- October 11, 2024
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Local businessman Jason Leslie is running for Ormond Beach mayor in the 2024 elections.
Leslie — who owns Big Kid Toys, an e-bike retailer in Daytona Beach — filed to run for the seat on Friday, June 9. As someone with almost 20 years of business and entrepreneurship experience, Leslie said, he decided to run for office because he wants to do more for the community, especially since he hears or reads about decisions made by elected officials that have made community members upset.
“I’d like to be on the other end of it, hearing people and hopefully making more positive changes,” Leslie said.
So far, Leslie will be running against Zone 3 City Commissioner Susan Persis, who filed for the mayoral seat in March. Incumbent Mayor Bill Partington will be running for the Florida House in 2024.
Leslie, who grew up in the Jersey Shore, has lived in Ormond Beach for about two and a half years. He first visited five years ago when his sister moved to the area. He said he enjoyed Ormond’s “small beach community feel.”
He said he’s interested in overdevelopment. It has been a hot topic for every election since he’s lived in Ormond, he said. He added that he’d like to see more blighted properties redeveloped.
“Let’s try to get those places up and running again,” Leslie said. “Maybe focus more on our current infrastructure, which I’ve been on the other end of it as an entrepreneur. ... We could probably still grow as a city by even just focusing on some of those things.”
He said he’s looking forward to campaigning with an “old-school approach.” His campaign slogan, he said, is “community first.”
“I want to talk to people in the community and have conversations and find out from them what they feel about the community and things that they are concerned about,” Leslie said.
