- December 3, 2024
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Local businessman Jason Leslie is the new Ormond Beach mayor. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Randy Dye earned 48.61% of the vote for the County Council chair race, losing to incumbent Jeff Brower. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Incumbent Volusia County Council Chair Jeff Brower has won another four year term. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Donna Brosemer has won the Volusia County School Board race. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Lori and Bill Partington, who won the race to represent District 28 in the Florida House of Representatives. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Bill Partington is the third Ormond Beach mayor in recent years to serve in the Florida House. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Bill Partington Sr. and his son Bill Partington. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Ormond Beach has elected local businessman Jason Leslie as its new mayor.
Leslie won the mayoral seat with 53.6% of the vote in the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 5. His opponent, City Commissioner Susan Persis, earned 46.4% of the vote.
"I'm very excited," Leslie said. "Really happy to serve the people of Ormond Beach here. I think they made a good choice, and I'm ready to get to work as soon as day one starts here."
Leslie has lived in the city since 2021. He has been in the business industry for about 20 years and currently owns commercial real estate and an online e-commerce business.
He said he looks forward to sitting down with the city attorney and the city manager and go over issues such as the proposed Belvedere Terminals fuel farm, the Tomoka Reserve project previously proposed for the Tomoka Oaks golf course, and the future of Riverbend Golf Course.
Leslie thanked voters for their support.
"It really means so much to me that they voted for me and believed in me, and they won't regret it, because I'll keep my promise that I had in my campaign, and that was community first," he said.
Persis had been serving on the City
Commission since 2018 as the representative for Zone 3. A former teacher and principal for Volusia County Schools, she was reelected without opposition in 2020 and 2022.
"I just want to thank every single person that supported me," she said. "I had incredible support and I'll be forever grateful for that."
Leslie will be sworn into office on Nov. 19 along with incumbent City Commissioners Lori Tolland, Travis Sargent and Harold Briley — all whom were reelected to a two-year term without opposition — and Kristin Deaton, who won the Zone 3 race in the August primary election.
Who will represent District 4 on the Volusia County School Board? Voters have picked former lobbyist Donna Brosemer.
Brosemer earned 58.61% of the vote, edging out incumbent School Board member Carl Persis, who earned 41.39%.
After her race was called, Brosemer said she felt overwhelmed, but "extremely grateful for the opportunity" to serve on the School Board.
"It's very important to me to make significant changes to the way the district operates and the conditions in the classroom — improve conditions for bus drivers," Brosemer said. "We have fundamental obligations to the teachers and parents and students, and I don't think we've met them appropriately, and so that's why I decided to do this, and now I will get the chance to try it."
The District 4 School Board race was contentious at times, with local streets lined with signs proclaiming Carl Persis and his wife to be liberals (Susan Persis changed her political party to Republican last year) and criticizing Carl Persis' vote to enforce a mask policy at Volusia County Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Persises' political signs were also vandalized on several occasions.
Carl Persis was also among the 14 school board members identified by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023 as ones he wished to remove from office. Brosemer was endorsed by DeSantis for the local School Board race.
She said she expected the race to have been more contentious.
"I have a lot of respect for Carl for not going down the road that a lot of candidates — in particular at his level of power in the county, and his dominance as a political player for so many years in the county," Brosemer said. "He could have gotten down and dirty, and he didn't, and I appreciate that and I think that he pointed out differences between us, and so did I, and that's a normal thing to do in a campaign. I really feel good about the way both of us ran it."
Carl Persis has been serving the community since the 1990s as an elected official. He is a former Ormond Beach commissioner and mayor, as well as a former Volusia County Councilman. He was first elected to the School Board in 2016. He was reelected in 2020 with no opposition.
"I'm disappointed," he said of losing his election. "However, I'm grateful for all the people that voted for me — such wonderful people. Serving in public office is an honor and I have had the pleasure of serving the public for many years."
He said he was proud of his years in office and wished Brosemer all the best. The intensity of the negativity surrounding the School Board race — which is nonpartisan — shocked him, he said.
"I never envisioned Susan and myself as being controversial people," Carl Persis said. "... I didn't anticipate that either one of us would trigger this kind of hateful signage."
Incumbent Volusia County Council Chair Jeff Brower will serve for another four-year term.
Brower won 51.42% of the vote Tuesday night. His opponent, former race car driver and local businessman Randy Dye, earned 48.58%.
By Wednesday morning, Brower said he was already going back to work, speaking to the Observer while on his way to a low impact development seminar in Rockledge.
"No rest today but I'm happy about that," he said. "This is a topic that we really need for Volusia to understand and the council to act on."
The County Council chair race was close, with Brower having won by a 2.84% margin, or about 7,600 votes. Brower — who was removed from the Volusia County Republican Executive Committee's voter guide despite being a Republican himself — credited his volunteers for the win.
"We had to reach as many people as possible when the Republican Executive Committee volunteers were handing out their guide and acting like I didn't exist, and saying 'Vote for Randy Dye,'" Brower said. "We reached enough of them, but it was a grueling task and I had a small army of guerillas that worked for the 13 days of early voting."
Dye said his team spent 18 months campaigning. While Brower was ultimately reelected, Dye pointed to the number of votes cast in his favor — 131,473 to Brower's 139,142 — as proof that people want to see current issues addressed.
"There are people who want to see it get done and they want to see it get done soon," Dye said. "I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful that the challenges that the community has will get addressed and get taken care of."
He called campaigning for office "an amazing blessing" in terms of meeting different people and speaking to them about the issues impacting them. He knew the race was going to be close, as Brower had the name recognition as the incumbent. He thanked his volunteers and supporters for surrounding him on the campaign trail.
"I talked to as many people who were concerned about others more than themselves," Dye said. "That gives you energy, that gives you enthusiasm, that gives you strength to keep going."
Brower's focus remains on changing zoning on Hull Road to protect neighborhoods from the proposed fuel farm near Ormond Beach, coastal resilience and addressing flooding in his next term, Brower said. He looks forward to representing the people.
"I have learned that when I call on the people to come and support me on a topic they care about, they will come and fill the chambers, and that's going to be a common occurrence because public opinion can sway politicians, council members, City Commission members," Brower said. "I'm going to go directly to the people and ask for their support on things that they believe in."
