JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Northeast Florida voters got a chance to hear from and ask questions of the lead Republican Gubernatorial candidate in Jacksonville Monday morning. <\/p>\n
Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL 19th District) took questions from audience members for nearly an hour at a local brewery on key issues.<\/p>\n
While the event was centered around Donalds\u2019 platform for veterans, but many of the questions he fielded focused on what is likely to be the top issue this election cycle: affordability.<\/p>\n
Donalds got several questions related to home insurance and housing costs.<\/p>\n
Donalds vowed to limit private equity firms\u2019 ability to purchase single-family homes, but also emphasized the need to reduce government-related costs of new home construction, especially when it comes to permitting.<\/p>\n
\u201c30 percent of the cost of building a new home is permitting. 30 percent. If a home costs $300,000 that means 100,000 of it is governmental permitting. That\u2019s insane,\u201d Donalds said.<\/p>\n
Donalds was also asked about AI and whether he\u2019d consider limiting the construction of AI data centers in the state.<\/p>\n
He argued the state needs to embrace the new tech and allow the industry to grow in Florida, but it also needs to ensure regulations are in place to prevent utility costs from being passed along to residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre there gonna be some data centers? Yes. Are we gonna make sure they\u2019re responsible to the people of Florida? 100 percent, absolutely. But we cannot put our heads in the ground with the next wave of innovation,\u201d said Donalds.<\/p>\n
On teacher pay, Donalds indicated he wants to make strategic investments to help increase salaries.<\/p>\n
The National Education Association lists Florida 50th in the nation for average teacher pay.<\/p>\n
Donalds said his plan is to cut and streamline other government costs, and pass the savings along to teachers and other workers like firefighters and law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had several conversations about various aspects of state government, where if we apply the correct incentive, we\u2019re gonna be able to shake the trees loose and be able to get some stuff done,\u201d said Donalds.<\/p>\n
Before making the ballot in November, Donalds would have to win in the August Primary.<\/p>\n
Most polls show him with a sizable lead over the other top GOP contenders, including Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins, former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner and political newcomer James Fishback.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Northeast Florida voters got a chance to hear from and ask questions of the lead…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":694796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[290899,12189,5229,262896,269464,446,290900,3188,723,279,3153,290903,7310,3005,77156,48908,262898,262899,50445,425,290902,64442,262900,7047,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,290901],"class_list":["post-694795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_jackson_state","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-byron_donald","tag-byron_donalds","tag-donald","tag-donalds","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-gop","tag-governor","tag-house_speaker","tag-jacksonville","tag-jake","tag-jake_stan","tag-jake_stoan","tag-james_fishback","tag-jay_collins","tag-lieutenant","tag-local","tag-national_education_association","tag-northeast_florida","tag-paul_renner","tag-republican","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wave_of"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}