- April 20, 2024
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For anyone in Volusia County that has ever had dreams of running for office there is now a chance to be a part of a free candidate training program.
The Flagler Volusia Public Leadership Institute program is providing a way for undeclared candidates to be better prepared for the process of running for an elected official position within either of the two counties. The program is being extended to Volusia County thanks to a new partnership between the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce and the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The four September sessions will be attended by 20 to 24 chosen applicants and will take place at the Flagler Chamber in Palm Coast and a location in Daytona that has not yet been announced. Though there is no fee for applicants, they must not be incumbents and cannot declare or file beforehand.
The program was spearheaded in 2015 when the Flagler County Chamber started the Flagler Public Leadership Institute, which had a graduating class of 10. According to officials, five of those graduates ran for public office in 2016. Of the five, two were elected: Flagler Beach City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur and Flagler County Commissioner Donald O’Brien.
“It was extremely helpful and important to me in my campaign, that, I ultimately won,” O’Brien said. “We went through a lot of exercsises to see if you really wanted to be a candidate and if you really wanted to pursue public service.”
The program is handled in a way so that it is nonpartisan and no endorsements are made, according to Jim Cameron, senior vice president, Government Relations, with the Daytona Regional Chamber.
This year, attendees will be able to hear from speakers such as State Senator Travis Hutson and Marian Johnson, senior vice president of Political Strategy at the Florida Chamber.
“We hope this program can be of some benefit to them as for campaigning and what the requirements are,” Cameron said. “We hope they’ll have a little better knowledge as to what they can expect if they do decide to file to run for an elected office.”
The program is promoted as being beneficial to residents looking into running for office in 2018. Cameron said that doesn’t have to be the case for everyone. He noted interested individuals may not be planning to run the following year but can use this as a way to plan beyond that timeframe.
To help prepare for that future, those within the program will be educated on a variety of issues that they will run into if they campaign. O’Brien said this can include taking self inventory and working with other individuals to see if those involved really want to run for public office.
“If you go through the program and you pay attention and you take lots of notes and follow their track to run on, win or lose, you're going to do a good job on your campaign,” Cameron said.
Applications can be found online here and are due to the Flagler County Chamber and Daytona Regional Chamber before Friday, July 28 at 5 p.m.
