Jacobs reflects on highs, lows
Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs’ training to lead Central Florida’s largest government began in the circus.
Jacobs, 60, whose eight-year run as mayor ends Monday, flew on a trapeze as a performer in the “Flying High Circus” at Florida State University, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in 1981. Not only did Jacobs meet her future husband, Bruce, under the collegiate big top, she said she learned perseverance and how to accept challenges.
“It’s the obstacles in my life that have made me who I am,” said Jacobs, who recounted a serious fall from the trapeze that broke two bones in an arm and the challenges she faced as the two-term ringleader of Orange County.
Prevented from running again because of term limits, Jacobs shifted her focus to another government body. In August, she won the race for Orange County School Board chair, and she starts her new position Tuesday. As she prepares to turn over the reins of county government to Mayorelect Jerry Demings, Jacobs re-
flected on a tenure that included highs and lows ranging from the record-shattering number of tourists who made Orlando the world’s top vacation destination to the devastation of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, where a gunman killed 49 people.
Jacobs, who cut her political teeth fighting a road project in her neighborhood, was president of the Orange County Homeowners Association when she was encouraged to run for office by then-Orange County Chairman Mel Martinez.
“I thought she was superbright,” said Martinez, who went on to serve as U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George W. Bush and later as a U.S. senator .
Martinez praised her leadership after Pulse. He said she was a good steward of taxpayers’ money and played a key role in directing tourist-tax money to help pay for Amway Center, Camping World Stadium and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
“We always talk at these times about legacy,” Martinez said, suggesting the venues will be part of hers. “I think she’s had a wonderful run as mayor and will be very much missed.”
Jacobs touched on a range of topics during a 90-minute interview after which she proudly showed off a worn out chair at her desk in the mayor’s fifthfloor office. Here are some excerpts of her thoughts.
Pulse nightclub: Asked what she was most proud of, Jacobs cited the community’s response to the Pulse massacre.
“I think it had a profound impact on us,” she said, reaching for a package of tissues. “I think we responded so incredibly.”
Jacobs said the attack on the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities were the “tangible results” of intolerance, discrimination and hate and the victims were embraced with unity, acceptance and love, a reaction which should never be forgotten.
“It’s the reason funding the memorial is so important to me,” said Jacobs, part of a unanimous commission vote to give the one-PULSE Foundation $10 million in tourist-tax money to buy land which can be for a museum and memorial. Mental health: The mayor also listed as an accomplishment the Youth Mental Health Commission, which she created in 2013 to develop strategies and initiatives to address mental health issues among children. The 20-member panel of community leaders, experts and law enforcement drafted a series of recommendations, including the creation of a mobile-crisis service.
Instead of calling 911, a teen in crisis — or a parent — can call 211 and have a mental-health professional respond within an hour.
“I hope we not only save lives but more importantly that we change lives as a result of that,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said she regretted the response team wasn’t in place before March 22, 2014, when two suicidal teens killed Windermere police officer Robbie German. Families of the teens found troubling farewell letters, suggesting they were desperate and dangerous.
“Three lives destroyed,” she said of the loss of Officer German and the teens, whose deaths were deemed a murder-suicide. Orange County Jail: On the other hand, Jacobs spoke with about the Orange County Jail and its vocational programs.
She said once viewed the jail as a place for “locking people up and keeping them until their time runs out.”
“I know now it’s way more than that,” Jacobs said.
She said the jail, which averages more than 2,600 inmates a day, provides not only challenges but also opportunities to change lives with vocational education programs and an initiative to help drug abusers beat addictions. Demings: Jacobs and Demings, the outgoing Orange County sheriff who sparred with Jacobs this summer over school safety
issues, have been acquainted for years. Their children attended the same elementary, middle and high schools.
“Up until now, I’d say we’re not very far apart,” Jacobs, a Republican, said of Demings, a Democrat. “He’s always been pretty fiscally conservative. We’ve worked together on the heroin task force and other things.”
As mayor, she said, her successor will inherit sticky problems that have proved tough to solve — including a shortage of affordable housing stock, homelessness, a deadly ongoing opioid crisis, and paying for SunRail and Lynx.
Textgate: Jacobs was sullied in her first term by “textgate,” a controversy accusing her and other commissioners of losing or deleting texts messages with lobbyists opposed to a paid sick-time measure. She denies she broke the law.
“I’m a peace with what I did but I’m not at peace with the fact I haven’t been able to explain that,” Jacobs said. “Trust is the most important thing that you can have as an elected official.”
Her style: Asked why some critics view her as divisive, Jacobs mulled the question for an instant.
“I often find in this position, if you ask questions, you’re negative, and if you disagree on an issue, you’re divisive,” she said. “I’ve always asked questions. I think that’s what I’m elected to do and I’m going to occasionally disagree on things.” Perseverance: Recalling her experience as a young flier on a trapeze, she said, “It’s that falling and getting back up and surviving and being scared to death every time I performed but performing anyway because I loved it and wasn’t going to let fear stop me.
“That’s how I ran for the County Commission — scared to death, freakin’ scared to death, afraid of losing,” she said. “Had I not fallen and broken my arm so badly, I would not have had that well of strength to do what I did when I ran.”