Commission reviews lobbyist-registration ordinance, directs staff to require lobbyists (not commissioners) to keep contact logs

Deltona City Commission members spent more than two hours on Monday, Aug. 11, discussing Ordinance No. 28-2025, a proposed lobbyist-registration measure designed to increase transparency about paid efforts to influence city decisions. The commission voted informally, by hand raise, to require lobbying contact logs from registered lobbyists only (4–3) and asked staff to return with revised ordinance language and fee options for formal consideration.

The city attorney said the ordinance “intends to do is Create transparency” by requiring compensated lobbyists who try to influence the commission, the city manager or other final decision makers to register, file an annual disclosure and pay a registration fee. The draft language presented at the workshop defined lobbying as “a communication…with any member of the City Commission, staff decision maker, or board member…in order to influence the action or inaction” of a decision maker, and it would require commissioners and other staff decision…