- April 20, 2024
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Two more candidates have filed to run in the upcoming election for seats on the Ormond Beach City Commission. Both have run for local office before.
Rob Bridger, U.S. Navy veteran and past three-term homeowners association president for The Trails, filed to run for Ormond Beach mayor on May 27. A resident of Ormond Beach since 1989, Bridger worked for the state for 35 years in management and administration of health and human services programs. He currently serves on The Trails board of directors, as well as the board for the Ormond Beach Senior Games. This will be his third time vying for the mayoral seat against incumbent Mayor Bill Partington, who has held the seat since 2016; Partington has been on the commission since 2010.
Bridger said he decided to run again because the issues he was concerned with in the past, particularly when it comes to development, continue to be present in the city.
"I thought long and hard about that decision, and I felt like it was something that still needs to be addressed," Bridger said. "I really want to run a grassroots campaign to save our city from the overdevelopment that threatens our small city quality of life, threatens our environment, and ultimately will threaten our water supply."
If elected, Bridger said he wants to support more citizen input during workshops and meetings, as well as reestablish an environmental advisory board and establish a tree advisory board, which was proposed by a group of citizens in 2020. He also said he would seek to add a development review board to look at the quality of development projects beyond the legal requirements. Currently, developments are reviewed by the city's Site Plan Review Committee and the Planning Board before coming to the City Commission for approval.
"We need to look at restoring our strict wetland rules and protecting homeowners' rights, because everyone talks about the rights of developers to develop their property, but we have to wrestle and deal with the issue that we have a city comprehensive plan and that rezoning and special exceptions are not an entitlement," Bridger said.
Other issues he supports include making following the city's low impact development guide a requirement for new development, increasing pay for first responders and developing a partnership with a medical entity to provide an emergency room or urgent care facilities on the beachside.
Adding his name to the race for the open Zone 1 seat on the City Commission is longtime resident Tim Grigsby, who filed to run on May 25.
Grigsby, a project manager with engineering firm McKim and Creed, has lived in Ormond Beach for 28 years. He's been active in organizations that advocate for preserving the Loop, and was part of the group of locals who were trying to save the Ormond Beach Union Church from demolition last year. He's also part of Citizens Against Runway Extensions, a grassroots group that is against the Ormond Beach Municipal Airport's proposed runway extension project. This is Grigsby's second time running to represent Zone 1 on the commission; he ran in 2020 against incumbent Dwight Selby, who is not seeking re-election.
Grigsby said he decided to run again because overdevelopment, traffic and public safety issues continue to worsen.
"The second reason is because I feel like local politics and local city government have been run too long by wealthy businessmen and developers and outside interests — political actions committees from Tallahassee and other places," Grigsby said. "We're not really getting candidates elected that vote for what's best for the Ormond Beach citizens. They tend to vote for people that donated to them and what projects they're interested in pushing."
He said in a candidate statement that he has grown increasingly concerned with recent developments, such as Plantation Oaks, Dixie Ridge, Granada Pointe and Avalon Park Daytona. He said the city needs someone to fight for the few preserved natural areas, and seeks to restore citizen trust in elected officials by declining donations from developers, corporations or PACs. If elected, like Bridger, he wants to bring a medical facility to the beachside, reinstate the 2009 wetland rules and establish an environmental advisory board and a tree advisory board, as well as insert low impact development principles in the city's land development code.
"I want to stop this process of replacing tree canopies with rooftops and strengthen up our environmental rules and development rules in this city," Grigsby said.
He also seeks to work with the county and the state to find funding sources to replace septic systems within the city and in developments outside the city where Ormond Beach provides water. He also wants to restore a municipal golf course.
The qualifying period for candidates began at noon on Monday, June 13 and will run through noon Friday, June 17. One Ormond Beach candidate — Bob Vaeth — has since withdrawn from the Zone 4 race.
