Bryon White for County Council Member, District 3

Meet the Candidate: Bryon White for County Council Member, District 3

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am Judy Copier. I am the market president here
in central Florida and excited to present meet the candidates today.
We're talking with Brian White, who is running for Lucia
County Council District number three.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm Brian White. I'm
running for Vluce County Council District three. As you mentioned,
that is the southeast portion of Lucia County, so it
includes places like New Simrna, Beach, Edgewater, Poor Orange, Oakhill,
all the way over here close to Sanford, but in
Vlusha County.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
What prompted you to run for this office.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's a great question. I've been active in land use
policy and conservation for a long time for many years,
so I've been on the litigant end and on the
advocacy end of things. And let's just say, in Florida,
to be a conservationist can be a very frustrating existence.
We get used to losing a lot, so I got

(00:55):
tired of losing. And I realized somewhere down the line
that if we really want to protect this from overdevelopment,
from sprawl, from flooding, which is a huge problem in
English County, that we really need people with a conservation
or preservation or posterity mindset to run for office, and
that's why I did it.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
What experienced skills or expertise qualifications really helped prepare you
to move into this position.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, I worked in public safety in Volus County for
about eighteen years. I was a law enforcement officer and
an EMT and an ocean rescue lifeguard. So I was
a beach safety captain for most of that time in
newsummita beach mainly, but I worked for the county and
since leaving, I left to work in my own business.
I'm an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur for about fifteen years,

(01:42):
and aside from that, I also serve on the board
of thousand Friends of Florida, which is the leading land
use advocacy organization in the state. So I've been working,
you know both. I've worked within government, I've worked outside
of government, and now I'm ready to sit in a
chair I think.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
So exactly, how would you address some of the issues
that you've already brought up?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest issue for me
is overdevelopment and sprawl, and if you're not familiar with sprawl.
It's just the ever outward expansion of growth from major
population centers growing outwards. I don't think that has been
a productive or positive growth model for Florida. We're under resourced,

(02:25):
our infrastructure can't keep up with it, and I think
a lot of people in Vlush County, but not just
Flush County and all of Florida, feel like growth happens
to them and not for them. So my simple philosophy
with that is that growth needs to pay for itself
and it needs to keep up with the base of
our infrastructure. So it's really just restoring balance to the process.

(02:46):
I am an anti sprawl person. I don't think that
we need any more sprawl in Vlusha County. I think
we need smarter, more intentional growth strategies. So I really
want to restore that balance to the county government.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
What would be your first three priorities?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, it gets a little technical, but my first three
priorities are to restore what's called Chapter seventy two in
Volusia County, which used to make it so that any
development decisions had to go in front of the county Council,
which gave the public an opportunity to go and be heard,
and that has been taken away in the last year,

(03:24):
so I want to bring that back to the way
it was. That's a major priority for me. I'm very
interested in exploring what's called a rural boundary Charter amendment,
which Orange County has successfully implemented, and I want to
do something similar in Valusia County. That would require approval
from voters, so that probably would not happen until a
year or so after I would be elected. And then

(03:47):
flooding is a huge concern and Vlusia County thirty thousand
homes flooded during Hurricane Ian, so you know, people are
still raw from that and they're looking for representatives who
are going to take serious action. So the huge priority
for me there.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
What do you want voters to know about you that distinguishes, you, say,
from the other candidates.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, well that's a great question. First of all, I
didn't have I never had any aspirations to be a politician.
You know, I don't have any after this. You know,
I feel like I have a job to do. I'm
uniquely positioned to do it because I have meaningful experience
both in local government and in business and in conservations.
So I feel like I've worn three hats that are

(04:31):
really vitally important to this position, and I want to
bring that experience to this role. I don't think any
of the other candidates in my race can claim those credentials,
and I have an action bias. So I'm ready to
get to work and I'm going to treat this like
a job, and I feel confident in my abilities to
make a difference here. You know, I try not to

(04:52):
make promises I can't keep, but I do feel like,
you know, I'm ready to grind it out and get
the job done.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Thank you so much for joining us to again. This
is Brian White, who is running for Volusia County Council
District number three, and thank you for being part of
Meet the Candidates.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Thank you and if anybody wants to learn more, you
can visit my website Vote Brian White dot com.