New Smyrna Beach Mayor Fred Cleveland — currently serving his first term after winning the mayoral election in 2022 — will face his first challenge at the ballot box, facing off against Lou Pate and Frank Dalton Jr. in a reelection bid.
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The mayoral election is on Aug. 20. Even if one of three mayoral candidates wins more than 50% of the vote, the top two must advance to a runoff in the general election, which takes place on Nov. 5.
This year, New Smyrna Beach residents will also vote on whether to reelect three city commission members or choose their challengers. Those contests will also take place on Nov. 5.
Mayoral candidates sounded off in a questionnaire from The News-Journal. Answers were edited for space and grammar.
The candidates
Fred Cleveland
Name: Fred Cleveland.
Age: 67.
Occupation: Retired United States Navy and airline executive.
Political experience: New Smyrna Beach mayor.
Top three priorities:
1. Ensure and increase community safety through partnerships with local and federal agencies, enhanced communications and fully staffed city entities.
2. Environmental oversight to include stormwater management, protection and preservation of our waterways and disaster preparedness.
3. Balancing the demand for growth and expanded infrastructure with the preservation of the historic character of our coastal community.
Why are you running?
To protect the quality of life that preserves the local small-town community development we so value here. To ensure our city is able to evolve, preserving our historic community while successfully navigating the challenges of our inevitable growth. To unite the citizens' efforts around our many commonly shared goals for NSB through leveraging the diversity that makes us stronger as a community.
What is a life accomplishment that illuminates the kind of office holder you will be?
As an airline executive and chief operating officer of two global air carriers and senior naval officer in the Naval Aviation Enterprise, I was able to effectively build successful teams. Together, we achieved the goals set by a diverse group of stakeholders resolving a variety of challenges and opportunities facing these major multibillion-dollar organizations. Listening to those on the flight lines and shop floors to translate their needs for success into a vision of cooperation, leadership and innovation was instrumental in effectively meeting and exceeding goals.
What is something about your community that you treasure and aim to protect? What is something you will seek to change?
We are privileged to live in a coastal environment with a high quality of life. We must protect the culture of our community and neighborhoods which provide that quality to ensure we can all continue to enjoy and thrive in New Smyrna Beach. We must embrace the future of New Smyrna Beach by strategically envisioning and carefully planning what our community should look like and feel like to meet the needs and desires of those who live, work and play here.
Frank T. Dalton Jr.
Name: Frank T. Dalton Jr.
Age: 49.
Occupation: Insurance adjuster
Political experience: None — I’m a business owner.
Top three priorities:
1. To attend to all the concerns of the citizens in New Smyrna Beach, regardless of where their home is located in town.
2. To address issues with our preservation and needed improvements to the historic Canal Street, North Causeway and beachside areas.
3. The parks, boat ramps and community areas that need to be improved and maintained.
Why are you running?
I'm tired of the usual local politics — say one thing and do nothing. I would like to be able to take my family to the beach, our beach, that we cannot even access on most days. I’m a father of five wonderful children and do not wish to see them leave town to start their lives because there is no opportunity here for them to make a living for themselves.
What is a life accomplishment that illuminates the kind of office holder you will be?
I started a company in the laundry room of my home and inside of seven years we now occupy over 14,000 square feet and provide dozens of jobs in the area. We did it by hard work, conservative values and sticking to a budget.
What is something about your community that you treasure and aim to protect?
Historic Canal Street, North Causeway and beachside area, to name a few.
What is something you will seek to change?
I believe we need to start looking to take our beach back among other things. I also believe that when we hire smart and qualified staff in the city, we need to listen to them and allow them to do the job they were hired to do. I’m not a fan of micromanaging.
Lou Pate
Name: Lou Pate.
Age: 59.
Occupation: Talk show host; stand-up comedian.
Political experience: None.
Top three priorities:
1. In New Smyrna Beach, east to west and north to south, flooding is an issue that affects all of us.
2. Preserving the natural areas of New Smyrna Beach, so the city does not become Boca Raton, Delray Beach or Miami.
3. Updating and maintaining the New Smyrna Beach infrastructure, such as the electrical grid and roads.
Why are you running?
The city government is not looking out for all of the residents of New Smyrna Beach. They cater to real estate companies and general contractors and developers. This is done by rubber stamping most if not all projects regardless of the consequences to the residents.
What is a life accomplishment that illuminates the kind of office holder you will be?
The kind of office holder I will be is based on collective life experiences, both positive and negative that have brought me to this point in my life. We never stop learning. If we do, we are either ignorant or dead.
What is something about your community that you treasure and aim to protect? What is something you will seek to change?
New Smyrna Beach has a special quality about it. It is quaint, unlike any other city. While growth cannot be stopped, I would like to preserve its quaintness. What I would like to change is the focus of the city government. It appears they are focusing on all of the new people moving here and have put the residents who were born and raised here, the foundation of New Smyrna Beach on the backburner.
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