correct choice for the next map for Orange County and map is Map 7B.
Seven Charlestin is the founder of Las Semillas, a mutual-aid organization supporting the Pine Hills community.