ties<\/a> to Christopher Delgado, an Apopka resident who federal prosecutors say operated a $328 million Ponzi scheme. She also accused him of causing dysfunction at commission meetings and shared Anderson\u2019s concerns about his behavior towards prominent local women.<\/p>\nIn February, police were called during an altercation involving Moore and Nesta before a mayoral debate. Two people alleged Moore had become aggressive while speaking with Nesta, according to a police report.<\/p>\n
One of the two individuals said she placed her hand between Moore and Nesta to de-escalate the situation, the report said. Moore told the Orlando Sentinel that Nesta\u2019s mother had put her hands in her face, causing her to feel threatened.<\/p>\n
Beyond the controversies, the candidates in the officially nonpartisan race \u2014 both are registered Republicans, as is Nelson \u2014 cited their respective backgrounds as reasons they should lead the city of about 63,000 in northwestern Orange County.<\/p>\n
Moore, 65, was elected to the Orange County School Board three times, starting in 2008. She was then elected to the District 2 seat on the county commission in 2018 and 2022 and is term-limited this year.<\/p>\n
She said Wednesday that voters should choose her over Nesta because of her greater experience, including her tenure on the county commission and her past work with the Florida Legislature, both important sources of funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the background of accomplishments, understanding of a broad range of issues, and the connections which are evidenced by the multitude of my endorsements, to make things happen quickly, efficiently and fairly and move this town forward in a very positive, uplifting direction,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
She said her accomplishments include supporting the conversion of septic tanks to sewers in unincorporated Orange County; putting $6 million into resurfacing park trails; and roadway improvements such as adding street lighting, including on Apopka Avenue.<\/p>\n
If elected, she would focus on improving senior services, infrastructure, quality of life issues and slowing city growth. She also said she wants to connect the city\u2019s parks with its natural lands and find ways to cut costs during \u201ctight\u201d budget years.<\/p>\n
Nesta, 36, a realtor and owner of Nesta Real Estate Consultants, was elected to the city commission in a special election in 2022 and was reelected last year. Because of Florida\u2019s resign-to-run law, he will leave the commission effective April 28, the date the next mayor will be sworn in.<\/p>\n
He argued in March that what sets him apart from both Moore and Nelson is that he is not a career politician and will be the change he believes the city needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m all about the residents, and I\u2019ve proven that time and time again that I want their voices to be echoed,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need fresh ideas. The tired way of doing things is just not working anymore and you can see that tangibly in the quality of life that we have, [in] our utility bills, our infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nesta said his accomplishments include creating a new investment policy that saved the city millions of dollars over the last few years and introducing a real estate policy that would ensure city-owned land would be sold at the highest offer.<\/p>\n
His priority issues include lowering utility costs, making improvements to infrastructure, reducing traffic on roads and improving the city\u2019s water quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apopka residents will choose a new mayor Tuesday \u2014 either a longtime officeholder backed by the outgoing mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[10514,2811,28,114,115,1335,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":["post-228518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-apopka","tag-election","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}