Protecting tourism development, cleaning Lake Toho top Kristen Arrington’s 2025 priorities

Protecting the ever important tourism development (TDT) dollars, cleaning up Lake Toho and regulating homeowners associations are some of Sen. Kristen Arrington’s priorities this Session.

The Democrat rookie Senator from Kissimmee will serve as the Vice Chair of the Commerce and Tourism Committee.

Arrington is already familiar with some of the issues she’ll be facing, she said. She served on the House Commerce Committee the past two years before she was elected this November to the Senate.

With Disney World in her backyard and many of her constituents working in Central Florida’s tourism industry, Arrington says she is excited to be on the committee.

“Being a Florida native and Kissimmee girl, I grew up going to all these theme parks,” Arrington said. “It’s definitely ingrained in me this is such a big, huge part of our community.”

Arrington said she plans to see what initiatives come down from Senate President Ben Albritton but she expects regulating HOAs and TDT to be two issues coming before her committee next year.

“Each year we have discussions about what to do with those tourist development tax dollars. There’s been different years where the tax package has taken those funds to do things like water projects, but ultimately they did not pass — luckily,” she said.

In Central Florida especially where the TDT generates tens of millions of dollars annually, some advocates have pushed to free up the money on affordable housing, public transit or other community needs. Arrington isn’t in favor of that. She argued TDT is meant to be spent promoting tourism, which, especially during the pandemic, helped the industry recover quicker.

“Traditionally, I’ve been against raiding a fund to pay for something else,” she said. “I prefer looking at new funding sources.”

So far, Arrington said she hasn’t heard from Disney, Universal or other theme parks about their legislative needs.

“It’s just a little bit slow, and I assume my phone will be ringing off the hook January 2,” Arrington said the week before Christmas.

Beside tourism, Arrington is looking forward to regulating commerce.

“One of the things I love about commerce is most things that deal with money do come through that committee,” she said.

She regularly hears horror stories about people dealing with their HOAs, like the threat of a $1,000 fine if residents don’t power wash their driveways, for example.

This Session, she said she hopes to “make even small changes that can affect them in a positive way, like removing liens for fees, or lowering fees or providing transparency on documents” to protect property owners and give them more control.

“We do have some problems with the legacy association, where basically the developer is able to still control the voting block, and so it really makes it hard for the residents to have a voice,” she added.

Arrington is also a member of the Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government whose chair is another Central Floridian — Sen. Jason Brodeur.

Through that committee, Arrington said she hopes to work through a long-term plan to clean up the hydrilla, an invasive plant taking over Osceola County’s West Lake Tohopekaliga.

Lake Toho has become overrun with the plant that’s choking the lake and forming a green layer on the water, so it looks like an island, Arrington said. Spraying the hydrilla kills it but leaves an icky layer on the bottom of the lake.

“I hope we get funding and support for this session, but this might be something that takes a couple of years,” Arrington said, calling it a priority for the region.