Ocoee, FL, Council Meeting
5 May 2026
Teresa Wright (199 words)

Mayor Johnson, commissioners, city staff, and members of the community … thank you for the opportunity to offer a few words to open tonight's meeting.

We are gathered here in early May, a moment that has long been associated with workers, with labor, and with the question at the heart of civic life: what do we owe one another?

It's a good question to carry into a commission meeting. Because the work done in this room …. on budgets, on zoning, on public safety, on infrastructure …. is ultimately an answer to that question, made concrete. It is democracy not as a grand abstraction, but as a Tuesday night.

The people of Ocoee are counting on that work to be done well. They are families and workers and neighbors with real needs and real stakes in these decisions.

May tonight's discussions be grounded in the facts before you, and guided by fairness.

May disagreement, when it comes, be treated as information rather than opposition.

May every voice in this room, and every resident not in it, be given genuine consideration.

And may the work done here tonight be something, years from now, this city looks back on with quiet pride.

Thank you.