ORANGE PARK – Kenneth Vogel is running against Madison “Maddie” Hilt for Seat 4 on the Orange Park Town Council. 

“You always expect someone else to step up. I decided to throw my hat in and go for it, myself” Vogel said. 

Vogel is a local business owner of Essential Electric LLC. He has lived in Orange Park for 30 years. He says it's the best place to live, work, raise a family and call home. 

“It’s the best-kept secret,” he said about the town. "It’s a close-knit community."

Vogel says what he brings to the table is a creative, outside-the-box perspective intent on bolstering the town’s community. 

“We are limited by our own thinking. This could be a destination town. Everything has to go through here,” he said referring to the many thousands of cars that pass up and down U.S. Highway 17 on any given day. 

“Ultimately, the town should be a destination,” he said. 

“You can’t have a destination town without safety, and there has to be revenue. Revenue opens the door to many things, so we have to be enticing. I want to be the advocate for small businesses," he said. 

Being a small business owner is challenging, and Vogel says he wants to be their advocate. He also wants to give a voice to the underserved communities of Orange Park. 

"There's disparities throughout, such as in Grove Park. They need help. They need a voice. They need an advocate. My mother-in-law was a nurse at Grove Park Elementary, and I used to work as a counselor," he said. 

"How do we create the same equity for Orange Park and Grove Park elementary schools? What's the creative solution to create a paradigm shift?" he asked, in a rhetorical question. 

Vogel says he would consider town-led ways to provide after-school programs in Orange Park. In addition to creating an outlet for students, it would also spare parents the typical daycare costs. 

One way would be encouraging family sports and revitalizing the public parks in the town to make them more accessible to the underprivileged, he said. 

Vogel is interested in maximizing the utility of the town's existing recreational facilities. He's open to making the fields multipurpose for soccer and football, for example. 

Vogel says he wants to promote walkability, integral to maintaining the small-town charm. 

"We have to look to our future. Our kids are going to grow up. We want them to grow up and want to stay in the town. The goal is to create a community people love and don't want to leave," he said. 

“We got good folks. We got to keep them. We got to poach the good people from other cities. Bring them over!” he said. 

His favorite restaurants in Orange Park are 4 Rivers Smokehouse and Aron’s Pizza.

He currently serves as a board member for Orange Park's Historical Preservation Board. 

The election will be on Municipal Super Tuesday, April 9. For more information about the election process, reach out to the Clay County Supervisor of Elections.

Editors note – a previous version said, "Historical Society of Orange Park." This has since been corrected.