- December 13, 2025
A Hammock resident has launched an initiative to create a new county in Florida named after Pres. Donald Trump.
Jen Herold and her husband Rob Jarowski, Flagler County residents who live in The Hammock, launched the petition initiative on Nov. 18 to create a 68th county in Florida. For now, it is a grassroots effort to gauge interest, but Herold said they are completely serious about the endeavor.
“We're very serious about it,” Herold said. “I don't think anything is out of left field these days. You just have to be willing to take chances. And things may fail, things may take off. You just never know.”
The proposed Trump County would encompass parts of the barrier island in St. Johns County and Volusia County and all of Flagler County. It would include the barrier island portion of the following areas: Anastasia Island, St. Augustine Beach, Butler Beach, Crescent Beach, Marineland, The Hammock , Painters Hill, Beverly Beach, Flagler Beach, Ormond-by-the-Sea, Ormond Beach, Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach Shores, Wilbur-by-the-Sea and Ponce Inlet.
But what led to the desire to leave Flagler County?
Primarily, the county’s beach management plan and a special taxing district for The Hammock that would help fund beach management, Herold said. Many residents in The Hammock, she said, don’t agree with the proposed MSBU.
“We were just looking at different ways to kind of solve this problem and how we can have a long-term solution,” she said.
Over the course of the last two years since Flagler County began its beach management program in earnest, many members of the public have found criticism for Flagler County’s ideas to fund the plan. Hammock residents in particular do not want to front the majority of costs while residents west of Interstate 95 have spoken out against the implementation of a half-cent sales tax to support it.
Throughout it all, misinformation and confusion has also abounded. What is fact, according to the Flagler County commission meeting documents and beach management plan, is that the beach management plan will be funded though a variety of combined revenue sources.
One is the proposed MSBU, which was established in December 2024, and encompasses the unincorporated Flagler County area on the barrier island. No tax has been levied yet, as the county is still completing a study that would designate how the tax should be apportioned in the area.
As well, revenue from the MSBU could only be used to work on beach management in The Hammock area, not the entirety of Flagler County’s 18-mile shoreline. But Hammock residents turned out in force at a Sept. 11 Flagler County Commission meeting to demand no tax be levied at all.
And, Herold said, it is more than just the beach management that concerns residents. The main goals of the new county would be to prevent an increase in taxes, increase economic activity in the area and fortify the area's infrastructure, Herold said.
Since Herold launched the Trump County a week ago, she wrote in an email to the Observer that she has been ridiculed for her efforts because people can't get past the headline and the name "Trump."
A new county has not been established in Florida for 100 years: Gilchrist, Gulf, Indian River and Martin Counties were all founded in 1925. But Herold’s initiative is not the first time in recent history residents have attempted to create a 68th county.
In 2021, residents of Siesta Key, Florida, a barrier island of just 2.5 square miles, proposed seceding from Sarasota County. Another 2020 effort proposed splitting Alachua County in two. Both efforts ultimately died out.
According to Florida state statutes, creating a new county would take an act of law by the state legislature and a referendum from voters in the affected area. The setup for a new county would also require elected county commissioners and “a sheriff, a tax collector, a property appraiser, a supervisor of elections, and a clerk of the circuit court.”
Then there is the matter of funding. Herold said it is still in the very early stages of planning, but the barrier islands have a built-in revenue source in tourism tax dollars to the beaches.
Naming the county after Trump is also not just a way to honor Trump as Florida’s first president, but also would be a draw for revenue, too, for the name recognition.
Regardless of what some may think, this is not a stunt, Herold wrote in her email. She welcomes other ideas to meet the citizen's needs, but "what we're doing today flat out isn't working."
And she isn't going to stop, she wrote.
“We're not satisfied with the status quo, but we're just trying to think outside the box,” Herold said. “Even if it's totally off the wall.”
