Greg Feldman is one of two Republican candidates for Flagler County Commission, District 2, an open seat this year: Greg Hansen has opted not to run again. Feldman is running against Theresa Pontieri, who is completing her first term as a Palm Coast City Council member.
Only registered Republicans may vote in the primary. Independent Raymond Royer is also running. The winner of the Republican Aug. 18 primary will face Royer in the Nov. 3 general election, when all registered voters are eligible to cast a ballot.
Two seats are up on the commission in this election cycle. Incumbent Republican Leann Pennington is defending her District 4 seat in the primary against Republicans Ana Jones and Drew Moss. Since a write-in candidate filed to run, it will be a closed primary, with only voters registered as Republicans eligible to cast a ballot.
Flagler County Commission members serve four years. They’re paid $77,000 a year, an amount that will likely go up by a few thousand dollars by next year. .
The Live Interview format changed this year. Since 2010, FlaglerLive had submitted identical questions to all candidates, enabling them to answer in writing. There typically were a round or two of follow-up questions, also in writing. Artificial intelligence has made that approach obsolete now that candidates can run the questions through AI and spit out prefab answers. To get around that, candidates were invited to a video interview. The video and the transcript are provided below.
The candidates were provided the same basic question within half an hour or less of the scheduled interview, but obviously not the follow-ups, which all differed. The questions to county commissioners are here.
Following the interview and before publication, the interview transcript went through two rounds of editing at this end, once by AI (yes, the irony is inescapable) for spell checks, copy editing and to smooth out verbal tics or repetitive words, and once by me for the same purpose. The candidates were then provided with the interview transcript and the video to review–not to make substantial changes, but to verify transcription accuracy, and, if they so chose, to add a postscript: if they felt they may have misspoken, or not clarified a point, or preferred to revise an answer, they were given that chance in the postscript, without changing the original text in the transcript. The postscript window is remaining open for subsequent additions, until the election.
The interviews can be quite long–not a surprise for a site pathologically incapable of brevity, but the county is awash in candidate quickies. We offer a little more depth, seeking to draw a profile rather than check off boxes. The Live Interview’s aim is to elicit as much candor and transparency as possible, and to learn about the candidate beyond the basics in what amounts to extended conversations about the person, the character and temperament behind the candidate, the candidate’s seriousness, and the issues.
The rest is in the voters’ hands.
–Pierre Tristam
Flagler County Commission Greg Feldman (Dis. 2, R) Theresa Pontieri (Dist. 2, R) Anna Jones (Dist. 4, R) Drew Moss (Dist. 4, R) Leann Pennington (Dist. 4, R) Flagler County School Board Cathy Moon (Dist. 1) Jill Woolbright (Dist. 1) Will Furry (Dist. 2) Rob Wood (Dist. 2) Christy Chong (Dist 4) Ron Long (Dist. 4) Trevor Tucker (Dist. 4) Palm Coast City Council Tony Amaral Jr. (Dist. 2) Jeani Duarte (Dist 2.) Jimmy Hengy (Dist. 2) Dylana Dee Galery (Dist. 4) John Kvederis (Dist. 4) Ramon Marrero (Dist. 4) Darlene Sheley (Dist. 4) The candidates' interviews will be live-linked the day their interview publishes. |
The Interview Themes in Summary: Quick Links
- Basics
- Preparation and Character
- Grading the Commission
- Goals
- The homestead amendment
- Sales tax increase
- Blaise Ingoglia’s claims of waste
- Consolidation
- Environmentally Sensitive Lands
- Beach management
- Public safety budgets
- Rap sheet
- Postscript
See Greg Feldman’s resume here, and hs financial disclosure here.
FlaglerLive: Good afternoon, Mr. Feldman. It’s good to have you, and thank you for taking part.
Greg Feldman: Thank you for having me.
FlaglerLive: Can you tell us your place and date of birth?
Greg Feldman: I was born in Chicago, Illinois, and my date of birth is May 13 of 1949.
FlaglerLive: What brought you to Flagler County?
Greg Feldman: I was born and raised in Chicago. I lived in Oklahoma for four-five years, went back to Illinois and started my profession, which is law enforcement. Worked there for a number of years, and bottom line is, I got very tired of the cold weather, and so I moved to South Florida, where my mom and dad lived at the time, and I went to work down there, and I spent 25 years with the South Miami Police Department. Retired as assistant chief there, have spent some time with the City West Miami Police Department as a volunteer, mentoring and teaching the young guys, and I still do that once occasionally, not too often, and that’s how I got to Florida. How I got to Flagler County was, it was time for my wife and I, we decided, I mean, we’ve been together now 45 years, and we decided it was time to get out of Miami. There have been a lot of changes, and a lot of them were not positive, so we came up here because my sister-in-law and brother-in-law lived here, and we came up here. We found property in 2005, we built and had a house as of 2007. She got up here on disability in 2009 or 2010 and I got up here permanently in 2013.
FlaglerLive: When you say not positive changes in Miami, such as?
Greg Feldman: It became too crowded and kind of reflective of the conversations we hear today. The traffic was horrific. Just as an example, if I left my work downtown Miami for a while for the Department of Children and Families right downtown, and if I left my house at 8:00 AM, I would be lucky to sit in my office at 10:00, and it was 16.6 miles, because there are several times I rode my bicycle down.
FlaglerLive: You’re a Republican, you’re in the Republican primary. You’ve always been a Republican?
Greg Feldman: No, absolutely not. I was a Democrat in South Florida for quite a while, became unhappy with the politics that were going on in Miami. It was a… it’s hard to describe… it’s almost like there were a number of people there who wanted to be bigger than they were, and I got tired of that. I switched to independent, I came up here, and a year later I switched to Republican. So I’ve been a Republican since late 2014, early 2015.
FlaglerLive: In your time in Flagler County, you’ve been mostly retired, or you have worked?
Greg Feldman: I’ve been mostly retired. I did, in fact, work for the Sheriff’s Office for three years as a manager there of volunteer services. I’m also actively involved in things like I’m on the board of directors of Tiger Bay. I’m on the board, recently appointed to the board for Northeast Florida Crime Stoppers. I’m part of the Republican Executive Committee, and there’s… oh, I’m the county representative for the Volusia Flagler TPO, Transportation Planning Organization. I’m the current chair of the Community Advisory Council, which is where we take the public comment and we relay what we believe based upon public comment to the full body of the TPO, and I’ve been doing that. I did that before the Sheriff’s Office for a couple of years, and I’ve been on it now for almost four years since.
FlaglerLive: What led to the departure from the Sheriff’s Office?
Greg Feldman: There was an alteration in the budget. My position was eliminated, and it was time.
FlaglerLive: What have you done to prepare yourself for the county commission job from day one?
Greg Feldman: When I come into a community, no matter where it’s been, either South Florida, Oklahoma, or here, I become immersed in the community very quickly. I talk to people, I learn what’s going on, I learn the history of the county, I learn frankly the positives and the negatives, it’s important for me to know these things, so I have always paid close attention to the functions of government, how it’s run, who is running it, and I always approach it kind of like law enforcement out of what can we do better, so that’s how I prepared, is paying attention, watching, listening, watching commission meetings on, usually not there personally, because it’s easier for me to watch it on the internet, because then later on I can go back and say, “Wait a minute, what was said here, or what were they referring to there?” and it just makes it easier if I’m sitting there in person, then I kind of run back home, bring it up, and figure out where it was.
FlaglerLive: Have you studied some of their essential documents? Which would you consider essential, and what have you studied?
Greg Feldman: Most important one is the budget. I’ve looked at the budget, I’ve read the budget. Like any budget, there’s always something that catches your eye, and a few things have caught my eye, such as I’d have to have it in front of me right now to give you a specific example, but there are always things that you wonder, kind of like when you get your own charge card bill, and you look at something, you say, “Did I really buy that, did I really spend that?” there’s things that are in the budget where I might look and say, “Do we really need that now?” There might be an explanation, I don’t know, because it’s not in the budget itself, but I just pay attention.
FlaglerLive: There’s nothing glaring that stands out in your memory as far as one of those examples?
Greg Feldman: Not in a positive way, but one of the issues to me is that I don’t believe Fire Rescue is properly funded, and I’ve been saying this all along since I started campaigning, so that jumps out at me.
FlaglerLive: How do you arrive at a decision? What’s your methods?
Greg Feldman: I look at the question, I think about what I would feel towards the question. I look for information, either I do a Google search, I look for outside information, I look at the documents that are affected. There’s usually some type of paperwork on there, and most importantly, I look and I listen to what people have to say about it, and I’m not talking about necessarily the folks on Facebook who just have a negative opinion about everything. I talk to people, talk to you, I would talk to at a meeting of different organizations. I want feedback, people are choosing me to represent them, so my opinion, quite frankly, is secondary. What do the majority of people who come to me think? Now, having said that, it needs to be an informed viewpoint. People can’t come to me and say, “Well, you got to do this,” when in reality it’s illegal or it’s against ethics. So, overall, I really want to know what people think about specific issues, and if they don’t have any thoughts about it, that’s fine too. But if there’s a specific issue where there’s a lot of concern, I want to hear from everybody, because I don’t know everything. I want to know what 10 people think about a certain issue, so that my decision, whatever it is, is better informed and better educated.
FlaglerLive: How do you go from that to being decisive when you have to be?
Greg Feldman: My experience in my career has been that I’ve made decisions all along. Some of the decisions I’ve had months to prepare and study and research, and some of them have happened in seconds, so I’m able to make decisions. It just depends how critical they are. Can I make them in seconds? Yes, absolutely. Would I prefer to have more information in front of me? Absolutely, but sometimes it’s just not there.
FlaglerLive: You can make a decision independent of a chamber full of people who are against what you stand for?
Greg Feldman: Can I make that decision? Is it in the public interest to make that decision in a positive way against them or not? And that’s what I have to weigh, because there might be a chamber full of folks, but is there something else that perhaps hasn’t been communicated to them? Communication is the key, but is there something that hasn’t been communicated to them that might make them maybe not like the decision, but at the very least understand why we’re doing this. We have to have open lines of communication, we have to make people understand why these decisions are happening, and then if they’re still unhappy with me, I have to do what’s right for the whole community, the whole county. I’m there. Yes, I’m elected from District Two, but I’m there on behalf of the whole county, be it the west side, the center, which is Palm Coast, or beach side, I have to represent the whole county.
FlaglerLive: Typically those questions arise with gray areas, as with development. I think you live in the Hammock, and the Hammock has had these issues, where, for instance, the community is deeply against a land development project, and there is a bit of a gray area in terms of the Scenic A1A Overlay and so on, where there is room there for arguments, and for the county commission to actually make a decision one way or the other, whether they should approve such and such a commercial development the way it’s designed, or even a housing development, in opposition to the vast majority of the public that says, “No, you’re changing the character of our Hammock, you should not do it.” So, in instances like this, where you’ve got the room full against the decision for development, how would you see yourself reacting?
Greg Feldman: Well, question one is, if we go against that, are we breaking the law? In other words, civil law, not criminal law, of course, but are we going against the land development code to the point where we’re being negligent? One of the ways I describe that, and this isn’t necessarily the Hammock, this is overall, is that let’s say you have an area of one-acre estate homes, a large area of one-acre estate homes. If somebody were to come to the county and say, “I would like to build an in-law suite, or I’d like to build a home for my kids who can’t afford one, I’d like to have a second home on the acre.” If it came to me again through staff, I probably wouldn’t have a heartache over that, because I imagine most of the neighbors wouldn’t either. But in that same area, all one-acre homes, and a developer or a builder buys an acre and says, “I’m going to put 12 townhomes there.” Now, number one, I’d be upset with staff that it even got to the commission, but number two is I cannot approve that, because there’s minimal public good, it’s not in character with the neighborhood, and it changes the value for everyone else, and that’s the way I would explain what you’re asking, rather, is that it depends on all these different legalities. Is it a variance? How much of a variance? Who does it affect around there? And it’s not really as simple as, well, it says it in the book, therefore it is. We have to also respect change.
FlaglerLive: We have the benefit of hindsight, of course, but if we look at the Bing’s Landing decision, which led to the lawsuit, which the county lost [there was a settlement], and then I’m talking about the Captain’s BBQ plan to build a different restaurant, and they sued because of all the changes that the commission did, first accepting it, then rescinding it, or if we look at the Hammock Harbor decision regarding the warehouse for the boats, 220 boats, I think, is the plan. Again, the county stopped them, they challenged in court, and they reached a settlement. In both of those instances, do you think the county mishandled the issues at the time with what they knew?
Greg Feldman: I don’t want to point a finger and say when I don’t have enough information on the machinations. In other words, yeah, going on,
FlaglerLive: Certainly not to point fingers, I’m just saying, like, if you had been in their shoes and knowing to some extent what we know now, but as far as what they knew at the time, because those were very emotional issues that involved a lot of people who turned out like we were just saying, and the commissioners felt like they were limited in their choices. I’m just curious how you might have voted on those two.
Greg Feldman: Well, pre-contract, I think I might have pushed for a little bit different structure with regard to Bing’s Landing. Post-contract, once you have that contract, we’re there, I mean, legally we’re there. So making changes that are not mutually agreed upon is just asking for a lawsuit. Would I have done it differently in the preliminaries? More than likely, more than likely, but there again, once the contract’s done, and it’s the same thing to a degree with the boat storage. What should we have done? What should we, being the county, what should they have done differently? I’m not sure. Should the county have made an offer to buy the property?
FlaglerLive: That would have been with what money, though.
Greg Feldman: Well, maybe nobody thought of it, or maybe nobody made the offer, either. The county could have put a small boat launch there with, say, parking for a dozen vehicles and trailers, and it would have just turned it into a county asset.
FlaglerLive: Tell me about a character flaw that affects the way you might do your work on the commission,
Greg Feldman: I don’t know if it affects my work, but I’ve been told more than once that I wear my heart on my sleeve.
FlaglerLive: Well, you know that that’s not a character flaw.
Greg Feldman: To many people it is.
FlaglerLive: Aside from that, I mean in terms of something that maybe you know your wife might tell you. What would your wife say is your character flaw, but in a professional sense, in a professional setting, like in the workplace, imagine yourself on the commission, and having that affect you? What would that be?
Greg Feldman: I’ve been told in my past that I explained too much, that I tend to say, “This is what we need to do, or this is what I like to do, and let me tell you why.” And 10 minutes later, I’m still explaining, and I’ve been told that, okay, explain it more succinctly and be done with it. So that to me is a flaw, because it’s going to eat up precious time, so it draws things out. So, I try to be more cognizant, even in my answers to you. I try to be more cognizant of brevity, not to the point where I’m shorting information out, but not drawing it out.
FlaglerLive: As you know, I don’t even know the meaning of the word brevity. So, tell us about this county commission, as you’ve seen it work. Give it a letter grade on its performance in the last two years.
Greg Feldman: We’ve had a lot of challenges, and for the most part they’ve done well, but I think they could have done a whole lot better in certain arenas. I would give the commission as a whole, I would give a B to B-minus. There are times when I like to see more decisive action, instead of, “Well, let’s table this until… let’s table that until… maybe we should dot-dot-dot.” Sometimes you, again going back to my law enforcement career, sometimes you have all the information you need, all the information you’re going to get in front of you. Why are we delaying?
FlaglerLive: I was going to ask you what you might think as where they’re lacking. So it sounds like you would approve of the way Andy Dance has handled the increase in workshops precisely to go over materials more thoroughly or more deliberately, which they didn’t previously used to do.
Greg Feldman: Well, I’m not targeting any one individual when I say what I say. I hope that’s clear. I’m not targeting Andy or anyone else.
FlaglerLive: No, I’m saying that you would be supportive of his approach to more workshops.
Greg Feldman: Yep, I got that. It depends on the issue, something that’s simplistic. We should be… we as a commission… when I’m there… I keep clarifying that, I keep saying we, but reality is we should be able to sit there on smaller things and not have to workshop things to death, but Andy usually picks the really, really large-scale issues to examine more thoroughly, unless obviously, unless it’s critical, if we’re talking about how we react to a hurricane. Obviously, that’s immediate, but when you have certain issues that you have to critique and you have to look at all sides, you have to discuss it obviously in the public arena, and you have to really digest all the information. Then I think a workshop is a great way to go, because everything’s out in the open. There’s complete transparency, because everything you’re saying, the world can watch if they want. And then at least people watching, and people who truly care and are affected by it, they can see where the process was. And then, of course, as a commissioner, they can come in and give me their feedback, and say, “You’re right on this, you’re wrong on this. Now I understand this, I’ll never understand this,” or and everything in between.
FlaglerLive: How would you judge the sort of semi-firing of Heidi Petito?
Greg Feldman: Again, I wasn’t on the commission. I personally believe that Ms. Petito was doing a good job. Now, again, I’m not on the inside, so I don’t know the other nuances that might have happened behind the scenes that ordinary folks like me would never know, but I truly believe that Ms. Petito was doing a very good job. She seemed to be a strong leader. She was willing to stay and shepherd the budget through, which is no easy task. I’ve done budgets in South Florida. It’s not a fun experience. She seemed like she was being above board with everything. She struck me as a very honest individual, so perhaps I would have handled it differently if I was sitting there.
FlaglerLive: There’s a follow-up question I meant to ask you in the first segment of our series of questions, which was, who on the boards currently serving you would consider to be a model of leadership? Any local board, not just the county commission.
Greg Feldman: I think Andy [Dance, the county commissioner] has done a very good job. Truthfully, I think he truly has on the county commission. I think that he’s thoughtful, he’s deliberate, he doesn’t shoot from the hip. I think he’s analytical. He asks the tough questions when necessary. He’s one that comes to mind. I’m trying to think. There’s a lot of people on the various councils and commissions that I have total respect for. In fact, I have respect for anybody that puts themselves out there to be in a position like that.
FlaglerLive: What about Ms. Pontieri? What do you think about her style of leadership, and why do you think you would better serve the public rather than her?
Greg Feldman: This may not go over well, but I’m going to decline to comment negatively on my opponent. What I’m going to do is talk about myself. I believe that I have a great pulse with the community, because I do go out there a lot. I participate in a lot of events, and I’m not always an active participant. There are times when I’ll go to a meeting and just sit in the back and listen, because I want to see what’s being said. I don’t have some of the encumbrances that an incumbent would have, in that I haven’t been exposed to certain types of people, certain groups, certain lobbying groups, etc., and I think that’s an advantage, no matter who was the competition, be it an incumbent in this position or an incumbent in another position.
FlaglerLive: I’m certainly not necessarily asking you to be negative, but I was coming at the question from the point of view of leadership. If you saw leadership skills in a certain person, or even in her case, I mean, are there leadership abilities you see, even there?
Greg Feldman: Everybody has some leadership abilities. I mean, you can pick who you consider the weakest commissioner on some board, and they still have some leadership qualities. Now, some have more than others, as I sided with Andy and Greg Hansen. They’re good leaders. They really care about the community, and I’m not saying the others aren’t, but you’re asking me. For example, for myself, leadership to me means setting a pace, enabling, and then sitting back. In other words, if on the county commission, we’re the board of directors, the county administrator is the CEO, the director of finance is the chief financial officer, etc. You get the picture. We set policy, we don’t tell them, “You have to do X-Y-Z, and here’s the process.” We tell them, “This is what we want you to do: either come back with a plan or execute it.” When I ran a detective unit for one of my agencies, and I didn’t have… it wasn’t a big one. I think I had 9 people, and I always told them, “I’m going to give you an assignment. There’s only two times I want to see you. Number one, if there’s a challenge. Number two, when you’re done and you want to report it. Other than that, I trust you, you’re on your own. You wouldn’t be in this position if I didn’t believe you could do it.” And then I just got out of their way, and I believe that’s the ultimate role of the commission: set the policy and get out of the way.
FlaglerLive: What are a couple of goals that you are aligned with with this commission, and a couple of goals that you’re not?
Greg Feldman: I’m not aligned with the negative on the half-cent sales tax.
FlaglerLive: We’re going to get to that. That’s going to be one of our questions, specifically on the half-cent sales tax, if you could save that one.
Greg Feldman: I don’t think that the current councils and commissions have adequately addressed the roadway congestion, the traffic, etc. I think that we could be more aggressive than that. We have to be more aggressive than that. Anybody who’s been on our roads knows we have to be more aggressive than that, and we need to come up with solutions to that, and I’m sure it’s being discussed again. No slight against any commission or council, but I don’t think it’s being discussed as aggressively as needed, especially when you’re talking to the state, because after all, we have three separate jurisdictions over our traffic lights and roadways: you have the county for some, you have the city for some, and the other cities for some, and then, of course, you have the state. They control State Road 100, they control State Road 11. So we have to all sit down at the table, and we need to do it sooner rather than later, and say, “This is the problem. How do we get the TPO on board? How do we get the state on board? How do we get the money to do it before it’s obsolete?” The plan is obsolete, I mean.
FlaglerLive: A lot of what you’re describing is taking place. There’s a lot of involvement locally, including you, apparently, since I didn’t know you were involved with the TPO, but they are involved, and they are getting their voices across and saying these are where the needs are, and I think TPO agrees, but then when the state comes in and says, “All right, we do have a plan for 100, but it’s going to be a few years,” that seems–
Greg Feldman: Tell you when it is, it’s 2035.
FlaglerLive: That’s a long distance, so what can the local officials do at that point when the State DOT has made its decision?
Greg Feldman: Well, as you’ve seen in the past, there’s this place called Tallahassee, and there’s this group up there called the legislature, and we have a representative in the House, and we have a representative in the Senate, and I think that we need to strongly, strongly work with them to see exactly what they can do for Flagler County. They have big decisions that affect the whole state. I understand that, but there is always discretionary funding at all the departments in the state that can be moved depending upon necessity, and of course, with 100, in my opinion, it’s a safety issue. At this point, it’s a safety issue. People are going to get more and more angry, they’re going to rush the traffic lights, they’re going to rush the intersection, cut people off, and I don’t want to see anybody hurt on our roadways. And yet, just coming out of Bunnell today, when I got to Belle Terre on 100, there was a flipped-over trailer and a damaged truck and two deputies there. Now, I don’t know what happened, but it certainly wasn’t good for the trailer, and it wasn’t good for traffic, so we need to be more aggressive, even if it takes us going to Tallahassee and lobbying and lobbying and lobbying for these solutions, and that’s with FDOT, of course.
FlaglerLive: Renner is no longer there,
Greg Feldman: No, but he will be. I have confidence that someday he will be, but he can still work for us.
FlaglerLive: By then, it’ll be 2035 and the money will be there.
Greg Feldman: Not very positive, is it?
FlaglerLive: Just being a bit realistic today.
Greg Feldman: So if we can get it from 2035 to 2029 or 2030 and understand the process, that’s engineering, and that is acquiring the property to do these things, if you have to. So even if at 2035 you’re looking at a roadway completion, and probably 2038, so if we can get that moved 5 years to 2030, we’ll be done by 2032 or 2033. I know it’s still a long way off, but every year you can knock that off is better, because a roadway project, unfortunately, people think a roadway project happens poof, poof, poof, and it doesn’t. It takes a lot of money, it takes an engineering study, it takes right-of-way acquisitions, all those things, and then, of course, it takes the actual construction.
FlaglerLive: A couple of goals that you are aligned with or a couple of things that you’re very supportive of on the commission going on now.
Greg Feldman: Well, constantly going on, of course, is Environmentally Sensitive Lands, and I’m very supportive of that. I’m very supportive of tourism development, and of course, tourism is a huge advantage for our county. Most people don’t understand that, but our tourism directly and indirectly employs over 9,000 people in our county, and those are your friends and neighbors who are working for this or that, and again, indirectly, as well as directly, that’s number one. Number two is, and most people don’t know this, tourism has a very direct effect on everybody in the county. According to the figures from tourism, the taxes collected through the tourist tax and through sales tax has an indirect effect on the taxation of everyone in this county to the tune of approximately $443 a year, and that doesn’t matter if you live on the far west side in Daytona North, in Palm Coast, or even on the beach side. So, what we’re doing for tourism development, I think, is really important. The direction’s been set, and we just need to keep moving forward.
FlaglerLive: I’m not sure I understand the $443 figure. How do you get at that figure?
Greg Feldman: This is not my figure. This is from the Tourism Development Office. That’s their figure, and what it means to me is that indirectly, if we had no tourism and no tourism tax… I should say the rental costs, rental surcharge, all that… it could conceivably cause an impact, a higher impact in the cost of doing business, of living, and budgeting in the county.
FlaglerLive: Yeah, I see what you mean. I’ve had quite a few issues with the way they derive their figures, because they’re extrapolated again and again, as if extrapolated from extrapolations, so the reliability of the figures may not be as solid as we would want them to be. But that’s a separate issue. I see where you’re coming from,
FlaglerLive: How will you vote on the proposed amendment to raise the homestead tax?
Greg Feldman: I’m still up in the air about it, because truthfully, we don’t know. We don’t know the real numbers. I would like to know the real numbers. There’s a lot of confusion about it. I personally believe the amendment is like most amendments, poorly written. It really doesn’t explain that much. The bill itself doesn’t explain that much. How are we going to make up any shortfall? I don’t care if it’s a minimal shortfall. How are we going to make it up, or what would we have to cut? What’s public safety? I know we know it’s law enforcement, we know it’s fire. Does it include emergency management? Does it include the EOC [Emergency Operations Center]? And it’s not spelled out. It says you can’t cut essential services, but it doesn’t define essential services to you, and I’m not picking on you, but to you, the library might be an essential service, but to the majority of people it’s not. So, what do we do? And again, we have to see the numbers first. Will it pass? I don’t know. Number two is, we have to see the numbers, where exactly that will leave us in the ensuing years, and also we have to see part of that amendment charges the legislature with implementing statutes, which ultimately completely eliminate the ad valorem, but
FlaglerLive: Even without the precise numbers, we do know that it’s going to be a very severe hit on general fund budgets, right? Will you agree to that?
Greg Feldman: I personally believe it’s going to be a severe hit. How severe? We have to, again, let’s wait for the numbers. Also, is there anything Tallahassee is going to do now that they’ve initiated this? Is there anything that they might consider doing to assist counties, and not just Flagler? There aren’t that many donor counties. You have the large ones, you have Miami-Dade, you have Collier, Palm Beach, Broward, those are probably donor counties, but then you get into counties not necessarily like us. What about the smaller counties that have 18,000 people? Families have been there for 40, 50 years, their taxes are minimal now, and they’re going to be tax-exempt because the value of their house is not 250. How are you then going to run essential services? Forget the extra benefits that you don’t normally think about. How are they going to run fire? How are they going to run law enforcement? These are questions that are out there.
FlaglerLive: You sound like you could be a spokesman for the advocacy against the amendment, and yet you’re indecisive, you’re undecided.
Greg Feldman: I’m undecided, because again, I want to see. I want to see what the will of the people is. If it doesn’t pass, that’s the will of the people. Whatever it is, if it passes, doesn’t pass, that’s the will of the people. But that’s in November.
FlaglerLive: Up until then, you have an influence out on the campaign trail in what you say about it, and in how it’s going to affect you as a county commissioner, if you’re elected, so you literally have a hand in being able to convince voters. “Here’s what I think you should think about. Here’s how I’m going to vote, because it’s going to do this and that to the county that I would like to be a part of.” So in that context, I’m surprised that you would still be undecided.
Greg Feldman: I’m telling people, “Please read up, find as much information as you can about the amendment, read up all about it if you have the time, read the actual paperwork for the amendment.” Then if you have questions, ask the questions. But again, I don’t want to tell people, “Why I’m voting this way, so you should vote this way,” that’s not me. I want people to make informed decisions, and I know not everybody does. A lot of people just look and say, “Whoa, I’m not going to have a tax bill anymore,” which, as you and I both know, is not correct, because it only affects the ad valorem. You’re still going to have school taxes, you’re still going to pay for some mosquito control, you’re going to pay for FIND, Florida Inland Navigation District. Now, these are very small numbers, small numbers, but still there is going to be a tax bill for me. I’ve done the numbers, and my school tax is 42% of my total tax bill, so yes, my ad valorem will go down, but I’m still going to wind up paying that. And I look at it as, after my youngest son is going to be 42 next month, I haven’t used that school system in a lot of years, and yet I’m paying the same thing as somebody who has 5 children in the system, proportion, percentage-wise.
I’m okay with that, because it’s my contribution to making the county, the country, a better place with more educated students. I kind of look at ad valorem tax the same way. Do I use the library? Quite frankly, once or twice a year, but I don’t mind paying so that it’s there.
FlaglerLive: Would you be worried about telegraphing your decision because you might lose some votes?
Greg Feldman: No, no, not everybody’s going to like me, that I’m not worried about. If somebody doesn’t want to vote for me because I’m undecided or I’m kind of leaning towards one way or the other, you know what, that’s fine. I don’t take any of that personally. It’s just I don’t want to directly influence anyone to vote one way or the other, for the sake of… that’s why it’s really hard to explain. I’m doing the best I can, but I know I’m stumbling around, but I just don’t want to. It’s akin to me telling somebody, “You need to vote this way.” No, I’m not going to do that. I want you to read, I want you to be informed, and again, I’m not talking about the comments on Facebook. I’m talking about read the actual documentation behind it, the legislative review, the legislative summation. Read some of the articles from some of the legitimate news entities, and if you have questions, ask the questions. I’ll answer a question, but I’m not going to look at somebody and say, “Here, vote this way.”
FlaglerLive: How did you react to Sheriff Staly when he spoke to the county commission, was either the county commission or the city council about the amendment, and he really was not too happy about the amendment, or its writing, or its clarity.
Greg Feldman: I kind of agree that it doesn’t have much clarity, that’s part of the problem. But the sheriff is a very important cog within the government wheel. Number one, I am hoping that he’s speaking like that because he has looked at the projections and he has looked at conceivably what he may have to do, or shift around, or even lose out on, and I don’t know. But remember, too, the sheriff, while he carries a lot of weight as the sheriff and a constitutional officer, he’s also a citizen, and he also has the right to express his feelings. Does it carry more weight than me or you? Yes, it does. Because he’s the elected sheriff, it carries more weight. People tend to listen stronger and see what he has to say, and evaluate his points. But the bottom line is, he’s a citizen. He has the absolute right to express his opinion.
FlaglerLive: But he also challenged local officials to do their part and speak the way he spoke, in terms of, look, this is going to cost us, and it might be very damaging. That’s why I was asking how you might be speaking about this on the campaign trail,
Greg Feldman: And I think I answer that in that I’m not going to tell people how I feel like I will vote, because number one, I’m still a little on the fence. I’m hoping in the next month or so to get some clearer direction on what this will do to the county.
FlaglerLive: Let’s assume it passes. What does the county do to make up for the loss?
Greg Feldman: That’s a real tough one, because not knowing what the loss is, how much do we need, and how much can we cut from a budget before we are in that need. Chances are, no matter how much we would cut the budget, we’re still going to need more money. So, where do we get it?
FlaglerLive: We have a $116 million general fund budget. So, even if we go very conservative and say $20 million has been lopped off, how do we make up $20 million tomorrow, next year?
Greg Feldman: We don’t, we don’t. I mean, I’m being perfectly honest, we don’t make up $20 million. Maybe we’ll find a way to make up 10 or 12 or 15, but something has got to go, because for us to make up that money, it’s taxation, it’s taxation of a form. Now, do we form an MSBU for the entire Fire Rescue Department, where there’s certain contributions depending on where you live? How do we handle that? We have to get creative. We can’t lose 20 million and continue to function as a government the way we are now. I think everybody would agree on that. So, how much can we conceivably lose without making it up? And if the number is 5 million, then we have to make up 15 million. Where do we make up the 15 million? Is it surcharges, is it raising sales tax, is it an MSBU and an MSTU? We have to get creative, but again, we don’t know the numbers. How much can we adjust the budget versus how much do we have to come up with from alternate sources?
FlaglerLive: The Commission has flirted with increasing the sales tax a couple of times. It hasn’t done so, but it might be having that discussion again. Where do you stand on the sales tax increase by half a penny?
Greg Feldman: For me, I don’t see it as a negative, and I’ll explain why. I think the perception is odd, it’s just another tax, it’s just another tax, but I look at it as an investment. It’s an investment because it gives us a dedicated source of funding for beach renourishment, which is mostly paid for by the state and federal government, realizing we’re still taxpayers, we’re paying that bill, but it’s money that is already out there, it’s already allocated, and if we don’t take it, it’ll just go somewhere else.
FlaglerLive: You said it’s mostly paid for by federal and state dollars. There’s a 2.8-mile segment in Flagler Beach where our obligation is actually going to be 50%. From here on, it was 35% for the first renourishment, but from here on our obligation is 50%. All the other segments, that’s like about 15 miles or so of beachfront, it’s entirely the county’s responsibility now. If it can land state grants and appropriations as it has in the past, that’s very good, but it’s not a given that it will continue to do so. So the responsibility is overwhelmingly the county’s on all segments of beaches with a few differences along the way, and it’s a very heavy burden.
Greg Feldman: The possibility exists that even with a half-cent sales tax we may not be able to do it. We have to stay open to that. However, we’re kind of caught in the middle, because if we don’t renourish the beaches, our tourism will slow down tremendously, because people come here for a beach, and they don’t come here for an 8-foot-wide beach, they come for a nice beach that they can use, they can lay out on, they can pitch a tent, have the kids throw a ball. We have to remember that, because, and again, no slight to Palm Coast, but our tourism slogan is Palm Coast and the Flagler Beaches.
If the slogan becomes Palm Coast and nothing else, how are we going to attract long term? We might have somebody drive down here for dinner and go home, but how are we going to attract the people that stay here for a week and spend money? That’s number one. Number two is the half-cent sales tax. Yes, it’s a tax, but if you go out to dinner and spend $100, it’s an extra 50 cents, and will you really miss the 50 cents if you’re spending $100 on a meal? That’s number one. Number two is it doesn’t include, the way I see it structured, it doesn’t include your shopping at the grocery store, doesn’t include your doctor’s office, your prescriptions, your hospital visits, anything like that. Buying a vehicle, it’s capped, so that it comes out to a very low amount on your payment, about $1 on a 60-month payment plan, comes out to about $1. You’re not going to really pay attention to that, and your payment is 271 versus 270. And remember that it’s on disposable income, disposable revenue that you spend in Flagler County. I had somebody ask me, “Well, what if I want to go buy a tractor?” And I said, “Well, we’re in Flagler County, go buy it.” “I’m going to go up to Hastings.” Then you don’t pay the half-cent. But I live here. It’s where you spend the money, that’s why tourists are going to pick up a large segment of that, and visitors.
Blaise Ingoglia’s Claims of Waste
FlaglerLive: Do you take the CFO, Blaise Ingoglia, do you take his claim that Flagler County wasted $59 million over those five years at face value?
Greg Feldman: Well, here’s the first thing I’d like to point out: I was there at his conference, by the way.
FlaglerLive: Did you have any involvement in that?
Greg Feldman: I never met the man, never. No, when he walked in, he went by me. I didn’t know who it was. So I was sitting there, and I listened very intently, and I know that if that was recorded, and you could find the recording, at one point he said that was 59 million last year, and then it was 5 years, so if he’s that confused, then you know, I got to wonder. And I asked afterward, I went to one of his staffers, and I asked her, I said, “Well, where’s the backup paperwork? Can I see the backup paperwork for that?” And she said, “Well, we don’t have it. If you can’t find it somewhere else, then reach out to us, and we’ll get it for you.” And I made a formal request, and I’m still waiting for the request for the answer, and that was what, four months ago.
FlaglerLive: You might be familiar with the county attorney. He did the same thing. It’s I think a three-page single-spaced request that’s very extensive, and I don’t think that they have received an answer.
Greg Feldman: No. And so I struggle with, what are you hiding, sir? What are you hiding? If you can’t give us… you throw out these numbers, these incredible numbers. You point to Flagler County as being the most wasteful county so far, but you can’t give me any specifics, you can’t give me any backup, you can’t give me any numbers. Did you just make them up? I know you said you had a method, but I can’t even get the analysis of the method, let alone the dollar amount. So, I just find that very secretive or opportunistic.
FlaglerLive: Is there something that you could point to in the government in the county budget and say, “Well, you know, this is waste,” something substantial that actually is a recurring issue that costs taxpayers a lot of money.
Greg Feldman: I’m going to say no, and I’m going to tell you why, because I don’t think it’s necessarily waste. I think maybe it’s not being creative with your financing, and here’s my example for that. Let’s say we need 20 new trucks, just as an example, and so that’s going to cost us $25,000 each, or half a million dollars, but what will it cost if we lease them? What if we lease them? The lease would probably be less. Your maintenance would be included in the lease, and at the end of the two-year, three-year, five, whatever the lease is, you hand the key back. You don’t have residual value, but you’re not paying for that residual value. And I’m not saying they don’t do that. What I’m saying is, let’s look at something creative. If I see something, or anybody sees something that, there’s a different way to do that, I’m listening, because maybe there are ways that we can save money without cutting off our nose. And so that’s just one example of maybe that’s something we could do. Maybe on the large-scale equipment, instead of buying a… and again, I’m using round numbers, so I don’t know how much an excavator costs, but instead of buying an excavator for three-quarter million dollars, what if we can lease it for 50,000 or 75,000 a year? Think of how many years that would… and you got to remember the use, the useful life, the useful life of the vehicle or machine or whatever. Are we better off doing that because at the end of it, we’re stuck with it, and we have to auction it off for pennies on the dollar, and that’s just one example of being creative.
I’m not saying they don’t do that, I’m not saying that’s what we have to do, but there’s got to be arenas when it comes to parks and recreation, motor pool, fleet maintenance, all those different things. There might be a creative way to save some money. Is it waste? No. Is it failing to think ahead or think outside the box? Yeah.
FlaglerLive: Relatively speaking, those are still very small amounts compared to human capital. Is there when you look at the employment, which is, I think, 85% of your expenses, when you look at employment, employees, workers, is there anything there where you see, well, we don’t need so many in that department, we don’t need that department, or we don’t need this service, and we can eliminate that human capital. Do you see any of that?
Greg Feldman: I haven’t, to be perfectly honest with you. Maybe there are a few too many employees somewhere, but I haven’t looked at the staffing like that. I will say that I have not seen a department that needs to be eliminated. There’s a possibility for combining. Just as an example, I believe they combined H-R with finance. I believe H-R is under finance now, and if they’re not, that would be one way to combine. I don’t know if that’ll lead to bodies being gone, but that’s got to eliminate some cost.
FlaglerLive: Regarding consolidation of services, not just within the county, but across the county with cities. Do you see any of that possible?
Greg Feldman: Remember, we’re already doing it, and meaning the county provides law enforcement services for Palm Coast, and that saves them millions and millions of dollars. And I’ve had this discussion where… and of course, my law enforcement background comes into play… where people say, “We should form our own police department for Palm Coast,” and I look at them and tell them, “Cost you about $130 million,” and they’re like, “Why?” And the minimum recommended by the International Association of Chiefs of Police for staffing is 2.4 sworn personnel per 1,000, so you can do the math on that. It’s about 170 or 180 sworn personnel for your police department. The average onboarding is about $100,000 for the person, so you do the math on that, but then we forget that each one needs a vehicle, so you’re looking at 180 or 190 cars. A fully outfitted law enforcement vehicle today with all the equipment and stuff like that is about $60,000 because my agency that I’m affiliated with down south just ordered two and they were 65,000 each, fully outfitted, mind you, but still. So you need about 180 of those, you need computers, a couple hundred computers, you need to hire civilians on top of that. You’re looking at $130 million so of course it’s a lot cheaper what Palm Coast is paying now to the Sheriff’s Office than having to capitalize something like that, so that is a consolidated service. Flagler County Fire Rescue provides the rescue units for the entire county. They are housed in some areas, most areas, with Palm Coast Fire Department. So, Palm Coast does not have rescue units to pay for, and those aren’t cheap either, so that’s consolidated already. If you’re talking about complete elimination of certain entities, like they did, let’s say, in Jacksonville with Duval County, I don’t know that that would be desirable to the citizenry. There’s a lot of pride, maybe not misguided, but there’s a lot of pride in having your own, like Flagler Beach having their own police department and their own fire department. They feel they have more local control that way. They feel that if they go in and they say, “I would like to see more patrol on this road,” the chief of police there, whoever it is, is going to be more receptive and more responsive than if you have… and no slight on Rick Staly… but if you have the county as your responsibility, it’s a lot harder to pay attention to a single road.
So I think that’s going to stay as it is. Is there money to be saved? Probably, but it’s a municipal choice. If they choose to spend that money and the taxpayers choose to continue to give that money for their own police department, their own fire department, then that’s a local choice, and I think that should be respected.
Environmentally Sensitive Lands
FlaglerLive: So with ESL, the environmentally sensitive land program is coming up for renewal by the voters. There are two things on the table. First is, of course, do you support a renewal, because the county commission would have to put that renewal on the ballot. But second, there’s been some discussions about changing the mission or the purpose of the ESL. I think Kim Carney is the one who’s raised the question, “Do we really need any more lands, could we not use some of this money for beach protection, beach renourishment, or redirect the purpose of the ESL?” So, first, do you support putting the ESL back on the ballot, and would you support it publicly and openly, and support its passage to the extent that you can (personally, you can. As a commission, you can’t). Second, do you support Kim Carney’s approach of perhaps changing the mission of the ESL?
Greg Feldman: Personally, yes, I do support it. The people, when it was originally voted on, felt that this was a good program. Now it’s going to come up for a vote. Do the people feel the same way? We’ll find out at the vote. Personally, yes, I think it’s a good thing, because once something is gone, it’s gone forever. And anything we can do to preserve the heritage and the history of the county, as well as not have the county turn into asphalt… the whole county is a bunch of asphalt and houses. It’s not bad to have some preservation in there. Future maybe a park if we can afford it, but maybe a park, maybe some other type of recreation. Who knows? But once it’s gone, once it’s bulldozed, once it’s built on, or once it’s neglected, that is gone. Period. So we have to look to, you know, and I throw this out. What’s the definition of Environmentally sensitive lands, could it be the beach? Could the beach be considered ESL? Can some of the money that’s raised through the program assist with beach renourishment? And honestly, I don’t have that answer. Does it require rewriting the ordinance that was passed? Does it require something else that I don’t know? So I can’t give you the definitive answer, but I would not be totally opposed to some of the money, not all the money, but a portion of the money being designated for the beach, simply because it is critically eroded, it is absolutely sensitive lands, because once it’s gone and the dunes are gone, the whole island is gone, and then after the island is gone, Palm Coast starts to go away.
FlaglerLive: Would you support changing the ratio, the actual amount that it levies on your tax bill, increasing it? It’s a very small amount right now.
Greg Feldman: That’s why I was going to say it’s such a negligible amount, but I’m not sure what it is as a percentage. I don’t have that in front of me, but let’s say it’s a quarter percent. If you wanted to move it to a third of a percent, I wouldn’t have a problem. If you say, “I want to make it 4 percent,” I got a problem with that, because now you’re really negatively impacting the taxes. What it is now, I don’t know that anybody notices it.
FlaglerLive: It’s 12.5 cents per $1,000 in taxable value. Basically, if you’ve got a $300,000 house and you’re homesteaded at 50,000 today, you’re paying $31.
Greg Feldman: I’m happy to contribute $31 to keep buying lands that will be protected forever, and also, if a portion of it goes to the beach, I don’t have an issue with that. Again, if you want to multiply it significantly, now it becomes $200. Yeah–
FlaglerLive: Not $200, but maybe $50.
Greg Feldman: Again, $50, I don’t have a problem with that, but there are people for whom even that small increase could hurt, so we need to take that into consideration. But then again, if it goes by your property bill and your appraised value, then maybe it’s not going to impact people that much, maybe it’s only a $5 raise per year. Yeah, and pretty much everybody can afford that, it’s one less latte.
FlaglerLive: Beach protection, the plan that Petito had put forward, did you think that it was a sound plan, yes, with
Greg Feldman: Overall yes, but I’m not sure we could afford it. I’m not sure it’s fair, and if you’re talking about the MSBUs and the MSTUs, I think that could be challenged as disparate treatment. I’m not sure, I’m not an attorney, but it just seems to me, if you’re going to overcharge a lot more to this one versus this one, but there is a significant benefit to everyone. And I know people say, “I don…” People from Palm Coast or wherever will say, “I never use the beach, I never go there, why should I pay?” But there’s a bigger issue, and a lot of that is water. Put the tourism aside for a minute, it’s water, and water goes in a certain direction, and this is… I’m oversimplifying, but remember the Intracoastal is at least partly controlled by the beach, in that you have levels out there, and the higher the water level not being stopped that hits the dune, you have more saltwater intrusion, and the water goes underground, but I know that’s simplifying it. But the water level rises for the beach, it gets closer to the beach, the Intracoastal rises, when the Intracoastal rises, and I’ve seen it, you have houses in the C-section where not only are their docks underwater or their backyards underwater, but it comes knocking at the door of the house, so water has to go somewhere. Will it completely stave that issue? Of course not. But could it help with the issue? I believe it could.
FlaglerLive: We’re the only county without a beach management plan in Florida [a funded management plan.] The cost then becomes the issue, and however expensive the cost of the plan, or the cost of the implementation. Let me ask. A plan is the implementation, because a plan without implementation is really no plan. It’s just an idea. We all agree that the beaches have to be protected, but we have not gotten to the point of implementation, and the Petito plan had gotten us as close to it as ever, right? What will you be doing as a county commissioner to bring us back to a position where we can have a plan and it can be implemented?
Greg Feldman: That’s really a tough question. It sounds like an easy one, but it’s really a tough question, because there are people who believe we should do nothing with the beach, just let it go.
FlaglerLive: You are not one of those people, right?
Greg Feldman: No, for the obvious reasons, I am not. For the obvious reasons, and it’s not about protecting just real estate, it’s about protecting the whole barrier island, on which thousands of people live, that’s number one. Number two is, and I keep going back to tourism, it’s a tourism engine by which, if there’s no tourism, there will be significant physical shortfalls. Put the amendment to the side, now just from lack of tourism, it would hurt us tremendously. Okay, so we need that. Third thing is we need to be able to figure out… I need to stop and regroup. We need not just the beach management plan, yes, we need that, we need a water management plan on top of it. Our beach management plan has to take into account that we have an entire barrier island here that’s being attacked from both sides, it’s being attacked on the Intracoastal as well as from the Ocean. I was talking to a couple of people the other day, and I said, “Remember what the Eastern Continental Divide is.” It doesn’t run through Florida, but remember everything east of it, the water goes toward the ocean. Now, of course, there’s lakes and rivers and things to intercept that, but the bottom line is the water’s got to go somewhere, so if the Dead Lake fills up and it goes over to Crescent Lake. From Crescent Lake, it goes through Dunn’s Creek and comes out at the St. Johns River, which, strangely enough, runs south to north. It empties out or reports in the Atlantic Ocean, and then from the Atlantic Ocean, do the currents carry it south or north, or a combination thereof? So, there we are, basically going in a circle and putting back the water that we hope to get away from. So, we need to build that barrier. We need to have a plan, and we need to find ways to enact that barrier, so that C-section doesn’t flood, so that Daytona North doesn’t wind up underwater every time there’s a heavy storm, and so we don’t lose the barrier island and have thousands of people displaced,
FlaglerLive: But then you’ve basically formulated a question that is not anymore “we can’t afford it,” but “can we afford not to?”
Greg Feldman: That’s kind of a good question. How can we afford not to? How do we turn our backs on so many people throughout our county? Because again, it’s not just the people on the barrier island, it’s not just people that live along the ocean, but it’s everybody, it’s the C-section of Palm Coast, it’s what happens when a weir fails or it’s overwhelmed, water’s gotta go somewhere. It’s a small part, but again, the beach plan, we need to have that, but we also need a water management plan, and if that’s in conjunction with the beach plan, so be it, but we need to plan for all of that, not just the beach, we need to plan for all of the water issues, the water table, the aquifer, all that needs to be addressed in a master plan. If you want to then break out a small section or a partial section for the beach, great, but we need to have a water management plan.
FlaglerLive: Those who say that it’s pointless to do anything, we should just leave the beach as it is, have a point, because in the long run it is pointless. The seas are rising, we’re not doing anything about it, and the barrier island is going to lose, so why intervene now, since it’s a losing battle in the long run.
Greg Feldman: Because we can stave it off. It is in the long run, but how many decades, or even a hundred years, or more? But let’s stave it off for now, so that people don’t have to immediately change their whole lifestyle, because at the rate we’re going, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. I think you’d agree, and everybody would agree with that, but can we stave it off for a while, and maybe find alternatives in that time? For example, the Indian River Lagoon had a huge problem with flooding, and there were these large cement blocks with holes in the center that were used to cut down on the current and really cut down a lot on the flooding and the erosion they were having, specifically the erosion. Maybe there’s alternatives. I see people on Facebook, they put up things like, why don’t we have not a pier, but… boy, I’m blanking on the word, but it’s the things that go up, stone… like stone breakers. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, I apologize for not coming up with the right word. No, no, I see what you want. Why don’t we have something like that? Why don’t we have a program? There are many, many… I’ve been to countries in the Caribbean that have exactly that, and it breaks the waves, it breaks the current. They suffer far less damage from storms. Why don’t we have something like that? There are other creative ways that we can protect the beach, not just throwing sand there and hoping for the best. I really believe that we can incorporate that as well as beach renourishment and stave off losing the barrier island for literally a hundred or more years.
FlaglerLive: The Sheriff’s budget has increased 87% in the last 5 years, although the county’s population has increased 4 times less than that, by 22%. Right, Fire Rescue has increased… Fire Rescue and emergency management together have increased a combined 80%. So, in light of the low crime rate and taking account of population growth, where do you put the point where expansion in public safety budgets outweighs the benefits of continuing to expand those budgets? Where do we say, we are covered, it’s enough.
Greg Feldman: Well, I could ask the question of when are you comfortable with that much safety and no more? But let me just say that first of all, we live in Flagler County, a community in the top 1 percent for safety in the United States. That to me is important. I think Sheriff Staly has done a great job. His people have done a wonderful job. I believe that there is room for improvement like anywhere else, like any department, but he’s a constitutional officer, so we leave that to him, and rightfully so. I believe, and kind of a little bit from when I was working there, I saw that some of the numbers, as far as personnel and vehicles and equipment and all that, were lacking, and some of it significantly. Population has grown quite a bit. So, if you were behind the eight ball to begin with, you got to really keep going to get in front of it, and at the same time take into consideration the growing population. And people also lose sight of the fact that we’re not just… and this was one of the issues I have with Mr. Ingoglia, quite frankly, is he’s just using the population and nothing else, basically for his numbers. But going back to what I’ve been saying constantly, we’re a tourism-centered economy. So what happens if we stay flat or only increase to serve the population? What happens when 15,000 people come to Bike Week, and we get a lot of them here? What happens to Biketoberfest? Same thing. What happens to Flagler Beach next year when they’re going to do the fireworks show, and they get 10,000 extra people in town? What do they do, or if they’re having to cut their police department and fire department because the money’s not there, what do we do then? I will never, as a county commissioner, vote to sacrifice public safety. That’s it. People don’t like that, then I’m sorry.
Let me, let me get to Flagler County Fire Rescue too, because you brought that up. I always give the disclaimer of both my sons are firefighter paramedics with Flagler County, so this is not about them, this is about us, you and I, and everybody else in here. Flagler County Fire Rescue last year had more than 20,000 calls for service, that’s Flagler County, that’s not Palm Coast. Of those, more than 15,000 were medical calls handled by 10 rescues. Ten rescues handled more than 15,000 calls each year, we’re increasing population, even if it’s only 3,000 or 4,000 people, and we’re not adding rescue up with that. Let’s be honest, if you’re calling rescue, you don’t care what station they come from, you just want them there yesterday, you want them there, you don’t want them there in an hour, you want them there in a minute. So Chief Tucker has a plan. Chief Tucker’s plan is to increase by one rescue every 3 years, and he’s putting that into place. But you know what it takes? It takes money. A rescue unit is not just a truck, it’s a very highly specialized unit that’s probably going to come in at about 300,000 but you also have to staff it 24/7, 365 with paramedics, so there’s a cost. They were also behind the eight ball for a lot of years, so they’re playing catch-up as well. The next thing you got to remember too is with the deputies, with firefighters, paramedics, all that, their salaries don’t go down, they go up. The state requirements for their pension go up, social security goes up, all these things go up. So your choice is to pay it or cut services, and you’re never going to cut services in public safety, that’s in the amendment. You cannot do that. So when you look at things like that, you ask Sheriff Staly and say, “Do you really need this, this, this, and this?” And if he says, “I really do,” and he can justify it, then I think it’s part of the budget that we need to allocate. Can I sit down with him as a commissioner and say, “Look, is there anything that maybe you could put off for a year or put on for two years or do without?” And he’s a reasonable guy. So, I think yes, there might be something he can come up with.
FlaglerLive: Was the helicopter needed if we could have gone 24 hours with Fireflight?
Greg Feldman: I don’t know the numbers on that, so I can’t answer that. In other words, I can’t look at you and say, “Well, if we go to 24 hours of Fireflight and hire two pilots, so that you have one, two, and of course you need a third for whoever takes vacation or is out of sync, or whatever. And on top of that, would we be able to do the maintenance at the same cost or less than… I don’t know the numbers. If you show me the numbers and said you absolutely could, then I’d probably question it, but absent that, and taking the sheriff at his word, which I know, not being a commissioner, I have to take him at his word right now, we can’t sit down, commissioner to sheriff, and say, “Look, dot-dot-dot,” I have to take him at his word. I’m still just a member of the public. I have feelings, and I hear things, but it’s not fact. And until I, and unless I have the facts as a commissioner, I’m not going to say yes or no to that. I will tell you that I have great confidence in the ability of the county administration and commission to look at things in an objective way, and I may be wrong, but I promise you one thing: when I’m sitting there, I will look at things in an objective way, and I will look at it from the good of the people, as well as the services.
FlaglerLive: You were mentioning Fire Rescue, the 15,000 calls per year for 10 rescues, that does work out to 4 calls per day per rescue. Is that very high?
Greg Feldman: Here’s the thing. You have a rescue in Daytona North, that unit is not going to get called out as much as the unit by Palm Coast, because in the city center you have the majority of calls and it spreads out from there, so you’ll have some stations that will run 12, 14 calls in a 24-hour period, and you have some that will run two, but you can’t afford to move them from where they’re at. Again, if you’re in Daytona North and the closest rescue is Bunnell, you’re going to wait a long time, and you could lose a loved one. Chief Tucker does research on this, so that everybody will get a certain level of response time, and they’re on his website, I can’t quote them, but most of the response times are well within what you would expect, even in Daytona North, in all these spread-out areas. The problem is we have a spread-out county in terms of service like that, and I can remember back when, and you probably can remember too, there were so few rescues that they would get busy, and they’d have to move the one from Flagler Beach, up to Old Kings and 100, yeah, so that they were staged, because the majority of calls would be west of there.
FlaglerLive: That wasn’t so many years ago.
Greg Feldman: Right, so again, you have to play catch-up, so we’re playing catch-up now, we’ll continue to play catch-up, because people are moving in, more businesses come in, that’s more services as well. So, of the public safety expenditures, yeah, it’s a lot, but we’re playing catch-up, and we’re trying to maintain, and that to me is number one. After 5:00, and all weekend, the only visible arms of government are law enforcement and fire department, and that’s what you have to have.
FlaglerLive: At least the ones we see, because obviously there’s an enormous amount of work that goes on that we don’t see, that is still government, civilian government that keeps this world going.
Greg Feldman: But the visible arm are those two entities.
FlaglerLive: Let’s talk about the airport. It’s unquestionably a great economic asset for the county and the city. Is it also a noise and pollution problem, as some of the residents nearby have claimed or continue to say, and if so, what would you do about it?
Greg Feldman: I’m not an expert, so I will not say anything about the pollution claims, because I haven’t seen any studies for or against. As for the noise, sure, there’s noise by an airport. Absolutely, there is. ITT planned this out, and they put homes there. Was that a smart thing to do? The airport was there from World War Two, so the airport was there first. And I’m not minimizing what folks are saying, but maybe it would have been better to have, say, a half-mile or a mile buffer around the airport, made that all industrial or all commercial instead of putting houses right up to the border of the airport, but people also knew the airport was there, and you really can’t assume that the airport will not change, it’ll always be small, it’ll always only have a few flights, etc. So, am I saying they’re wrong? No. Am I saying that there are solutions if you’re that unhappy with it? The airport was there first, and that sounds cold, but I sympathize with the folks. It’s just like building next to a racetrack and thinking there’s only two events a year, and the next thing you know, there’s an event every weekend. You built there, you bought there, but that’s to be expected. I liken it to, and I’m sure everybody’s driven down 95 or another interstate like that, and you see where it was all woods, and now there’s a housing development there, and people are complaining about the noise from the interstate. So what was there first? Your housing development, which has been there two years, or the interstate that’s been there since the ’70s? And it’s kind of the same thing. So, what do they do? They put up these cement walls, they’re supposed to cut down on the noise, and if you’ve been on the other side of one, it doesn’t help, and it’s kind of the same thing at the airport. No matter what they do, short of shutting it down, which we’re not going to do… it’s a very valuable enterprise for this county. There isn’t a whole lot that you can do. If you limit the flights, they’ll go elsewhere and you’ll lose the revenue.
FlaglerLive: Last question is about your felonies and misdemeanors in the past, so not the ones you’ve charged, but the ones you’ve been subjected to. Have you ever been charged with a felony or a misdemeanor anywhere in Flagler, Florida, or the United States, other than a speeding ticket, or faced any civil action other than a divorce, anything like that?
Greg Feldman: I’m still a certified law enforcement officer in the state of Florida, so if I had a felony, I wouldn’t be that. No, I’ve never been arrested for a misdemeanor, never charged either.
FlaglerLive: Never charged either, right?
Greg Feldman: No, no, just to be clear, never charged.
FlaglerLive: Civil actions?
Greg Feldman: I’ve been in law enforcement, of course. You’re going to get sued, you know, the department, the individual officer, this and that. And you almost always, 99% of the time, it’s on there to throw enough against the wall to see what sticks, and the first thing that happens is a law enforcement officer will be dropped from the case because they’re just trying to drag people in,
FlaglerLive: So you have been sued in the context of your work as a law enforcement officer. Have you ever lost one of those lawsuits?
Greg Feldman: Once. In my early career, and I won’t say I lost… the judgment was 50/50. I was hit in the face with a load of mace, and I got into an ensuing struggle with a woman who, as it turns out, had just dropped off 5 kilos of cocaine and still had the residual in her bag, and got into a fight. I was struggling with her. I was having a little trouble seeing, obviously, and breathing. I mean, she emptied the whole canister in my face, and so I was fighting with her. We fell down to the ground, and her shoulder broke because I was on top of her, trying to hold her, and that’s all I could do to just hold her, wrap my legs around her legs, just to keep her from kicking me. And myself, the department, etc., was sued. I was dropped from the lawsuit. The department was still on, the city that I was working for was still on, and I was found 50% comparative negligence on the judgment. So, yes, I take that personally. Did I have to pay the money? No, the city and the insurance paid it, but I still take it personally as being found at least partially.
FlaglerLive: Do you remember the year when this happened?
Greg Feldman: 1980, 1981.
FlaglerLive: You were still at the beginning of your career.
Greg Feldman: Oh, yeah that was the beginning of my career in South Florida. I already had some experience from Illinois, but I had never been maced in the face.
FlaglerLive: In your professional life, have you had any demotions or any disciplinary actions, any internal affairs investigations that you were subjected to?
Greg Feldman: Yes, I was. There were a couple of politically motivated actions against me, and I was actually demoted from assistant chief to captain, and then re-promoted to assistant chief, and it was a political game that they were playing with me because I was friends with someone else.
FlaglerLive: This was in what jurisdiction?
Greg Feldman: South Miami. I was very close to one of the commissioners as a friend, and he was at great odds with two of the other commissioners, and so the two commissioners used their influence upon the city manager to go after me. The city manager wanted to keep his job, so that’s what happened, and then after a certain amount of time, they came along. They said, “You know, this should have never happened. You’re back as assistant chief.” Okay.
FlaglerLive: And you stayed assistant chief for a while after that happened,
Greg Feldman: Until I retired.
FlaglerLive: Any internal affairs issues in your law enforcement career?
Greg Feldman: Not really. I will tell you that I was a stickler for the rules, so when we had what was called the use of force report, it really did cover anytime you took somebody down at gunpoint, and they were armed subjects, and I’m not going to say, “Oh, please do me a favor,” you know, we do what we have to do to go home at night, and I would always fill out the use of force. And there were some supervisors who were negligent like that, so I would have use of force reports, they’re not internal affairs reports, they’re just listed uses of force, and of course, into the record as in the internal affairs record, but not as an internal affair.
FlaglerLive: That’s certainly not what I meant. I mean, use of force reports are routine, they happen in every agency.
Greg Feldman: In regards to investigations for negligence or criminal or anything, no.
FlaglerLive: Well, that wraps it up. So, I appreciate very much the time, the extensive amount of time that you took and reserved for us. And wish you the very best of luck in the weeks ahead. And I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.
Greg Feldman: I appreciate that. I just want to close with one thing I can promise you: I won’t lie, I won’t make stuff up. If I don’t know something, I will tell you. If I’m unsure of something, I will tell you, and I will always tell the truth, because it’s the easiest thing to remember.
FlaglerLive: All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Feldman, very much.
Greg Feldman: Thank you.
So as to clarify my comments on the amendment, the initial $25,000 was enacted in 1980. In 2008, it was increased to a maximum of $50,000. The estimated population of Flagler County in 2008 was 91,000. Today’s estimate is around 140,000, a 54% increase in population and in service demand.
In the 19 years since the last adjustment, the cost of living, goods and services has risen significantly. This applies to your government as well. Should the exemption be raised? Absolutely. But I believe that doubling it would be a fair and reasonable number after nearly two decades of economic change when the previous adjustment was after 28 years. Budget adjustments can surely be made to absorb the decrease. Tripling it in a year and then multiplying it by 5 times the next year is a change which can only lead to service and employment cuts.
justbob says
Good questions, good talk overall. Refreshing to hear that he didn’t go negative against his opponent, Pontieri… Especially considering he chose to have Chase Russell as a campaign advisor, who’s know for dirty tricks.
Villein says
First of all good format anticipating the use of AI. I will still read all these articles so I can make an informed decision, but I will also use ai to compare the interviews by seat. Essentially I will be using the technology to even more informed, but not relying on it entirely to think for me.
Joe D says
Bravo for the (LONG) format….it certainly tells me a lot about the candidate!
I’m so tired of standing in a voting booth and asking myself “Who ARE all these people!?” Your format (if used by each candidate) should help voters IMMENSELY in their decision making.
FlaglerLive says
Thank you, that’s much appreciated. We have similar interviews ahead with almost all the candidates.
Brad W says
Greg is a great choice for the Commission.