Oliver who represents District 4 and is running for his third term, provided no evidence for his assertion that Ocoee’s city charter amendments are connected with Project 2025. 

Project 2025, formally known as the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, is a 922-page document prepared by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. as a “Presidential transition project” for the federal government. Some of its authors, like Brendan Carr and Russ Vought, now serve in the Trump administration as Chair of the Federal Communications Commission and U.S. Office of Management and Budget, respectively.

Oliver did not respond to VoxPopuli’s texted questions asking where Project 2025 referenced the Ocoee city charter amendments or how the Heritage Foundation was involved in drafting the amendments. 

A search of the online document for “Ocoee” and “Ocoee city charter” yielded no results. 

“I was on the board when these issue came up about the proposed changes [to the city charter], and none of us had even heard of Project 2025,” Former District 4 Commissioner Ages Hart, who’s opposing Oliver in the March 11 election, told VoxPopuli Tuesday in an email. “This is a classic example of fear-mongering at its finest.” 

Ocoee Mayor Rusty Johnson confirmed to VoxPopuli that no one from the Heritage Foundation was involved at any stage of drafting the three city charter amendments on the March 11 ballot. 

“ I've never had them call me. I've never had them send me anything. None of those people have ever … said anything to me about it,” Johnson said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. 

“It's totally an abuse of the truth to say that this is either related to Project 2025 or because some commissioners on the commission want to be able to do whatever they want,” said Scott Kennedy, District 1 Ocoee Commissioner, in a Tuesday phone interview. 

“ This sort of bringing national and state partisan politics and abuse of facts into Ocoee elections is a problem,” he continued. “It doesn't have a place here. The issues in this city, in my election and in the district for election, are about traffic, public safety, financial responsibility at the city and growth.” 

Hart, who is a part-time pastor with Livingston Street Church of God, said that the congregation trusts what a person says from the pulpit. 

“Most Black Americans were disappointed with the outcome of the 2024 presidential election,” Hart said. “He is using some of the talking points from the election to try and influence … the church members. The members do not know what is going on in Ocoee … We all know that charter amendments were put in place in response to the lawsuits and the [Ninth Circuit Court] judge’s ruling. Charter amendments have been around since there have been charters, so this is nothing new or inappropriate. For him to say that this was done maliciously or with malintent is not correct.”‍

What are the amendments about?‍

The three city charter amendments stem from the legal fight that resulted when Oliver vacated his commission seat midway through his second term as commissioner to mount what was an unsuccessful campaign for mayor and then wanted to run in the special election held to elect his successor. When the commission said he couldn’t succeed himself, but that he could run again in 2025 for a full term, he sued for the right to run for the seat he vacated and then won the seat. If the charter amendments had been in place in 2023 when he vacated his seat, Oliver would have had to wait a year to run again. 

"If they get the right to interpret the city charter in the way they want to interpret it, that means that certain people, they won’t allow to run for office.  They're going to keep the same ideology on that dais,” Oliver told parishioners, adding that when a huge project comes through, “who do you think is going to get those contracts? Like-minded people.” 

Johnson pushed back on the implication that the city was doling out contracts with a wink and a nod. “That’s slander,” he told VoxPopuli. Johnson said the city has a process for awarding contacts for projects. “We can’t dole out contracts to people unless it goes through the process.” 

At the time the city commission passed the charter amendments, City Attorney Rick Geller explained that the commission has the “inherent authority to interpret and enforce your own charter” and the amendment language makes that clear. The amendments would also allow the commission to evaluate candidates’ qualifications for office as they do commissioners’ behavior for remaining on the commission. And finally, the amendments clearly spell out that if a commissioner vacates their term early to seek other office and fails, they can’t run in the election to fill their open seat. 

“The reason for these charter amendments is because the vagueness and the interpretations of the charter led to disputes and litigation,” said Kennedy. “The charter dictates what the rules are and to take discretion and interpretation and empowerment of commissioners out of the process."