Eric Gray files for Orange County Commission seat in 2026

With election season at full tilt in Orange County, at least one candidate is already eyeing 2026.

Eric Gray, the executive director of the Christian Service Center, filed initial paperwork Tuesday to run for the District 4 seat on Orange County’s Board of County Commissioners. The seat is currently occupied by Maribel Gomez Cordero, who can’t seek reelection due to term limits. He said Cordero asked him in March to run.

Gray’s day job is to oversee Orlando’s day center for homelessness in Parramore, offering about 400 people daily services including medical care, housing placement, showers, laundry and meals.

He said he intentionally filed paperwork on Oct. 1, the effective date for Florida’s strict new law regulating how local governments can respond to homelessness, due to his frustrations with how the issue is being handled.

“Particularly in this job, I’ve just learned more and more the problems the nonprofit sector is trying to solve is too big for them to do alone,” he said. “These problems for churches and charities really need to be solved by cities and counties.”

Gray, who was named the Orlando Sentinel’s Central Floridian of the Year in May, has also been outspoken on his desires to spend some of the region’s Tourist Development Tax collections on affordable housing and transportation needs. Those funds are currently restricted to tourism promotion, although an expansive definition has allowed Orlando to invest TDT money in sports and concert facilities, among other things.

District 4 includes south Orange County, Orlando International Airport, and east Orange neighborhoods like Waterford Lakes.

Gray, of Waterford Lakes, said he could be drawn into a new district after the November election, where a charter amendment could add seats to the Board of County Commission.

rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com