- April 28, 2024
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At 40 years old, Jason DeLorenzo feels he would bring a unique perspective to the Palm Coast City Council.
City Council campaign signs can be found loitering at the intersections of roadways, stuck into lawns and taped onto windows all over Palm Coast. Most are what residents might expect: a variation on the colors of the flag, bold lettering, a clean, white background.
But District 3 candidate Jason DeLorenzo’s signs stand apart from the crowd. With purple lettering on neon green, an abstract flag graphic sweeping through the background in white, his sign is more than a call to action.
It’s a brand, and a statement.
“We chose the colors to stand out and be different — because I’m a different kind of candidate,” DeLorenzo said, adding that his mother, the graphic designer, helped in putting his logo together.
As government affairs director for the Flagler Homebuilders Association — a position he has held since February 2007 — DeLorenzo points out that, unlike most City Council members and candidates, who are retired, he’s immersed in local government from a business perspective every day. At 40 years old, and married eight years to the executive vice president of the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce & Affiliates, he’s also currently in the process of building a family in Flagler.
His daughter, Lorelie, will turn 3 in November.
“I have a vested interest in Palm Coast doing well because I’m growing a family here,” he said. “I’ve had lots of people tell me, ‘We need some younger people engaged in local government because it’s going to be your city.”
As long as DeLorenzo can remember, he has been interested in politics — his oldest political memory is of his mother bringing him into a now-antiquated voting booth, surrounded by curtains and levers, and teaching him how to vote.
But early on, he had other aspirations.
After moving to Florida at 17, DeLorenzo was going to be an Air Force-recruited fighter pilot — until he failed the eye test. He then enrolled to Embry Riddle, instead, for aeronautical engineering.
He admits he’s got a thing for military aircraft — he can’t hear the roar of jets without his head jerking upward toward the clouds. But it’s not just planes. DeLorenzo is awed by speed, “sheer performance,” an interest which eventually transferred to road racing (he has a Formula 1 poster hanging in his office and says he watches races on TV with Lorelei, in hopes that she’ll grow up to share his passion).
In his 20s, he raced go-karts in the dirt-oval state circuit. Five or six years later, he graduated to sprint racing, a miniature version of road racing, and won a second-place trophy from Daytona International Speedway, in a national event.
Over time, he wanted more. That’s when he threw in with some friends and family for a big-league endurance racer, a track-ready 1990 Honda CRX. He competed in one race, then his co-driver, the very next time out, rolled and totaled the car.
It was destroyed.
“All of our racing funds were gone,” he said, “and I haven’t raced again.”
But the instincts remain.
“There’s a cardiovascular part of car racing,” he said. “But really, it’s mental. It’s not thinking in the now — it’s thinking ahead. Your goal is to pass someone, or keep from being passed. You’re always thinking steps ahead.”
Not unlike politics.
“Politics is being able to think on your feet. It’s being able to quickly understand the issue, develop a plan and put that plan into action.”
When he started at his government job — after 15 years in retail management and a year as a mortgage broker — DeLorenzo admits his learning curve was steep. After he met all the local players, he started reading, and didn’t stop for three months. Case studies, local ordinances, land development codes, impact fees — he had a thirst for all of it.
To gain board experience, he joined the Flagler County Soil and Water Conservation District.
Later, when he began campaigning, he found it surprisingly difficult to talk about himself in front of crowds.
But now he has found his footing and his platform.
“People relate to me, because they know that I understand the issues that they’re having in their families — because I’m trying to grow a family here, as well,” he said “You could really say that the working families are underrepresented … The average age in Palm Coast is 47.8, and I’m the closest to that age.”
Q&A
NAME: Jason DeLorenzo
AGE: 40
FAMILY: wife, Rebecca; one daughter
CAREER: Government affairs director, Flagler Home Builders Association
POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: 2009-2011, supervisor and treasurer of the Flagler County Soil and Water Conservation District
QUIRKY FACT: Will eat anything — he has eaten sea urchin before — but doesn’t like spearmint.
Does the city government act under the same fiscal realities as private businesses do? Is the city budget as lean as it should be? If not, what specific changes would you make?
I don’t think the city budget follows the same fiscal constraints. In some cases, that is necessary because services don’t change with the economy. Sometimes when the economy is down, you need increased services because of issues that come with a bad economy, like foreclosures, declining property values, upkeep, home maintenance issues. So, those departments will actually take on more responsibility in a poor economy, which won’t allow you to cut the budget in the same manner.
The city budget could be leaner. I’m happy with their decision to reduce the amount of resurfacing and move those dollars into stormwater infrastructure, because I think that’s going to be a real concern as we move forward. But I certainly would not cut fire services. I think we’re in decent shape, and you could say that in the southern part of the city, we don’t have as good fire coverage as we could.
Most people, when they look at the budget, see the general fund budget, and they don’t consider the utility budget. It’s usually shown separately. I think we could take a closer look at the utility budget.
What are the biggest obstacles to economic recovery in Palm Coast? What can you, as a City Council member, do to remove those obstacles?
One of the biggest obstacles is that most of the world is in the same situation that we are. And most of the world is looking for jobs and economic recovery. Which means that a small county like ours has a fewer opportunities to bring in a large employer that will quickly solve our problems.
So, we have to look local. I think the biggest obstacle is ourselves. We need to take a hard look at our codes and see what we can do to help our local businesses to grow internally. We have about 4,000 businesses in Flagler County, and if each of them just added a job or half a job, we’d be in a much better position.
The Land Development Code contains most of the codes for operating a business in the city. There are a number of little changes that could make a big difference.
You could look at signs. No one wants to expand signage like when you drive through Holly Hill on U.S. 1. We don’t want that. But if we made it a little bit looser, it would help.
If you did that in conjunction with looking at the landscape ordinances for commercial, and made it a little bit lighter, that would help. And if you looked at the commercial vehicle rules and made it a little bit lighter, that would help. If you put a lot of little things together, it would make it a lot better.
I’ll give you an example, because people ask, “How does landscaping affect a business?” At the corner of Old Kings Road and State Road 100, there’s a commercial property called Kings Pointe. The infrastructure has been in there for years, and it’s completely empty. The landscaping for that cost $350,000, just for what’s there now.
If they would have been able to go one gallon size smaller, which means you would have had the same amount of landscaping — and in Florida, stuff grows fast, so in one year, it would have grown to what it was required to be planted at — they would have saved $75,000. When you take that $75,000 and apply it for what the property costs are for a company to come and build there, that makes a big difference …
When a company comes and says, “Why is the land cost so high?” Well, it’s because we have $350,000 of landscaping … If you start the landscaping a little bit smaller, it makes a big difference for the businesses.
Someone has to pay for the lighting and striping of athletics fields. Should the users of the fields pay the bills, or the taxpayers as a whole?
I was disappointed that no one asked this question when it was discussed at City Council: What is the total cost? Nobody asked that, and staff didn’t tell us. How much are we spending? … What’s the cost of materials? What’s the cost of workers? Are we spending a million dollars? Half a million? …
(Once we have the answer) then we can make a decision as to whether that’s too much for the taxpayers to handle. Does there need to be some sort of split? I think there does need to be some sort of split.
But athletics fields add a lot to a community: 1) They give kids a place to play. 2) Organized sports are good for child growth. And 3), they can be an economic driver, because you can then attract tournaments, which bring thousands of visitors to your area ... Finding a happy medium is important because if you price the athletics clubs out of being able to play here, then you have an even bigger problem than the cost to pay for it …
I like the concept (of having the users pay, in part). It’s an incentive for turning off the lights. But if you’re a club making a budget up front, that’s difficult …
There are a number of things that could be looked at, like having timers on the lights, or having the league commissioner being responsible for a key system that could turn on and off the lights.
Hypothetically speaking, if the research and data lead to conclusion A, but the residents are vocal that they want conclusion B, what is your responsibility as a City Council member?
If the research and data lead to conclusion A, and you have done everything to educate the public about conclusion A, but they want conclusion B, it’s ultimately their money. It’s the taxpayers’ decision, and if that’s what they want, it’s their city, and that’s what they should get.
But you have to be sure that you have given them all the information, and try to make it a logical decision that they’re making and less of an emotional decision ...
(Follow-up question: If you only have a small number who are vocal, and you don’t know whether they represent a majority view or not, how does that change things?) I’m going to stick to the hypothetical, and I’m going to say that the people are more active in their government than in the real world. And I’m going to say that if you have done your best to educate them, and you understand that this is what the people want, then that’s what they should get.
I’ll tell you what I don’t like. It’s on the City Council’s moderate priority list to come up with recreation fees. But a couple people spoke, and now they’re saying, “Whoa, whoa, let’s bring it back in.” That, I’m not crazy about. That’s bad government. They should have invited them to the table first, not throw it out, see what happens. Now, there is emotion in it.
They could have met with those people and said, “We’re spending this much money. We have to find a way to reduce our cost. Let’s try to find a solution.” If you had everyone in the room, you probably would have found a solution. Instead, you have a mess ...
People complain about lobbyists, but that’s what we do. We go in and explain the issue. We try to educate the elected officials on how it’s going to affect us, good or bad, so they can have positive debate and come out with a better solution. And unfortunately, if you don’t engage them, they generally don’t engage you.
