- December 20, 2024
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Families enjoying themselves on the traffic free beach at Andy Romano Park.
People of all ages attending festivals, movies and events at the renovated Rockefeller Gardens and The Casements.
Children and adults exploring our wonderful Central Park and learning at the Environmental Discovery Center.
Children playing at the Boundless Playground, the T-Ball Complex and Championship Field and Fieldhouse at the Ormond Beach Sports Complex.
Veterans of all wars being honored at City Hall, on Memorial and Veterans Day and year-round at the Ormond Beach Memorial Art Museum (which was built by veterans).
The ongoing redevelopment of the downtown spurred by Bill Jones and strongly supported by Ormond Mainstreet and the Ormond Chamber.
The beautiful landscaping on all our major streets (There is no comparison between the beauty of West Granada and any other major east-west road in Volusia County.).
I could mention hundreds of additional events held, for example, at the Performing Arts Center and the Senior Center as well as the dozens of great parks and recreational facilities; however, I have limited myself to those above because they all came into existence during the 15 years I have served as a member and chairman of the Ormond Beach Leisure Services Advisory Board and as a city commissioner. All of these things were made possible by city commissioners willing to invest in improving the quality of life in Ormond Beach.
I am a positive person. I look for the good in people and in the good of the city. It is easy for those who embrace the negative side of life to select individual issues and seek to have everyone ignore all the wonderful things that have been created to try to focus upon the negative.
I am not so unaware as to not acknowledge that everyone can find something to complain about. I just believe that if Ormond Beach residents stop and reflect on their city, they will see that the positive contributions to the quality of life over the years far outweigh all negative complaints to be made.
Ormond Beach is a better city than it was when I first started serving. It has had outstanding commissioners who truly care about their community. It has dedicated staff, led by Joyce Shanahan, working daily to maintain and improve the community. It has dozens of caring citizens who serve on the city advisory boards. It has tremendous civic involvement from the Ormond Chamber, Ormond Mainstreet, Citizens for Ormond Beach and numerous other organizations filled with public spirited citizens always seeking to improve Ormond Beach.
It also has countless other citizens who worked tirelessly to build and refurbish the Magic Forest, who contributed to landscaping North U.S.1, who contributed to the building of the T-Ball fields and the Championship Field and Fieldhouse and who volunteer and help at the too-many-to-name city events and festivals held throughout the year.
It is all these people and all they have done for Ormond Beach that makes me so grateful that this is the community I chose to live in, to raise my children in, and to serve on both a city board and on the commission for the past 15 years.
I am retiring as Zone 3 Commissioner. I do so with the belief that Ormond Beach is a better place than when I first moved here and when I first started serving here. I want to thank all of the commissioners, staff, volunteers, civic organizations and citizens with whom I have worked who have helped create the quality of life that makes Ormond Beach the great city it is today.
I know that the commissioners with whom I have served will continue to do everything they can to further improve the quality of life in Ormond Beach. I have known Susan Persis to have dedicated her life to public service and civic involvement. Other than Susan, to whom the rest of this paragraph does not apply, I do not know nor have I been involved with any of the other people running against my fellow commissioners. They have not been on the City Commission, have not served on city advisory boards, nor have they had a leadership role in any of the civic organizations and youth sports organizations to which I belong and have belonged.
I have not seen any of them (other than Mr. du Moulin) at any of our substantive workshops (capital improvement projects, 2018-2019 budget, tax rate, health care, all of which would impact their first year in office if elected) nor at recent commission meetings. None of them have ever addressed the City Commission on any agenda item. I would like to believe that they would like to continue to build the quality of life in Ormond Beach. Other than Susan, I just haven’t had enough experience with any of them to know.
When you weigh the positive contributions to the quality of life of Ormond Beach that the existing commissioners have made versus the unknown you will be facing in voting for those who have never served nor who have any record of participating in all that I have mentioned above, I believe the choice is clear as to whom you should support in the coming election.
To me it is not a close call.
Rick Boehm is serving as the Zone 3 city commissioner. He is not seeking re-election in November.
