Orange County's Newest Mayor to Champion DP benefits
Today, Teresa Jacobs was inaugurated as Orange County's fourth Mayor. Jacobs, a Republican, won in November with 67.6% of the vote. Also sworn into office today were Commissioners Ted Edwards, Jennifer Thompson, Fred Brummer and Tiffany Moore-Russell.
In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel days before her inauguration, Mayor Jacobs expressed her support for domestic partnership benefits for County employees.
(Photo from the Orlando Sentinel.)
"Question: What are your early,
main goals?
main goals?Answer: One of the things is [closing] the ethics loopholes that I knew were in place when it came through the first time; make sure that it has teeth, look at secondary sources of income. And I'm also very interested in having a whistle-blower-protection act in place.
We're going to bring forward the health-care benefits for domestic partners [issue] in the first quarter. The jobs summits are already under way. The whole first quarter will be devoted to having somewhere between eight and 10 jobs summits across Orange County, focused in different regions..."
We're going to bring forward the health-care benefits for domestic partners [issue] in the first quarter. The jobs summits are already under way. The whole first quarter will be devoted to having somewhere between eight and 10 jobs summits across Orange County, focused in different regions..."
Equality Florida, as part of the OADO Committee (pictured above), has been working with Mayor Jacobs for months to secure domestic partnership benefits in Orange County. This move comes just months after Orange County passed a Human Rights Ordinance that protects LGBT people in housing, employment and public accommodations. Equality Florida applauds Mayor Jacobs for choosing to make domestic partnership benefits one of her first actions as Mayor. Stay tuned for more on this very exciting development.
