PHOTO VIA RUTHI CRITTON FOR MAYOR FACEBOOK PAGE
Ruthi Critton (Instagram | Website) will be Eatonville’s next mayor after winning Saturday’s election with 175 votes, or about 41.8% of the vote. She defeated fellow candidates Wanda D. Randolph and Vice Mayor Theo Washington in a race to replace Mayor Angie Gardner, who did not seek a fourth term and filed to run for the new District 7 seat on the Orange County Commission. The Orange County Canvassing Board meets on March 11 to certify the results.
In two other races on Saturday’s ballot, Angela Y. Thomas won council Seat 2 with 201 votes (48.7%), and LaDwyana Ware-Jordan took Seat 3 with 296 votes (71.5%).
Critton campaigned on homeownership and financial stewardship as her two central priorities. Eatonville, she noted, was founded on homeownership, and she pointed to the town’s lower-than-desired homestead numbers as a key challenge. “When you have people in your community that own homes, that have a stake in the community, you can kind of gauge more community feel,” she said before the election. On finances, she emphasized the need for careful management in a town of roughly 2,800 to 3,000 residents that relies heavily on tax revenue.
Critton also emphasized unity and transparency as the foundations for Eatonville’s future. “We are better together than we are apart,” she said. “Those things, coupled with unity, I think, are the direction that I would go.”
Eatonville is widely recognized as the nation’s oldest continuously incorporated town, founded by African-Americans.
