Supporters behind a sick pay ballot measure released a statement today by former Orange County Mayor Linda Chapin that has her asking commissioners and current Mayor Teresa Jacobs not to “derail” the political process by offering a last-minute, competing ballot measure.
“We have offered our citizens the right to collect signatures, 50,000 in this case, and then let voters decide the outcome. That’s the American way,” Chapin’s statement says. “How discouraging to open – and fair – government if officials were to step in at the last possible moment and use their own powers to try and derail the process. I hope it won’t happen and that our commissioners will let the voters decide how they want to deal with this issue.”
Advocates for sick leave and the business groups opposed to it are mobilizing their political allies for what could be a long, and contentious hearing on the two proposals at a 1:30 hearing Tuesday.
After several complaints from legal and gay rights advocates who warned that the competing ballot measure — designed to to kill sick time and any regulation of worker benefits in Orange — Jacobs released a response to them through Chase Smith, the county’s ombudsman and an aide to the mayor.
Click here for the full Orlando Sentinel Op-Ed
