Sanford voters head to the polls Tuesday to pick a new mayor for the first time in years, choosing between insurance agency owner Charles Davis and restaurant-industry executive Christina Hollerbach. The nonpartisan race will decide who succeeds Mayor Art Woodruff, who was appointed to the post in 2020, elected outright in 2022, and has now decided not to seek another four-year term. Whoever wins will be sworn in on December 14.
The August 18 primary lands on the same day as Florida's statewide primary election, with early voting having run from August 8 through August 15 at designated Seminole County polling sites, according to the City of Sanford. A third candidate, Justin Bruce Bynum, withdrew from the race, and votes cast for him will not be counted, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel. The mayor's seat pays $24,756 a year, per the same account, and is the only contested city seat on this year's ballot — District 1 Commissioner Sheena Britton and District 2 Commissioner Kerry S. Wiggins, Sr. both qualified unopposed and are reelected automatically under city charter procedures, the City of Sanford notes.
Two Very Different Résumés
Davis, 58, is a lifelong Sanford resident and 1987 graduate of Seminole High School who opened his Sanford-based insurance agency in 2004. He previously ran for mayor in 2022, losing to Woodruff by a vote of 54% to 46%, or 7,723 to 6,638 votes, according to WKMG. Since then, he has chaired the Seminole County Sheriff's Community Foundation, served as vice chairman of the Seminole County Port Authority, and spent more than eight years on the Seminole County Veterans Appreciation Committee, according to The Seminole Times.
Hollerbach, 39, brings a different kind of résumé. Her family has owned Hollerbach's German Restaurant in downtown Sanford for more than 25 years, the Orlando Sentinel reports, and she rose from dishwasher to CEO there over more than 15 years while also serving as president of Sanford Main Street, president of the Ritz Theater, and president of the Woman's Club of Sanford, per The Seminole Times. She now runs her own Sanford-based firm, Hollerbach with Purpose, which consults with small businesses and nonprofits.
City Hall's Culture Under Fire
Both candidates say City Hall itself needs an overhaul. Davis argues city government needs revamping, while Hollerbach says she wants to change the culture at City Hall outright, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Both agree that making staff more accessible to residents — so people can more easily access city services, obtain permits, and get answers — is central to their campaigns.
Sanford operates under a commission-manager form of government, meaning the mayor is one of five voting members on the City Commission while an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations, according to the City of Sanford. That structure means the next mayor's influence over the very bureaucratic sluggishness both candidates are campaigning against will depend heavily on building consensus with commission colleagues and city staff rather than issuing top-down orders.
Growth Along the East Side and the River
Sanford's population hit an estimated 68,105 residents in 2025, up 11.5% from the 61,051 counted in the 2020 Census, according to the City of Sanford. Much of that growth has clustered along the East Lake Mary Boulevard corridor, where hundreds of new homes and businesses have gone up in recent years, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Davis has pointed specifically to the area near Orlando Sanford International Airport and the Boombah Sports Complex as a growth zone requiring careful planning around traffic, city services, and neighborhood protection, and he has said county coordination should support mixed-use and high-density development there. He has also called for upgrading the Marina Isle area along the St. Johns River, which winds toward Jacksonville and forms one of the city's natural borders, alongside Interstate 4 and State Road 417.
Hollerbach takes a sharper tone on the same issue, arguing Sanford needs a more assertive approach to planning growth on the east side near the airport and saying the city's leadership does not currently challenge the county or airport authority on future growth plans. She has framed the relationship the city should have with the county and airport as more of a partnership than it currently is. The stakes are heightened by a regional housing crunch: the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area tied for worst in the nation for affordable rental availability in Hoodline's March report, offering just 13 affordable units for every 100 extremely low-income households, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Sewage, Odor and an Aging System Under State Order
No issue looms larger over Sanford's infrastructure debate than its wastewater system. A malfunction at the city's treatment plant sent millions of gallons of partially treated sewage into Lake Monroe in 2024, and the city's water and sewer systems remain aging, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection responded that July with a formal consent order requiring Sanford to carry out corrective action plans and facility upgrades at its 7.3-million-gallon-per-day North Water Reclamation Facility, and Hoodline previously reported on persistent odor spikes tied to the plant continuing into 2026. Downtown Sanford also faces recurring flooding after heavy thunderstorms, particularly along East First Street near Magnolia Square, per the Orlando Sentinel.
Hollerbach has said Sanford is taking too long to fix its infrastructure problems. The city previously moved to address some of the underlying costs by proposing a 7.5% utility rate increase in September 2024 to fund repairs to municipal water and sewer lines, money the city has since put toward wastewater relining and odor control units following the state's regulatory scrutiny.
A City Founded in 1877, Now Racing to Keep Up
Sanford was incorporated in 1877 and has long been positioned to attract manufacturing, with an airport and a train station giving it transportation advantages that predate the current growth boom, the Orlando Sentinel notes. With just over 40,000 registered voters eligible to weigh in, Tuesday's primary will settle who takes the reins of a city trying to modernize its pipes and its permitting process at the same time it absorbs one of the fastest-growing populations in Central Florida.
