ORLANDO, Fla. -- Early voting is under way in Orange County.

 

On April 11, voters will cast their ballots for races in Orlando, Winter Garden and Ocoee.

 

In Orlando, voters will decide who will replace suspended Orlando Commissioner Ernest Page, and they'll decide the runoff between incumbent Commissioner Vicki Vargo and challenger Robert Stuart, WESH 2 News reported.

 

The Vargo-Stuart race has been nasty, with both candidates quick to attack each other's ideas. One idea by Vargo is to move the main homeless men's shelter.

 

"This is the issue about a homeless man that walked through south College Park, steal from you practically every day, and then go hide," Vargo said in a February debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

 

Vargo believes crime in south College Park is directly connected to the homeless. She's pitching the idea of moving the men's shelter several miles from where it is now at Central Boulevard and Parramore Avenue.

 

But her opponent said that won't stop crime and could make it worse.

 

Everyone pictures the upscale shops of College Park, but there is another side, too. The area nearest downtown is lined with fences running along Colonial Drive designed to keep out crime.

 

Vargo blames much of the crime on homeless men.

 

"The homeless men who walk through south College Park, steal everything in your garages, go to the pawn shops on west Colonial Drive, and then go buy whatever in downtown Orlando," she said in the February debate.

 

Vargo said that homeless women and children pose no threat, but the men do and should be moved several miles farther away.

 

"I was appalled," said her opponent, Stuart.

 

He served on the mayor's homeless task force. He said Vargo is simply trying to scare voters to scare up votes.

 

"Her plan is to move it away from her district and try to use that to motivate her voters," Stuart said.

 

Stuart said the police chief has told him just 12 burglaries in south College Park have been blamed on transients in the past year.

 

Stuart is the head of the Christian Service Center, which helps clothe and feed the area's homeless and poor. He said moving homeless men away from the city's core could rob them of health care, education and transportation and split them from spouses and children. The result could be more crime, Stuart said.

 

Calls to Vargo's City Commission office were not returned. A spokeswoman for the Coalition for the Homeless said the agency is not endorsing candidates, but does support the idea of keeping the men's shelter near downtown, which is very close to the Stuart plan.

 

http://www.wesh.com/news/8446583/detail.html