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THE BACKSTORY: The amendments to charter sections C-9, C-10 and C-17 were proposed after District 4 Commissioner George Oliver III filed a lawsuit with Orange County's Ninth Circuit Court over the commission’s 4-1 vote on Nov. 7, 2023, to disqualify him from running in the special election last March for the remainder of his term. Oliver vacated his seat two years into his second four-year term for what turned out to be an unsuccessful bid for mayor. The city commission appointed Ages Hart in March 2023 to fill Oliver’s seat until a special election was held. Originally, the special election was slated for June 13, 2023, but then moved to March 19, 2024. Hart was the only dissenting vote against disqualifying Oliver from that March election. At the time, the commission said Oliver would be eligible to run again in 2025. Hart is now running against Oliver for the District 4 seat. In his lawsuit, Oliver argued that the commission was wrong to conclude he wasn’t qualified to run for his old seat following his resignation because any “successor” had to be a separate individual and not the one who vacated the seat. In December 2023, an Orange County judge ruled in favor of Oliver who was permitted to run in the March 2024 election. He subsequently won his old seat.
THE PURPOSE: The proposed amendments are intended to close the loopholes in the city’s charter that allowed Oliver to succeed himself after resigning his seat mid-term to run for mayor and give the commission full power to judge the qualifications of commission members as well as candidates for commission. “So, as of now, according to an Orange County Circuit Court opinion, a convicted felon could run for the Ocoee City Commission, and the commission can do nothing about it,” Ocoee City Attorney Richard Geller told VoxPopuli in a phone interview. “A person could lie about and falsify their residency in order to run for the commission, and the Ocoee City Commission can do nothing about it.” [In fact, in 2023, a former felon ran for the District 1 seat and a candidate whose primary residence was found to be in Orlando ran in District 3.] He said the circuit court’s December 2023 order held that the Ocoee City Commission had “no power whatsoever” under the city charter to keep an unqualified candidate off the ballot even though unqualified individuals could “siphon votes away from legitimate candidates and distort election results.” “If citizens approve of the proposed charter amendments, they would restore to the city commission its function to be the judge of the city's elections, including judging the qualifications of candidates for those elections,” Geller said. If passed, he said the commission could presumably keep a candidate with qualification issues off the ballot, but that candidate would have the right to appear and mount a defense in a hearing before the commission. “If the city commission makes a clear error, then there is a process for appealing to the circuit court,” Geller said. “But the idea here is that you avoid expense, you have decisions made by those who are closest to the people by having these types of matters decided by the city commission.”
THE TIMING: Residents are voting on these amendments now because the November 2024 presidential election ballot was simply too long with six state and 10 county amendments to accommodate them. Former Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles, who retired in January 2024, decreed that March was the time for municipal ballot amendments, Geller said.
THE AMENDMENTS: Geller offered VoxPopuli what he described as a “10,000 foot view” of the proposed amendments to help with the decision process. VoxPopuli has included the amendments here as they’ll appear on the March ballot. Download and view the highlighted and proposed changes to each section of the charter on the Ocoee city website here.
Section C-9 of the City of Ocoee’s Charter shall be amended to provide that the City Commission has authority to interpret and enforce the City Charter subject to review of such decisions by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?
___ YES
___ NO
DRILL DOWN: This amendment would “confirm or establish that the city commission has authority to interpret and enforce the provisions of its own charter,” Geller explained. “Which you would think is perfectly natural and normal.”
Section C-10 of the City of Ocoee’s Charter shall be amended to provide that the City Commission has authority to judge the qualifications and eligibility of candidates for the Commission, establish procedural rules for C-10, including ensuring that notice and due process is given to affected persons and provide for review of such decisions by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?
___ YES
___ NO
DRILL DOWN: The judge’s ruling in the Oliver lawsuit had focused on the commission’s established authority over “members of the commission,” deciding since candidates were not members, the commission had no authority to judge their qualifications. This amendment seeks to expand the commission’s authority to judge candidate qualifications in addition to commission members. “If the city commission makes a clear error, then there is a process for appealing to the circuit court,” Geller said. “But the idea here is that you avoid expense, you have decisions made by those who are closest to the people by having these types of matters decided by the city commission.”
Section C-17 of the City of Ocoee’s Charter shall be amended to state that a member of the City Commission who resigns cannot thereafter seek election to any part of the same term of office from which the member resigned.
Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?
___ YES
___ NO
DRILL DOWN: For this amendment, Geller referenced language from the state’s resign-to-run law, which outlines the restrictions on individuals qualifying for public office. Oliver had been required by the law to give up his commission seat in order to run for mayor. Geller said that the city commission “interpreted Section C-17 of the city charter to mean that when a commissioner resigns to run for another office, resignation is irrevocable. The former commissioner cannot run for any part of the original term from which he or she resigned.” Geller described this amendment as one that “enforc[es] the intent of an irrevocable resignation.” But he added that once the original term expired, the former commissioner could then run again.
“This was an issue, a disputed issue, and the commission is asking the voters to make the charter very clear and to not leave any ambiguity that may result in costly litigation in the future,” Geller said.
