ACTION ALERT: Orange County Commission Meeting on Redistricting Lawsuit

PLEASE ATTEND THIS VITAL MEETING AND LET THE COMMISSION KNOW THAT THEY ARE STABBING YOU AND YOUR’S!  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!THE HISPANIC COMMUNITY WILL CALL UPON THE ORANGE COMMISSION TO REJECT LEGAL BATTLE AND ADOPT FAIR REPRESENTATION NOT WASTE BIG MONEY!

Alliance President Pura Delgado, who has a long history and national reputation as an advocate for racial and ethnic justice, said, “This insanely expensive initiative is a slap in the face for the County’s growing Latino community. It directly reflects the kind of resistance to change which I saw in the 1960’s and 1970’s when the Black people sought justice and representation.  It is just not acceptable, 50 years later, to spend taxpayer dollars to fight taxpayers and citizens and voters in the Hispanic community who seek fair representation on the County Commission”.Community leaders called upon Mayor Jacobs to step back from paying an expensive lawyer, whose expertise comes from fighting the League of Women Voters on the Fair Districts Florida initiative.   “This is the sort of thing we might have seen in Orange County in 1965, but the new Hispanic Community deserves representation just as much as the Black Community deserved it in the ’60s”, said David Rucker, Vice President of the Alliance.  “We had to wait twenty years, until 1988, to get a seat at the table and that kind of waiting is not acceptable”.Delgado noted further, “This big money, could be used to hire five new multi-lingual operators for emergency response, where we already know about problems.  Crushing our hopes for representation is not one of our needs.  The County should settle with the plaintiffs and adopt an immediate plan to correct this injustice”.

Congressman Alan Grayson issued a statement this week, saying, “This is money that could be used for education or public safety. Instead, it will be used to defend a questionable redistricting plan that allegedly discriminates by diluting the voice of Hispanics. I sincerely hope that the Orange County Government finds a better, more appropriate use, for these taxpayer funds.”

The County Commission will vote to spend this money at a Commission Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 30, their next meeting.  Tell them this is wrong! The request for the money was placed on the “Consent” agenda by Mayor Jacobs at the request of the County Attorney. The voters of District 3 also called upon members of all minority communities to stand united in opposition to this waste and upon sitting members of the County Commission to vote to oppose this expense and to instruct the County Attorneys to settle the case.