WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. – Out with the old and in with the new.
On Monday evening, three new city commissioners will take their seats at Winter Springs' first commission meeting since the election night clean sweep.
District 1 Commissioner Paul Diaz, an accountant, easily beat incumbent Matt Benton taking 55% of votes cast to Benton’s 45%.
District 5 Commissioner Mark Caruso, a longtime law enforcement officer, won the race in a landslide against incumbent Rob Elliot 48% to 30%.
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District 3 Commissioner Sarah Baker easily defeated her challenger after incumbent Ted Johnson did not run for re-election.
Benton, Elliot and Johnson have been under fire, especially by the Winter Springs Community Association, for not doing more to right the City after several high-profile and ongoing issues made headlines.
“I think the biggest thing residents really want to see, there’s a couple things probably, but the biggest is probably communication,” Baker said. “And not just any type of communication with the residents, they really want to understand what the City is doing in regards to stormwater and wastewater.”
In 2023, Winter Springs was audited by both Seminole County and the State of Florida for questionable spending.
The State Auditor General identified eight issues, including ongoing problems with the city’s half-century old wastewater plant, resulting in sewage spills and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines as well as concerns about how Winter Springs spent its share of the county’s penny sales tax intended for infrastructure.
The state audit concluded the questionable spending “may erode public trust.”
Earlier this year, a lift station failed causing an overflow into backyards of almost 1,600 gallons of untreated sewage.
A wastewater spill onto a former golf course in 2021 caused a massive fishkill.
The city has been struggling to improve stormwater infrastructure after bridges failed during a hurricane and severe flooding soaked the Highlands and Hacienda Village neighborhoods.
“Back in March, it was the third time that I had a massive amount of wastewater, raw sewage, dumped into my yard,” Baker said. “You know we had a Consent Order from the State, the DEP, telling us we had less than 3 years to rebuild both of our wastewater plants, that’s going to be a really big challenge. We’re not only going to have to tackle the funding but also working with the State and DEP and trying to figure out if there’s any solutions before they come in and start fining us drastic amounts for being behind on the project.”
Most recently, Winter Springs completed testing and repair of all hydrants citywide after the Fire Marshal questioned why the hydrants hadn’t been inspected in years.
State law requires municipalities to inspect their hydrants yearly.
“I think the biggest takeaway is that they [voters] are serious and they mean business and they want us to fix this,” Baker said.
Monday night’s swearing-in ceremony begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by the City Commission meeting at 6 p.m.
Q&A with Winter Springs' new commissioners
News 6 talked to the new commissioners in Winter Springs about winning their elections, the problems in the city, and what they plan to do now.
District 5 Commissioner Mark Caruso
EV: You beat your incumbent by almost 20 percentage points, what do you take away from that?
MC: Well, obviously, the residents of Winter Springs spoke volumes. They wanted change. They showed that they wanted change. And it shows in the numbers. And I’m proud of that. And I’m very humbled by it to be part of the city that wants change.
EV: Where do you start?
MC: Well, biggest thing for me starting is of course our infrastructure, our storm drains and our creeks is my priority. Our wastewater system, that’s a whole different, you know, problem in itself. I think beginning, starting with, the creeks and the storm drains might be a little easier to get into because there’s a lot more money involved with this, with the wastewater systems.
EV: But with wastewater, you’re running out of time. You have three years or less to get the two new wastewater treatment plants rebuilt and finished, right?
MC: Yeah, it’s definitely a challenge. We have a new City Manager starting in December. I look forward to hearing his thoughts because he has experience in wastewater. So, see what kind of experience he has in trying to get that started, get completed, see what kind of help he can get us from a state level. Any grants that we can get that would also help. And anything, anything that we could do to not burden the residents is my focus.
EV: On that note, we’ve heard from so many people who live in the city who are afraid that their utility bills are going to skyrocket because these new water treatment plants cost tens of millions of dollars. How do you not burden them? How do you not send their rates skyrocketing?
MC: That’s a great question that I’m learning a lot about, you know, when it comes to raising taxes. I know the recent millage rate, I think it put like 25, $30 on a household right now, which is what I’m seeing.
EV: In the past, commissioners said that’s just catching up to where you should be?
MC: Yes, it’s probably going to wind up going higher. I don’t know any specifics of it yet. I’ve only, I’m only saying that because of what I’ve heard them say in the past, sitting in the audience and listening. Like I said, if we can get all the funding sources, which is a priority, to try to ease that burden on the taxpayers and the residents, I’m all for that. However, we can get help from the county, the state, whatever we need to do dealing with the flooding, that’s been a major issue, as you know.
EV: Dealing with the flooding includes starting with the creeks, that, of course, take a lot of the water, the runoff, and get it out of the city. Your thought is right away to just clean them out? A lot of that hasn’t been done?
MC: No, it hasn’t been done for years, from what a lot of the residents tell me that I’ve met with. I’ve had people that live literally on the creek, and they told me, they tell me they can’t even remember the last time we’ve seen the city. And they’re cleaning the creeks and even my neighbors now, they have debris in there in the creeks behind their houses, and literally a whole tree or two trees. And my one neighbor and I’ve seen it. And if we can just start doing that stuff, we’re showing effort to the residents that they can, you know, have peace of mind to say, okay, the city’s in there doing it now I feel better. Maybe now my house won’t get flooded. That’s a priority.
EV: What is going to change starting tonight?
MC: Well with me change is going to be working with the county to get all the data and all the information that we need on all the creeks where the problem areas are. Start with those. Start with the areas that were in the past that flooded like Hacienda, that was a property that was really flooded bad. They had to come in with the National Guard with boats. So focus on those major problems first. See what we need to do in those areas and then complete the rest of it. Every creek in the city. I won’t stop until every creek is clean.
EV: The voters, it seems on election night, told the city of Winter Springs we’re out of patience, you commissioners that have been in office took too long to make the change that we need. Are you concerned that if you don’t act quickly enough, they’re going to lose patience with you?
MC: Well, yeah, I would. I’ve lost patience and I can understand it. And I want people to hold me accountable because I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. If I make a mistake, I want them to tell me, I want to be able to improve from that. And if I don’t get started on it right away, I expect them to say something to me because that’s my focus. Once we get the new city manager in, he already knows we’ve already had conversations that that’s my focus, that’s my concern. And he understands that 100% because he lives here too. So he knows what we expect and what the residents expect. And I won’t stray from that.
District 1 Commissioner Paul Diaz
EV: You beat your incumbent by around 10 percentage points. First of all, what do you take away from that?
PD: I think the city was looking for change. The city was not only looking for a change in leadership, but also a change in professionalism. On the commission. I campaigned on serious problems that require serious solutions, and I asked the residents of Winter Springs to send at least one person to the commission that has a financial background. Mine is in finance and accounting, and they did so by a pretty good margin.
EV: You mentioned serious problems, I keep hearing stormwater and I keep hearing wastewater. How do you tackle that after it hasn’t been tackled more or less in the past decade?
PD: And during the campaign, I focused on the three problems that Winter Springs has and yes, wastewater, one, stormwater, two, but the third problem actually solves the other two. And those are the financial problems, the financial mismanagement in the city. It has been reported in audit after audit. That is where the solution lies for the wastewater and stormwater, because the problem in the past has been the financing, the daunting numbers that we hear with the financing for wastewater, stormwater, especially the stormwater problems and the wastewater plants. Now we’re in another Consent Order from the State of Florida with a hard deadline to get a plant up and running very, very quickly, much quicker than your typical government speed.
EV: So the State of Florida, the DEP has told the city of Winter Springs you need to get these new wastewater plants done within three years and so far, very little progress has been made over the past 10 years or so. How are you going to get it done in three years?
PD: Well, the difference is bringing a private-sector business mentality to the city. Unfortunately, what happens is you hear a lot of chatter of, well, government is not, you know, a business or be run like a business. Well, maybe it should be. Maybe we should be talking about efficiencies and modernizing systems because a business does not have the luxury, if you will, of just kicking the can down the road. And if they do, they will be bankrupt and nonexistent. And that is the path that the city is on. It’s a path of financial ruin. And this is not a matter of, you know, what the tax rate needs to be or not. The revenue is there. What we need to do is cut the waste to be able to get, you know, the money necessarily diverted into the proper places. Let me give you a really good example. For years, the city was paying on assets, not only on the assets, but also on insurance, on assets that it no longer owned because nobody had done the proper internal audits for years. And that is what the new finance director was faced with coming into a role where there were no internal controls. My first campaign promise was to go ahead and have the city implement internal controls, and that’s an accounting term. A lot of it has to do with the management internally of the city’s finances, and it is an accounting function. But for example, audits have shown that 38 out of 40 spending cards, the credit card that the city gives to its employees, had no records whatsoever. So they knew some money was spent. They paid the accounts payable, but they had no idea what they were paying for. That’s unacceptable in a system in any government. Transparency is having those internal controls and implementing them.
EV: So you’re saying that you can make enough cuts here at City Hall in order to not send utility bills for the people who live here through the roof to pay for these two new water treatment plants that are going to cost tens of millions of dollars?
PD: Well, let me answer the question with a question. Okay, so we’ve had all these increases, yet the utility funds, which are enterprise funds, they’re separate businesses, if you will, still don’t have the money for the plants. Where did the money go? Why isn’t that question being asked? Where is the money going? What are we spending it on? Maybe we’re spending it on consultants and outside companies that continue billing the city, yet have no results for the citizens, I expect. And one of the things I will ask the new City Manager to do is we need to review every single contract that the city has with every contractor and every vendor, that the city has to figure out exactly who’s getting paid for what and why, and what are the results if there’s not a tangible result. In the real world, you do it right or you get eliminated. And maybe it’s time that the city start looking at this as a business and do it right. Or eliminate a lot of these contractors, the water plants being the first one that we need to be talking about.
EV: Do you believe you will find enough places to cut to not send utility bills through the roof?
PD: I think there’s a lot of places that we can go ahead and cut and a lot of the rate increases that have been there have been a factor of not having had the proper cost of living adjustments, if you will, over the years. So a lot of it is catch up what has happened in the past, but moving forward, way before any taxes increase or way before any rate is increased, we need to make sure that the money that is going there is yielding us a better return on every dollar being spent versus $0.70 on the dollar.
EV: It seems like from the election night totals, that people here in Winter Springs ran out of patience with the people who were supposed to do the job. You have now three years to do this job, according to the state DEP, at least when it comes to the water wastewater treatment plants. Are you concerned that you may run out of time? Are you concerned the voters may get frustrated that you’re not working quickly enough?
PD: You know, I think the difference there is going to be that at least I speak for myself. I can’t speak for the other commissioners. I will push for an agenda that gets action and results quickly with the wastewater plants. Let’s get a shovel in the ground. I campaigned on that and I plan to deliver on that promise. We are going to get a shovel in the ground. We’re going to get shovels in the ground very quickly, because at this point now, at least for my seat, for seat one, I will be pushing for that. And I think that if the citizens see me every other week, you know, at each commission meeting saying, where’s the shovel? Where’s the bulldozer? Why am I not seeing earth moving either in the west or the east [Water Treatment Facilities]? Whichever way you want to start with, people say the East [Water Treatment Facility] needs to go first. The state says the West needs to go first. Either way, we’ll figure it out. Both need to go up whether we like it or not. So at this point now, maybe we’ve got to do it simultaneously.
District 3 Commissioner Sarah Baker
EV: What do you want to change and how do you want to do it?
SB: I think the biggest thing that our residents really want to see, there’s a couple things probably, but the biggest is probably communication. And not just any type of communication, but the residents really want to understand what the city is doing in regards to our stormwater and wastewater. Those are the hot topics here in Winter Springs. And I’ve personally been affected by our stormwater and wastewater issues, which is why I chose to run. So they’re definitely a platform that I was heavily talking about during the whole campaign also. So that’ll be my number one thing, really communicating what is going on with those two problems in the city.
EV: I heard you had wastewater overflowing into your backyard?
SB: I did, yeah. When, back in March. It was the third time that I had a massive amount of wastewater, raw sewage, dumped into my yard. And this the most recent time was estimated over 12,000 gallons. They still aren’t 100% sure what the amount was, but the manhole had a water flow of raw sewage out of it for about 55 minutes.
EV: Which is just one of many ongoing issues with the city, wastewater as you’re full or fully aware. The city’s been trying to figure out how to rebuild a new wastewater treatment plant. How do they find the funding for that? How do you play to tackle that?
SB: You know, we had a Consent Order from the State, sent to us from the Florida DEP, telling us we have less than three years to rebuild both of our wastewater plants. That’s going to be a really big challenge. So while we have companies already, consulting companies, looking in and telling us how to rebuild them, we don’t have all of the funding completely secured. There is a funding option, but there’s some hoops to jump through with some of that funding. And obviously we’ve raised some rates in order to try to help with that, but also, you know, that those rates hadn’t increased in so long that really those rate increases are just going to be maintenance costs for us, you know, covering the maintenance cost. It’s not going to really contribute to actually rebuilding these plants. And in three years I don’t see it being something that actually can happen. So, you know, we’re going to have to not only tackle that, the funding, but also just working with the state and the DEP and trying to figure out if there’s any solutions before they come in and start fining us, you know, drastic amounts for being behind on the project. There’s other options out there. We might have to look into Ironbridge or changing just the way our water treatment is handled altogether. And tying into other plants. There’s a lot of moving parts and I wish I had all of the answers right now on how to fix it, but it’s something that I will very much be diving into and researching, a lot now that I’m actually in office.
EV: And it was very clear voters sent a very strong message that the people who were in office were not getting it done quickly enough. They weren’t turning it around quickly enough after all the issues that the cities faced. Are you are you afraid of that? Are you feeling like you can get more done more quickly?
SB: I wouldn’t say I’m afraid. I mean, it’s a little bit. There’s a lot of weight on my shoulders, knowing that that’s why the election went the way it did. I’m. I’m very humbled by the faith that people have put in me. But I think that they know that since I’ve been deeply, personally affected by it, that it’s a priority for me. And as it should be for all of us. But, you know, knowing that this was the first thing that happened in my backyard in the street behind me, homes themselves had wastewater up into their homes by several feet, I’ve never had it in my home, but in my yard and in the creek was bad enough. So Yeah. No, I’m not afraid, but it’s definitely a lot of, it’s pressure. And I think that I work well under pressure. So, I’m looking forward to figuring out a solution.
EV: Lastly, Commissioner, what is the single biggest thing that you took away from the loud message that was sent by the voters of Winter Springs on election night?
SB: I definitely took away that they are serious about this, that they are paying attention. They were not just checking the names of people, you know, based on a sign or based on a name that they liked or, you know, on the ballot. And there was no real voter dropoff as you went down the ballot. You know, all three of our elections were heavily voted on. So, I think the biggest takeaway is just that they mean business, they’re serious, and they want us to fix this.
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