Orlando's mayor is taking some steps toward his goal of a domestic partner registry for the city. Buddy Dyer and his staff are gathering information and feedback from hospitals and school boards.
“Our legal staff is currently working up the guidelines for the ordinance and what the forms would look like,” said Cassandra Lafser, city public information officer.
She said once those documents are finalized, they'll go back to their partners for more feedback and then take the final ordinance “to the county to determine their level of participation.”
In May of this year, Dyer reached out to Orange County mayor Teresa Jacobs, encouraging her to lead the county in pursuing domestic partner registry at the same time as the city.
Once it is determined whether the domestic partner registry will be a city ordinance or a joint city/county ordinance, Lasfer said the next step is to bring it before the city council in October or November.
“If county's involved, we will have to bring it to their commission, as well, in that same time frame,” she said. “We're still doing our research and our plan is to reach out to them once we have a plan in place.”
It seems that for now, the county is biding its time.
Steve Triggs, communications division manager for Orange County, said, “We're letting them take the lead in this, in terms of due diligence, determining best practices.”
Triggs said county chief of staff, Graciela Noriega Jacoby, is keeping in touch with the city chief of staff, Frank Billingsley.
“We're hoping to hear back from them then run it by our legal folks in the hope that it's something we can do jointly in the future,” Triggs said. “Mayor Dyer's timetable he wanted to get it started right away, while Mayor Jacobs was concerned that there was too much on the county's plate.”
Triggs said they're “happy [the city is] going to do the initial research and then we'll work with them probably this fall.”
Attorney Mary Meeks is working with both the city and the county on establishing the domestic partner registry.
“I'm very pleased that both the city and the county have committed very high level resources to this very important project,” Meeks said.
She said the registry will bring very important benefits to hundres of thousands of people.
“It will be transformational for this area,” Meeks said. “I think we're very lucky to have both representatives from the city and county government who are smart enough and brave enough to be working on this together, to make these positive changes for our community.”
