- March 14, 2025
Donald W. Fleming
AGE: 67
FAMILY: Married, three sons and two stepdaughters
QUIRKY FACT: Had coffee with President Ronald Reagan
BIO: Fleming has 38 years of law enforcement experience; Vietnam veteran. Was chief of police for 14 years in New Jersey, relocated to Florida in 2001. He taught criminal justice/sociology at Farleigh Dickinson University from 1983 to 2001. Lifelong member at the VFW. Has served as Flagler County sheriff since 2005. Was the 2010 Elk Citizen of the Year. Awarded the 2011 Regional Award for Excellence in Public Safety by the North Florida Regional Center.
What would you do differently with the budget in the next four years?
I’ve had to give back over $2 million over the last four years and going into next year, I’ve given back another $1 million. I would still try to be fiscally conservative with the money being spent in the agency, plus I realize that Flagler County is still the No. 1 unemployed county in the state. There’s people out there not working and without jobs, and I would be fiscally conservative with how I spent the money. ...
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to give any pay raises to anyone over the last three years, but nobody’s been laid off. If you look at the state of Florida’s sheriff agencies, all have laid off deputies. We’ve been frugal enough that we didn’t have to lay anybody off. ...
And you always have the jail. The jail is a facility that was built back in the ’90s and was build to hold 132 people. We run sometimes between 145 and 180. ... I don’t believe we should spend $22 million right now on (the jail). I think we need to be a little more conservative and add on over the course of time. Maybe over the next five to six years we can put an additional 300 beds in there, but not spending the money all at one time.
If re-elected, what steps would you take to make Flagler County a safer place to live?
I think my record speaks for that. Over the last eight years, I think four over the last five years, our crime rate has been down now consistently. We’ve done things that are very proactive; we’ve established our website, which offers lots of information and opportunities to participate in several of our programs, including the Citizens Police Academy. We also have the Crime Suppression Team that we established about a year ago. That team was made up of just four people with a supervisor and a K-9, and they do not answer calls; they just go to what we call “trends” or “hot areas” where crimes are being committed and over the course of the last year, we have 55 felony arrests and have returned over $250,000 in stolen merchandise. That’s a proven fact.
We have 44 neighborhood watches now in Flagler County, and that is a place for people to learn all about their neighborhoods and the deputy who works in that area goes in there and talks to them. ... I have a philosophy about a three C kind of law enforcement package: first one being crime prevention, second one being cost, and the third one being communication. When you talk about communication and crime, as long as you have an open line of communication between the city commissioners and the people that you serve, they become our eyes and ears and they help us to reduce crime.
Our main focus is to be proactive. We’ve established a Copstat, where we look at the crimes that are being committed on a daily basis; we look for trends, we look for suspects, we share intelligence with the Bunnell Police Department and Flagler Beach Police Department. ... We’re working on something now called Predictable Policing. It’s a study that’s being done in California where there might be a hot area where during the course of the day and other areas are quiet enough, we just throw another one or two cars into that area. It’s not designed to make arrests, but it is designed to deter crime. ... I sit every morning and I watch the news and I look at the things going on in Orange County and the communities around us; our community is a safe community. And it’s the men and women that work the streets that make it safe.
What is one thing that you’re most proud of in your tenure as sheriff? What is one thing that you would’ve done differently?
I’m most proud of the agency that I’ve developed. When I became sheriff, the agency needed direction, it needed training. I established a training division that was nonexistent at the time, and I made it into an agency that now does about 30,000 hours of training a year. ... These deputies do not go alone on the street probably before about six months (after they’re hired).
The second part of that is I think equipping the agency with the most modern things. We have a CAD system; we’re probably going to be paperless in the next five years; we have a system in place that allows the deputy to do work right from his car, file a report right from his car and get the work done. I’m proud of the Citizen Observer Patrol program that we’ve started; there’s states that are calling and asking us for our model. ... The other part of it is I’m very proud of the programs we’ve established for kids. They take our kids off the streets and put them in the playgrounds. And we have law enforcement officers that supervise these things. I think that has a positive effect on the kids when they can interact with law enforcement personnel and they can see that they’re human. I’m also very proud of the men and women that I’ve hired. They’re dedicated. ...
I don’t think there’s anything I would’ve done differently. I might’ve looked into things a little further before I reacted to certain things. I believe that everything I’ve done, I’ve done with the right reasons and the right motives. I’m a believer of being open to the public. ... I have no regrets.
What makes you the most qualified to be sheriff of Flagler County?
I’ve been chief of police or sheriff now for 23 consecutive years, and I think that’s a legacy that’s going to be hard to duplicate.
