A simmering feud between Mayor Teresa Jacobs and Orange County Tax Collector Scott Randolph is building over an office-space fight, one which could boil over at Tuesday’s County Commission meeting.
Randolph wants out of what he says is a more costly and inconvenient headquarters in the downtown SunTrust Center. Instead, he would move his main operations to an office complex near the Fashion Square Mall that’s more accessible for customers and could save $1.6 million over five years, he said.
“I simply cannot justify to the taxpayers staying in the SunTrust Tower any longer while I have found a better and more immediate solution,” Randolph wrote Jacobs in a memo last week. “I have an obligation as an elected official to do what is best for the taxpayers.”
But Jacobs and her top staff oppose Randolph’s move. They have urged him to renew the SunTrust lease, and wait for a larger county government campus solution to come on line, perhaps in five years.
The issue is likely to be debated Tuesday, when county commissioners discuss whether to renew the SunTrust lease. But the behind-the-scenes negotiations have turned tense.
Mayor Jacobs, tax collector spar over office space – Orlando Sentinel.
