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Monday night, Ocoee Commissioner George Oliver III retracted his statement about the city charter amendments and Project 2025.
A video showing him speaking at a church was posted to his YouTube channel at about 8 p.m.
The video had no description with it so it’s uncertain which church Oliver was at when he retracted his remarks. He spoke for about three minutes.
“I’m going to retract what I said,” said the District 4 commissioner, who is asking voters to give him a third term in the March 11 election.
“I said that the amendments that we're going to deal with in the city of Ocoee came directly from Project 2025. I'm going to retract that statement.”
Oliver initially made the statement, which is not true, at St. John the Baptist Church in Orlando on Feb. 9. He dodged questions about where he found mention of the charter amendments in the Project 2025 policy document at the Ocoee Political Forum on Feb. 12.
Even as he retracted his statement, Oliver said he was going to “stand on the premise of why I said what I said.”
He explained that Project 2025 is allowing a small group of people to interpret the U.S. Constitution “any way they see fit.” He drew a parallel to the city charter amendments, which he said will give the city commission “the power and the authority to interpret the city charter any way they see fit.”
Oliver said that was too much authority to vest in the commission.
“ If you're not a judge and a jury,” he said, “then that's way too much power to give to anyone. Never give anyone that kind of power.”
