The current District 2 commissioner, Gregory Hansen, is not seeking re-election, so this is an open seat this year. Two Republicans, Greg Feldman and Theresa Pontieri, will be on the ballot for their party’s primary in August. The winner will face independent candidate Raymond Royer in the general election in November.
News4JAX sent a questionnaire to each candidate asking about their background and their views on several issues. Scroll down to read the responses of those seeking your vote in their own words.
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Note: Responses are sorted alphabetically by party and are presented exactly as submitted, with no editing by News4JAX staff.
| REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES |
Greg Feldman
Occupation: Retired from law enforcement after 47 years.
Age: 77
Family: Married 45 years. Two adult sons who are both Firefighter/Paramedics for Flagler County Fire Rescue and 3 grandchildren, ages 8, 5, and 3.
Education: BA University of Oklahoma
Political experience: Tried once years ago for office but did not win. I have been volunteering for various entities/organizations for the last 13 years.
What do you see as the top three issues in this race, and how do you plan to address them?
One challenge is managing growth responsibly. Thousands of new homes, apartments and commercial properties are in various stages of planning. Development will continue, and I will work with staff, the other commissioners, other jurisdictions and the many stakeholders to ensure projects respect property rights while requiring compatibility with existing neighborhoods, follow land development codes and demonstrate adequate infrastructure planning and implementation from the outset.
Flagler County Fire Rescue (FCFR) is a component of our county’s public safety efforts. In fiscal year 2024, FCFR saw over 19,000 calls for service. Of those, over 15,000 were for emergency medical service (EMS) as FCFR is the sole provider of actual rescue units in Flagler County regardless of jurisdiction. That number is served by 10 Rescue stations scattered around the county, ensuring an average response time of approximately 5 minutes regardless of the location within the county.
Based upon county growth, the number of calls, and specifically, EMS calls for service will continue to grow as well as expand to other areas not currently high volume. It is the role of the County Commission to make sure that FCFR has the fiscally sound resources to maintain the response time for professional fire and rescue services in Flagler County.
Traffic and vehicle volumes have become a topic of conversation in Flagler County, accelerating along with the pace of homes and businesses being built. The last few years have brought a number of large-scale housing developments proposed or under construction. As a member of the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners I will draw on my experience as a member, and current Chairman of the Volusia Flagler Transportation Planning Organization’s Community Advisory Council to work on solutions to these problems. I will work to bring the major participants to this issue; FDOT, all of the cities, and the county road and engineering departments, to the table to have frank and open discussions to solve the issues of traffic management, signalization, road volumes and more. Through a cooperative effort centered on resolution, solutions improving this aspect of the quality of life for residents, business owners and visitors can be identified, addressed and resolved for everyone’s benefit.
How can you help voters in a way that others running for this office cannot?
I bring 47 years of law enforcement experience to the table. Through this experience I bring skills in conflict resolution, complex decision making and a very analytical perspective to the dais. I am not afraid to make decisions for our county but I do so after careful analysis of information presented on specific topics and evaluating them to determine the benefit for everyone in Flagler County.
What would you hope to be remembered for accomplishing after serving in this office?
I hope that I will be remembered as someone who stood up for the residents, visitors and businesses of Flagler County, did the absolute best that he could for them, was honest and respectful and, most of all, made our lives just a little bit better all around.
Campaign website: www.votefeldman.com
Campaign social media: Facebook
Theresa Pontieri
Campaign website: theresaforflagler.com
Campaign social media: Facebook
The Republican candidate has not responded to email and telephone invitations to complete the News4JAX candidate questionnaire. If responses are received, they will be promptly posted in this space.
| INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE |
Raymond Royer
Occupation:
United States Navy Veteran
Tradesmen / Professional
Laborer I - 78 Highway Bridge Construction
Steelworker, Topton Pa.
Pipefitter, Philadelphia / Allentown
Royer Mechanical Services Proprietor / Owner
Retired City of Allentown, Pa., firefighter
Age: 62
Family:
Wife Jan Paxson
Son Shawn , daughter- inlaw Touyen reside in Texas
Son Justin , daughter - inlaw Andressa reside in California
Education:
Wm. Allen High School Class of 1982
Lehigh Valley Vo - tech Auto Body
Navy SARS
Bethlehem Vo - tech Electrical , Plumbing , HVAC - R
Type I & II technician 40 CRF part 82, subpart F
Accredited Vertical Loop Installer Ground Source Heat Pump
Allentown Training Firefighter Academy
Political experience: Steelworker Washington D.C., two weeks
Penn Forest Township Supervisor Candidate Independent
What do you see as the top three issues in this race, and how do you plan to address them?
1. District 2 the leadership to establish a long and short term comprehension plan that’s 25 years overdue in order reaching State approval for beach replenishment / renourishment program to include innercoastal dredging canals, “” leadership has broken down to now only doing a maintenance beach program.“”
2. Working with other Flagler County Commissioners to establish long and short comprehension plan that for over 50 years of unfinished infrastucture mainly in District 4 and overall infrastructue that includes our safety and health. The unbalance in safty like County Fire is very below ISO stadards to were local citizens are being doubled taxed. ISO is a standard how insurance companies rate liability for home and car to bussiness policies. Two questions they ask is where is the closest fire hydrant to closest fire station.
3. Affordability, is the state of being inexpensive enough for people to realistically buy and pay for without sacrificing their standard of living, like our local control utilities in water and wastewater to trash fees. The ITT model never worked for the short term with numerous bankruptcies. To definitely not the long term being a model for mainly retirement homes and small businesses. Today our county and municipalities just cann’t solely relying on the fixed pension community without sacrifficing their standard of living or forcing them to move.
How can you help voters in a way that others running for this office cannot?
First by truly listening and then looking at all resources available at the county level. Lobbying or petitioning our State resources if that means I peronally have to sleep outside State represetative office doors or just have lunch to start by saying Flagler County needs funding for our betterment of life in safety and health to infrastructure.
What would you hope to be remembered for accomplishing after serving in this office?
For actully setting a " strong conerstone " in policies and rules to regulations in our much need for balance in safety and health to infrastucture throughout Flagler County that takes in highly consideration to calculate for affordability concept. Revisiting the organic Master Plan to orginal zoning and planning that has now become less rights for homeowners properties and exceptional rights for land developers. Leaving residential footprint communities with no basic protections or as it stands now no representation but continue taxation.
Campaign website: (None given)
Campaign social media: Facebook