Gabrielle Russon
The battle between an incumbent with political enemies and a challenger with a big war chest but a shady past is heading to a recount for Orange County Commission’s District 1 race.
After 28,000 votes were cast, only 24 votes separated challenger Austin Arthur and incumbent Nicole Wilson. Arthur had 50.04% of the vote compared to Wilson’s 49.96%.
“It’s really close,” Wilson said Tuesday night.
Orange County GOP chair Erin Huntley said she was confident about Arthur’s chances.
“We need businesspeople to get things done on the county commission,” Huntley said.
Arthur did not respond for comment.
Provisional ballots will be counted Thursday, according to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office. People can cure their mail-in ballots until 5 p.m. Thursday if they were thrown out from bad signatures.
“We are off to a machine recount, and if it is less than a quarter percentage point, a hand recount,” said Christopher Heath, spokesman for the Elections Supervisor’s Office.
The board’s District 1 is a growing area that includes Winter Garden, Windermere, Hunter’s Creek and part of Disney World.
Wilson’s stances have created powerful adversaries. She appeared vulnerable to losing her seat as her opponent raised nearly $250,000.
Wilson supports freeing up Orange County’s tourism development taxes — a 6% surcharge on hotel rooms — to be spent on other community needs instead of just tourism. She also spoken out against development on the controversial project to build a highway through Split Oak Forest.
Running against her was Arthur, a newcomer to politics who has gotten involved in his community of Winter Garden. He is a former business owner of a gymnastic gym and volunteered on the West Orange County Habitat for Humanity board.
But Arthur also had a history of legal troubles for not paying his bills, a Florida Politics investigation found.
He was been sued for not paying his gym’s rent in 2017 and for not paying his Priceline bill in 2019. Between those years, the IRS also filed three federal tax liens against him.
Arthur was also arrested twice in 2009 at age 23. One arrest report said he got tasered twice after he was accused of punching a Disney Springs security guard in the nose.
Despite the arrests, Arthur was not charged with the crime because the state attorney’s office dismissed the charges for lack of evidence or for the victim not wishing to pursue the case, records show.
In an interview, Arthur acknowledged his past and said he is not hiding from it. What matters, he said, is the lessons he learned from it. His financial problems depict the realities of being a business owner trying to make it, he said.
“Every politician doesn’t need to be a lawyer. Every politician doesn’t need to have a squeaky clean, perfect life,” Arthur said earlier in an interview. “I’m a regular guy. … I’ve made so many mistakes. … Just because you trip once, twice, three times, the question is: Are you going to learn from those mistakes?”
