To our Supporters - we achieved a GREAT Victory last night. You came through with flying colors! Outspent and Out gunned our volunteers got our message out and YOU TURNED OUT!

Our Grass Roots are strong and now we press on to November. We are looking forward to walking this walk with you by our side - to Ultimate Victory!

Thank you and thank you again for your unwavering support!

Save our signs, feel free to pick strays up from around the county and let us know where to grab them from - keep the ones for your yards of course !

We love and cherish your support and we are looking forward to gaining even more speed and momentum moving into the fall!

I’d love to come and meet your groups, neighborhoods, HOAs or afternoon gatherings to talk about our shared goals for the future of Volusia County!

No time to rest - we will be back at it this morning - after I go get a new pair of Merrell’s as I actually walked the soles off of my current pair.

Again - THANK YOU- let’s do this!

Mike P

A huge thank you to all of my supporters and voluteers. You made this campaign happen.

On Property taxes

Yesterday at a political forum in DeLand my opponent challenged my statement, “What’s one business that can charge you what they want, make you pay it, and if you don’t, can take your property, and the answer is “The Government”! It’s true. Many of you received last month the listings of thousands of property deeds with delinquent taxes that may go up for government auction, so that is true. https://www.clerk.org/tax-deeds.aspx

I opened with the story of two gracious ladies who I met on Saturday morning in Ormond Beach, who recounted to me their stories of loss. They had to sell their forever homes and move in with family members because they could no longer afford to pay their property taxes, homeowners’ insurance, auto insurance and still have money left over from their Social Security checks to live on.

When my opponent closed her remarks, she asked the crowd, “How many homes have been taken for not paying property taxes, and her supporters, in a rehearsed fashion said, “ZERO” in unison with her, well-rehearsed, and tone deaf, once again.

My point was, those on fixed incomes, the retired, seniors, and the young trying to save and purchase their first home, are fighting for their financial lives.

Choose wisely my friends, you must choose leaders who are experiencing life and hardships, just like you! If not, the High and Mighty will burden you with more taxes and fees as they pay up on all the campaign promises they have made to their million- and billion-dollar donors.Write your text here...

On Storm Water Management

My opponent yesterday challenged my “small government” core value by saying my wish to form a “Volusia County Storm Water Authority” was a contradiction! How so.? My opponent continually touts her membership in the League of Cities Leadership, Co-Chairing of the Flood Committee, and her experience with Hurricanes Ian and Nicole as her credentials for being the best suited to lead the flooding fight in Volusia County.

She also infers that her committee is responsible for the 400 million dollars this county received from HUD for Transform 386. Not so. Please do your research and see exactly how that money got here and why. It got here on the backs of the over 30,000 homes that flooded, and five freshwater drownings during Hurricane Ian and a similar amount after hurricane Milton. Not because of any committee or group of politicians. It was based on a calculation of the misery we suffered over the past 5 years!

Truth is if you read what’s going on, individual cities are still fighting for storm water money. Edgewater is one example of success, Daytona Beach is one of failure, especially after the recently released Corp of Engineering study that said “nothing practical could be done” for the mid-town flooding issue. My point being, that each city, regardless of their participation in this round table of elected leaders’ group, they are doing a lot of talking and still operating in their own SILOS! We have yet to see a joint project between Holly Hill, Daytona Beach, South Daytona and Port Orange where these cities, whose development projects and resultant stormwater runoff effect each other’s jurisdiction. Heck, just drive along the Nova Canal!!! Is it cleaned out from north to south?? NO! It’s still overgrown and choked reducing its storm water capacity and flow 10-fold! That’s just one example!

The highly anticipated Spruce Creek Watershed Study, which we spent over 400 thousand dollars on is 4 months late and it’s my understanding that the Texas firm hired is using data from 2021??? Could that be true? Have they even sent “boots on the ground” to traverse the creeks blocked meanders to see what’s really going on. That 400 thousand dollars should have been used to correct some of the issues discovered in the 2019 B-21 Canal Study that still sit unresolved.

Here is one tidbit that should be evident. In the 2002-2003 Volusia County Stormwater Budget, 15% of the revenue allocated was directed to personnel and operating expenses and today its 76%. 45% was dedicated to capital improvements, today its just 12%. Is that progress? Does the Flooding Committee even look at these numbers, across the entirety of the county. Nope, in the face of major flooding risks as evidenced by real world events, we are going backwards.

I live in the Tomoka Farms Village. Through an ongoing FOIA request our leadership out here gets the daily/monthly totals of how much stormwater Port Orange pumps out to its reclaimed water ponds due west of my home that it built back in the 80’s! Some days during heavy rain events, over 20 million gallons a day! That’s how impervious the city has become. And no one has a clue as to what to do with that water it except to pump it somewhere else. Onto someone else’s property.

Visit mikep4volusia.com to see what the result of that is. See our destroyed homes, flooded neighborhoods, and folks kayaking down Tomoka Farms Road. Talk to the people on Old Mission Road, Miller Lane, Shady Lane, and New Castel Ct! These people will tell you that today they have PTSD every time we have a heavy rain because they fear they will wake up to a wet bedroom floor.

My aim is to make positive change, through the force of law to make sure we are doing the best we can, to alleviate freshwater flooding where we can, eliminate it if possible. The way we handle and drain stormwater is very antiquated and we must do better. The time for talk is over. I am an Emergency Manager who has worked on flooding issues and toiled during DOZENS of hurricanes and tropical storms here in Volusia County, as well as tornados, and wildfires since 1978 in leadership positions making decisions that have affected 100s of thousands of our residents. Just look at my proven record. That’s a fact. I have been to New Orleans, and Galveston and studied how they have eliminated flooding in those communities. I was deployed to Florida City after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and saw first-hand the devastation hurricanes delivered. I led this county through the Fires of 1998 and assisted with Flagler’s Fires in 1985, and the hurricanes of 2004 and more recently with Matthew, Dorian, Helena, Ian, Nicole and Milton among countless others. I sent teams to assist after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Big Business has started their attack in support of Data Centers. Beware.

Governments, at every level, must do what is in the best interest of its citizens and the citizens are the ones who decide that, in the end. They do this by making sure that their voices are heard by their elected leaders, and if they are ignored, they change the government at the next election. That is the way it must be for every major decision and undertaking that may have far reaching effects, in time, money and resources. Especially if payment for such an undertaking falls on the backs of the taxpayers to fund.

As far as Data Centers are concerned, there are only estimates as to how many will be needed across our country, this is called speculation! Let’s not build them everywhere without a clear, scientific understanding of where they need to be placed. Hyperscale data centers can consume thousands of acres to build, use the equivalent energy of a small city to run, drink up to five million gallons of water a day to cool, emit carbon, methane, heat and noise (24/7) into the environment and change the face of the community or ecosystem they are built in, FOREVER!

Hyperscale data centers should stand up their own power generation plants, (we can get into what kind later) and use an alternative cooling system that does not depend on fresh water.

Florida and Volusia County do not have the excess water to allocate to such plants, we surely will not pay for the energy infrastructure to power them, and land is somewhat scarce as well as we attempt to preserve what is left of our open spaces.

If you consider that information is nothing more than electrons, energy, understand that this energy moves at the speed of light. (E=MC2) Therefore, we don’t necessarily need these data centers in our communities/neighborhoods/state! They don’t bring jobs, AI itself will run the center, maintained by a skeleton staff of humans, and I’m sure these plants will be constructed in such a way as to allow robots to eventually service and change out components as necessary. The labor to build them will be “imported” and leave when the plant is completed. The materials for the build will not be locally sourced for sure as the builder will not be running to the local building supply store for 10 million self-tapping screws, 60 million steel framing beams and temporary concrete plants will be built on site. The only local resource will be the land, at the demise of the trees, open spaces and wildlife habitat.

Even Amazon, Meta, and Google among others have been downsizing in the tens of thousands of jobs very recently and we know Amazon for one is using robots for product fulfillment. Just wait a few more years until those Amazon trucks are autonomous and little robots pop out and drive your packages to the front door. They also have plans to mostly depend on robots in every aspect of product fulfillment. Their current goal is to automate 75% of its operations by 2033, so any short-term job growth will be rolled back when their next generation Proteus Robot is rolled out.

You get the picture. These are community killers. They will speed up the ability to downsize the human component across the board. The mega wealthy will continue that upward trend, and the middle class will become more unemployed /unemployable.

That’s why as an aside we need to shed this mind set of needing a 4-year degree! We need to bolster our TRADES! Electricians, HVAC, Plumbers, Mechanics, skilled craftsmen, carpenters, roofers, health care technicians, real humans who will be sorely needed in the future to service the thousands of homes that exist today and those that are on the drawing board! That’s where our communities vested interest lies. Equipping our students with the mental and manual skills to keep our communities humming well into the future.

And we want affordable beef, let’s keep the beef industry local! Florida has had a strong beef industry for generations, and that’s what Florida still needs! Save that pastureland, graze them cattle, feed them cattle, and send them to market locally. I’m waiting on my first delivery of beef cattle to free range on my property! FACT!

Who will want to live within a mile of an ever-existent hum of air exchangers, coolers, etc., the wildlife will run off and if its near anywhere around here, who’s absorbing the millions of gallons of storm water run-off from a 2000-acre plant? Not this guy, or his neighbors.

If we really need them, put them in the barren desert away from everything! Ship the information where it needs to go, remember (E=MC2), improve the technology so it’s not so dependent on water which is meant to sustain organic life!

Hell no!

Volusia County needs new leadership. Leadership with a personal, family, connection. Leadership that will work for you, The People, not special interests, big business or out of town ventures! We need leadership now that will make the tough budget cutting decisions you want and need today! I have made my career serving Volusia County, saving lives on our streets, in your homes, protecting your property and making sure our community was prepared for storms, diseases, terrorist and cyber-attacks! Leadership steeped in Faith and Family, for generations. Right here in Volusia County.

Vote for Mike Poniatowski for Volusia County Council at Large on August 18, in person, or by mail and at early voting.

Mike is the Leadership Volusia County needs today!

Endorsements

Property Tax Reform

Recent polling by the University of North Florida shows that a strong majority of voters want some form of property tax reform with approval hovering right around the 60% mark, which is the threshold needed to pass. Your leaders need to plan for this eventuality now. Prudent planning should tell us where to make required cuts, with your input! We cannot wait until next year. If reform does not pass, then this will be a great exercise to learn where cuts in spending can be made to save us real money and reduce the tax burden on our citizens but especially our elderly on fixed incomes who own homesteaded property and the young, trying to build a future of investment by purchasing their forever home, like our family did 40 years ago!

Folks, it’s time to move forward with our campaign! The issues and you the voters and citizens of Volusia County are what’s most important!

Comprehensive Storm Water Management

Decades of building, sprawl, and lack of maintenance or intuitive design have left residents knee deep at times in flood waters from rains and storms across our great county. Homes, businesses and roads continue to be inundated at times by what seem to be ordinary summer afternoon thunderstorms. We need to form a comprehensive Storm Water Management Authority by ordinance and eventually Charter Amendment, to make sure that our 16 municipalities and the county become willing partners in an ongoing endeavor to begin meaningful repairs to protect our properties and investments to Keep Volusia Dry. The time for dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars in repetitive studies to out of state consultants is over. It’s time for local experts and residents to identify fixes that will make a difference. We can do this without additional taxes.

Development and Land Conservation

We can see across this county, wide tracts of what was once wide open, wooded, land being bulldozed, drained, filled and loaded with slab on grade single unit homes. Once this land is gone it can never be replaced, and the damage done is irreversible. Green spaces help regulate our world’s temperature, provide us with fresh oxygen and ingest carbon dioxide. It gives our rains and storm water a place to sit, evaporate and percolate into our very endangered aquifer. We are sucking more water out of it than can be replaced and billions of gallons of water just runoff of our impervious surfaces eventually making it to our rivers and oceans not doing us any good. We must embrace Low Impact Development, prevent sprawl and heavily limit up zoning to allow more units per acres then currently zoned for. It’s our children’s and grandchildren’s futures we are gambling with.

We need to revisit the concept of Rural Boundaries and Keep Volusia Forever – FOREVER! Full Stop! We overwhelmingly voted for this program twice, and if we continue to be blessed with the revenue to sustain it, we must.

Our Beaches

Our beaches are one of our greatest resources. We must keep investing in them, to keep them free, open and clean, to allow everyone to enjoy their beauty. They should be treated as a park, not a school yard! Yes, we have rules, and we need to follow them, and the onus should be on personal responsibility first before over burdensome regulations.

Reclaimed Water Use

So called, “Toilet to Tap”, is one of those hot button issues! Regardless, it will be my aim to educate you on what it really means, clearly, without fear and subterfuge and most importantly allow you, the voters to make the ultimate decision as to whether it is allowed in Volusia County or not.

Data Centers

Not on my watch! There is a great quote from Patrick Henry’s most famous speech that too often goes unrecognized. “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.”

We must look to the Experience of others before we pave our own future.

Fees to our Residents

With technology where it is today, we should not be charging hundreds, and at times thousands of dollars to individuals or organizations requesting PUBLIC Records. We should be able to request what we want, our IT Department should be able to run a routine that finds what we’ve asked for and place it on a thumb drive at no cost to you, the taxpayer. The public trust is only maintained by making information free and easy to obtain and I will work with the new council to make this a reality. Sunshine is the best disinfectant!

Oh, and when you pay with credit or with debit cards for a service remotely, the convenience is for the county, not to encumber a bricks and mortar kiosk! So, I will work to eliminate “convenience” fees when making payments!

My Experience makes me best suited to Lead

I have served this county for over 47 years, “Boots On the Ground”, as a Volunteer Firefighter, Law Enforcement Officer, EMT, Paramedic, business owner, Emergency Manager, Flight Medic, SWAT Team Member, and even while serving our great nation in the Middle East. I have been helping lead the Tomoka Farms Village since we moved in here over 40 years ago. I have lived here for over 56 years, and our family has been here for five generations since the 1960’s and have a large family who love it here and want this to be their forever home. I hope you feel the same.

Leadership isn’t a buzzword, nor skills that are learned at a conference. Leadership skills are acquired by running towards chaos and making split second decisions that could involve life and death. Leadership is a result of being in the middle of the storm and guiding those under your command to push forward with their only focus being on mission success and survival.

Leadership is putting one's own safety on the line without a second thought, not sitting somewhere secure and giving orders for others to follow. I have taken on those challenges for decades, focusing first on saving the lives of others. https://youtu.be/ZSArQUn3TO8 (see the embedded video for reference)

I have also been the victim of the storm. I have stood knee deep, and watched as flood waters overtook the home I had built over 40 years while watching many of my neighbor’s homes be swallowed up by the rushing water and destroyed.

Anyone can attend seminars and conferences on the taxpayer’s dime, and learn the latest corporate buzzwords, but buzzwords don’t stop raging water nor do they rescue members of our community who are caught up in them. Only knowledge, skills, and experience, honed in the fire of reality with split second decisions made from that experience will win the day.

Exactly how much should taxpayers spend for their local representatives to travel all over the country to listen to the latest in how to make a tragedy sound better than it actually is?

I don’t need buzzwords. When faced with an emergency one doesn’t “Highlight sustainability initiatives” , “pivot our strategy to align with political dynamics” or “optimize our core competencies to drive value creation”. No, one acts based on decades of experience in the trenches, facing real life challenges and making life and death decisions.

I’ve been in the ditches, businesses, homes, waterways with your family, friends, neighbors and complete strangers. Whether dropping from the sky, running up by boat, ambulance or patrol car, or leading teams, I’ve been there for everyone, saving lives, protecting property and always making split second decisions that make a difference.

I can promise you,I will never ask you to spend your hard-earned tax dollars so that I can learn the latest in corporate speak. It really won’t come in all that handy when I’m knee deep in the mud, making real world decisions to deal with real world catastrophes.

What have we learned over the past five decades in Volusia County? The best laid plans don’t stop Mother Nature and if you can’t stop the storm, you’d better be prepared to lace up your boots and head into it because actions speak louder than words.

My school has been the last 47 years of my life serving you – the citizens of Volusia County, fellow disaster victims across America, and our military overseas. I was deployed to Homestead/Florida City after Hurricane Andrew; I’ve deployed teams across America in times of need. I worked the wildfires of 1985 and 1998, right here at home, over 20 hurricanes and Tropical Storms, spent years in the Middle East working with the best America can give in the continued defense of our freedom. I also built and ran a local business where I employed locals, paid taxes, made payroll, and supported those that support us every day!

I have multiple degrees from several Universities and Colleges and my entire resume has made me the best fit, and most ready to lead Volusia County as our At Large Representative. I don’t have any political baggage, and I am not encumbered by big business donors.

I am here to support you, work for you, listen to you, and do your work to make Volusia County a place still worth living in for the future.

I’m asking for your support and vote on August 18th, Get out and vote!

Thank you.

Mike Poniatowski for Volusia County Council at Large.

About Mike

Introduction: Mike Poniatowski announces his candidacy for the At Large Seat of the Volusia County Council in the 2026 elections.
Background:
Lifelong resident of Volusia County, grew up on the beach and graduated from Spruce Creek High School in 1977.
Diverse career in public safety: Firefighter (5 years), Police Officer/Deputy Sheriff (37 years), Paramedic/EMT (35 years), SWAT Team member, flight medic, marine deputy, EMS instructor, and Director of Operations for EVAC Ambulance (22 years).
Extensive leadership experience as Emergency Manager for Florida’s largest hospital system and US Government contractor overseas.
Community Involvement:
Resides in Port Orange with his wife Lydia; have lived in the same home for 37 years.
Active participant in preserving the rural character of Tomoka Farms Village, fighting against development threats for over three decades.
Concerns for Volusia County:
Witnessed rapid growth, erosion of green spaces, and lagging infrastructure development causing traffic congestion and flooding issues.
Advocates for better management of taxes and fees with tangible results for residents.

Paid for by Mike Poniatowski for Volusia County Council at Larg

Educational Credentials:
Holds degrees in Emergency Medical Sciences, Management and Supervision, Political Science, and pursued advanced studies in Homeland Security, Emergency Management, and Public Health.
Certified EMT and Paramedic with numerous national and international credentials.
Vision and Commitment:
Pledges to represent citizens as his sole "special interest."
Promises fiscal responsibility, careful evaluation of development projects to prevent flooding, and protection of residents' homes and legacies.
Plans to address flooding issues with urgency and replace ineffective staff if necessary.
Personal Life:
Family-oriented with three daughters, three granddaughters, a brand new Grandson, pets, horses, and wildlife at home.
Enjoys outdoor activities like shooting sports and teaching community courses on active shooter survival and emergency response.
Closing Statement: Mike looks forward to serving Volusia County residents with dedication, listening to their concerns, and working tirelessly to improve their quality of life.