The final stretch to Tuesday’s special election to consider changes to the city’s charter has turned deeply contentious, with dueling yard signs and fiery online commentary.
For advocates of voting yes, the referendum poses an opportunity to fix what they view as four particularly counterproductive elements of the existing charter. If the changes are approved, the mayor’s term would be shifted to four years from two starting with the 2026 election. The city clerk would be moved under the supervision of the city manager. A new formula for determining the salaries of the mayor and commissioners would result in an 80% raise for them. Primary winners who receive 50% plus one vote would no longer have to continue running through the general election.
To some opponents of these revisions, the process leading to the Nov. 4 vote was orchestrated from the start to advance these proposed changes and to give the impression that they arose naturally from the public. Opponents also suspect an effort to avoid a large voter turnout. Fewer voters typically come out for a special election compared to a general one. That could explain why advocates of the changes pushed the City Commission to approve the upcoming Nov. 4 special election despite a cost of $50,000. Also, the existing charter, which was drafted by a committee in 2020, had called for a fresh review in 2026 by a citizen committee. That review was moved up to this year and took place between April and July, creating the option for the special election. The decision to hold early voting only at the Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Office in Deland also looks to opponents like an effort to keep turnout low.
Mayor Fred Cleveland, in a phone interview with Beat, rejected any suggestion that the review process, which centered on the work of an 11-person Charter Review Committee, was manipulated to advance a specific agenda or to narrow the vote.
“There's no mechanism to orchestrate. That is by design,” Cleveland said. He pointed to Florida’s Sunshine Law. These statutes prohibit two or more members of a governing body, such as the City Commission or the Charter Review Committee, from meeting in private or from sending messages to other members through third parties. Cleveland noted that the rules permitted him to choose three members of the committee, and that one of his picks was Spencer Hathaway, a former political opponent. Why would he do that if he was trying to orchestrate an outcome? “To suspect that there was a fix -- it was almost impossible,” Cleveland said.
No one interviewed for this story alleged a Sunshine Law violation. Rather, the criticisms stem from facts that can be found in the publicly available record that includes videos of meetings of the Charter Review Committee and the City Commission.
At the committee’s first meeting, the discussion quickly turned to which sections of the existing charter the members should start with. City Attorney Carrie Avallone said she had provided the committee’s facilitator, Susan Boyer, with “a list of ones I’ve heard in passing from various people.” Those topics – the primary process, the mayoral term length, the salary formula and the clerk’s position – became the first four questions on the Nov. 4 ballot.
The review committee’s inaugural meeting wasn’t the first time most of these ideas had been raised publicly. All but the proposal to shift the clerk’s position were broached four months earlier during a City Commission meeting by three residents. They were Michael Ison, whose wife Pam was Cleveland’s campaign manager, Judy Reiker and Palmer Wilson. All would later become members of the Charter Review Committee. Two of them, Ison and Reiker, were chosen by Cleveland.
Cleveland, when asked about the source of the ideas for changes, said, “the origins of them, I think, came from the public.” He said he thinks he recalls asking Avallone during a meeting, “Where did these come from?” and she said from public participation.
As for the timing of the vote, the Charter Review Committee recommended a special election for the fall. The commission at first rejected that idea on a 4-1 vote in August, with Cleveland among those who voted against it. There didn’t seem to be a reason to rush, and a special election would be expensive. Two weeks later, at the Aug. 26 commission meeting, City Manager Kevin Cowper read a letter from Mark Billings, the chair of the Charter Review Committee: “If you asked us to perform the work now, why not complete the task by allowing the voters to decide now?” Billings wrote. Then, after some discussion, Cleveland noted that “we happen to have the vice chair of the charter review committee in the room.” He invited Ison to the podium, and Ison also implored the commissioners to rethink their Aug. 12 vote. They did, and this time the measure prevailed 4-1, with Vice Mayor Lisa Martin voting against it. In 2020, while a private citizen, she had helped draft the charter that was approved in the 2020 general election.
When Cleveland was asked by email whether he had requested that Billings write the letter and that Ison come to the meeting to speak, he called Beat and was asked about his relationships with Ison and Billings. “The way those questions are being phrased already has a bias to them,” he said. Cleveland went on to describe his relationships with Billings and Ison as friendly, and he added that the commissioners had closely followed the rules and picked a high-quality review panel. He did not return a follow-up call and email seeking clarity about whether he had a role in the letter and Ison’s appearance at the commission meeting.
Billings, in an interview, said it was his idea to write the letter and that he couldn’t come to the Aug. 26 meeting because he was on vacation. Asked why he pushed for a special election, he said: “We were given the assignment now, so we felt pretty strongly that regardless of where you stand on each issue, it should be in front of the people now since we did the body of work now.”
Ison, in comments to the commission before he was selected to the Charter Review Committee, said that posing the questions alone on the ballot in a special election would allow voters to focus on them.
Opponents had wanted the questions to be included on the November 2026 ballot, when the competition to control the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate is likely to produce a huge turnout. In 2020, the existing charter was approved on a ballot led by the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Once the commission approved a special election, opponents formed NSBVoteNo, which is a Facebook group responsible for the Vote No! yard signs and that advocates voting no on the first four questions.
Proponents responded with their “I’m voting Yes!!” signs that ask voters to “support our NSB Charter Review Committee.”
The competition was on.
Whether or not the review process was flawed, Martin thinks voters should use a simpler metric. “You have to ask what any of this does for the taxpayer,” she said. “I want people to look at it from their own pocketbook.”
Cleveland said he of course has his own opinions about the proposed amendments, but that more than anything he wants a positive outcome for the city and a strong turnout. “I’m pushing voting. I’d like you to vote. Please vote,” he said.
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