L. Carson Bise, president of the consultancy Flagler Beach government hired to prepare a study proposing a 90 percent increase in the city’s impact fees levied on builders, on Wednesday responded point by point to questions and criticism of the study by the executive officer of the Flagler Home Builders Association, a day before the city commission is expected to vote on the proposal. Not all the responses appear entirely tenable.
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Daily Cartoon and Briefing
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, March 28, 2024
Flagler, Palm Coast & Other Local
BJ’s Wholesale Club in Palm Coast Will Be Company’s 38th Store in Florida
BJ’s Wholesale Club, a leading operator of membership warehouse clubs, announced today the five newest clubs coming to its footprint, including the Palm Coast location on State Road 100. The local 103,000 square foot store will be part of a shopping center that will include other businesses, including a Miller’s Ale House and four other satellite businesses.
Palm Coast Seeks Residents’ Input on City’s Vision for its Future as Imagine 2050 Plan Begins Phase 2
The draft Vision Statement and Guiding Principles are now available for review and feedback on the City of Palm Coast’s interactive website. The city invites residents to visit the website and share thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. Residents’ identities are not revealed–in other words, residents may share their thoughts anonymously.
Proposed 90% Increase in Flagler Beach Impact Fees Shadowed by Questions and a Looming Development
After hearing it first proposed last July and twice opting not to adopt it just yet since, the Flagler Beach City Commission will try again to approve a revised impact fee schedule that would raise water and sewer fees for the first time in 14 years and create new impact fees for parks, police, fire and the library system. But questions about the study rationalizing the new schedule, including from a city commissioner and from the Flagler County Home Builders Association, continue to shadow the proposal.
More Flagler, Palm Coast & Other Local
Aborting Former Commitment, School Board Votes 3-2 To End Belle Terre Swim Club’s Public Memberships By July
Three Flagler County School Board members–Christy Chong, Will Furry, Sally Hunt–voted Tuesday to close the Belle Terre Swim and Racquet Club to the public, 28 years after it was gifted to the district, which has run it with public access to a swimming pool, tennis courts and a fitness gym. The facility has been a financial puzzle for the district for 10 years as well as a cherished institution for a loyal if diminished corps of members. The closure to the public will not end the facility’s financial deficits. It will only reduce them.
School Board’s Colleen Conklin Says County At One Time Paid Entire Cost of School Deputies
Speaking publicly for the first time about the revelation last month that county government was looking to pull back its share of funding for $1.4 million in “legacy” programs it helps pay for in the school district, including about $1 million for school resource deputies, Flagler County School Board member Colleen Conklin today asked for a public conversation, and said “disinformation” has obscured the fact that at one time, more than two decades ago, the county paid for the entirety of the bill.
Palm Coast Takes Stock of Its Capital Funds Ahead of Budgeting for Parks, Roads, Fire, Swales and Utilities
The Palm Coast City Council this morning got a glance at what the city’s own major capital or construction plans will look like over the next 10 years, where the money will come from, and what city projects may drive the spending. The review of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, or CIP, combines the tedious with the essential, delineating the wishful from the possible.
Marcus Chamblin Trial in Circle K Murder Set for April 8 as Co-Defendant Derrius Bauer Waits Until September
The trial of Derrius Braxton Bauer on a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Deon O’Neal Jenkins at a Palm Coast Circle K station in 2019 has been pushed to September to first accommodate the trial of Bauer’s co-defendant, Marcus Chamblin, set for April 8. The Chamblin trial includes a potential list of over 120 witnesses, will stretch over two weeks, and will be one of the more complex local criminal trials in recent years.
The Firing of Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan Is Indefensible
Setting aside fairly raised implications by two city council members of sunshine-law violations, there were inexcusable elements of brutality, arbitrariness, and sexism in the firing of Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan last week, none of which should be swept past by claims that it’s over and done with, that we should move on. Those claims only benefit the firing’s orchestrators and reward the ill manner of it all. They explain nothing. Explanations are due.
Michael Wells Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Standoff With Deputies and Domestic Violence
Michael Wells, the 57-year-old Palm Coast resident at the center of a two-hour standoff with police on Brunswick Lane that ended with several felony charges last September was sentenced today to 21 months in prison followed by 24 months on drug-offender probation.
Bunnell’s Chicken Pantry Is No More After 68 Years of Joyfully Frying Everything That Moves
After 68 years in business under more than half a dozen owners and in two locations, Bunnell’s Chicken Pantry is no more. Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson, whose office is across the way, said he’d been hearing of the business having financial difficulties before he saw the iconic red chicken on State Road 100 had been removed.
Joint Investigation Leads to Arrest of Antarius Henderson, 23, in Bunnell Shooting that Left 20 Year Old Critical
The shooting incident in Bunnell’s South Anderson Street involved three people firing some 30 or 31 shots (police recovered 31 shell casings): Henderson, the 19-year-old man he’d been fighting with, and a 17-year-old boy. Some of the residents around the scene of the shooting, including young children, hid in their bathrooms as bullets flew.
Palm Coast Approves Steps for Trio of Developments That Will Add 689 Homes in North and South of City
The Palm Coast City Council and its planning board between them approved different steps for a trio of developments in north and south Palm Coast that will add a combined 689 single-family homes to the city’s inventory. The approvals were for the final plat of Phase 2B of Sawmill Branch off U.S. 1, the final plat of Seminole Palms Phase 1 on the west side of Seminole Woods Boulevard, north of Grand Landings Parkway, and for the subdivision master plan of Sawmill Branch Phase 3.
Chamber Never Consulted Superintendent Before Snatching ‘State of Flagler Schools’ For Its Own, and Charging Money
The local chamber of commerce is hosting a $30-a-plate lunch on April 30 featuring School Superintendent LaShakia Moore and billed as “The State of Flagler Schools,” the title of an address the superintendent has traditionally delivered publicly, for free, once a year. The chamber never bothered to consult Moore about it or, as a courtesy, ask if it could appropriate the public event’s name—let alone for a pay-to-attend event. The Flagler Education Foundation, a co-sponsor, is not getting a share of the proceeds.
Old Kings Road at U.S. 1 Closes for Months for Roundabout Construction
Flagler County officials are alerting residents that Old Kings Road will be closed at U.S. 1 by the Florida Agricultural Museum beginning Monday for several months to accommodate road construction there. There is a marked detour at Matanzas Woods Parkway that motorists are instructed to use.
The Conversation
Port Of Baltimore Bridge Collapse Will Rattle Supply Chains Again
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, has put a spotlight on the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest harbors in the U.S., which paused shipping and immediately halted all vessel traffic in and out. The overall economic toll will be high as billions of dollars of goods are rerouted amid the prospect of supply chains being snarled for months. It will also mean a loss of tax revenue for the city and state.
Florida and Beyond
Disney and Oversight District Settle Lawsuit, Not Quite Ending Company’s Dispute With DeSantis
The deal ends an Orange County circuit-court lawsuit that came amid a feud between DeSantis and Disney over the company’s opposition to a 2022 state law that restricted instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Disney filed a separate federal lawsuit and appealed after a U.S. district judge in January dismissed that case. The appeal remains pending.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion, the weekly chess club for teens at the public library, India takes a page out of Trump’s book on Muslim bans.
Do Anti-Abortion Doctors Have Any Business Challenging Abortion Drug Access?
Who has the legal right to challenge decisions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration? And should the moral umbrage of a group of anti-abortion rights doctors shift policy across the country, limiting women’s ability to get the widely used abortion drug mifepristone? These are a few of the central questions that the Supreme Court fielded on March 26 during the oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
Briefs and Releases
Palm Coast Installing Solar-Powered Flashing Traffic Beacons in School Zones
AdventHealth and Construction Manager Top Out New Medical Plaza at SR100 Campus
Lawn Care Without Waste: April Is Water Conservation Month
40 Flagler Schools Students Advance to International Problem Solvers Competition After Wins in Orlando
Go Slow and Look Down, Boaters: Manatees Are Dispersing from Their Wintering Refuges
More Florida and Beyond
Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of Florida Law Restricting Employment for Chinese and Some Others
Two graduate students and a professor on Monday challenged the constitutionality of a 2023 state law that restricts employment of people from China and six other nations at Florida public universities and colleges. The challenge alleges, in part, that the law is unconstitutional because it is trumped by federal immigration laws.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
The Palm Coast City Council meets in workshop for the first time since firing its city manager, the School Board, alas, holds a pair of meetings, and a few thoughts about libraries loved and lost.
The Problem With Shaming People for Auschwitz Selfies
Based on our analysis, we think it may be better that young people engage with Holocaust sites in their own way, rather than not engaging at all. We also suggest that some commenters may be just as guilty as the selfie-takers, using their comments to show themselves in a positive light. Paradoxically, this is precisely what they are shaming the selfie-takers for doing: centering themselves, using the Holocaust as a prop.
DeSantis Signs Bill Restricting Children’s Social Media Accounts and Inviting Yet Another Lawsuit
With the state preparing for a legal challenge from the tech industry, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a high-profile bill aimed at keeping children off social-media platforms. Paul Renner and other key supporters argue that social-media companies have created addictive platforms that harm children’s mental health and can lead to sexual predators communicating with minors. But critics, including tech-industry groups, argue the bill is unconstitutional and point to courts blocking similar legislation in other states.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, March 25, 2024
The Flagler County Beekeepers Association holds its monthly meeting, the Bunnell City Commission meets, Randy Newman on Louisiana in 1927, and what it’s like to wake up to a minor flood and falling ceilings in one’s own home.
Even Nixon Said Americans Should Know ‘Whether Their President Is a Crook.’ Trump Says the Opposite.
When Nixon told British journalist David Frost in 1977 that “when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal,” Nixon hastened to add a crucial caveat that he was talking about war powers and national security, and specifically emphasized that he did not “mean to suggest the president is above the law.” Trump says he is.
The Austin Example: Is It Time to Drop Minimum Parking Rules to Make Housing More Affordable?
Most cities require homes and businesses to have parking. Critics say they drive up housing costs, foster car dependency and raise carbon emissions. Austin last year became the largest city in the country to do away with its minimum parking requirements, following in the steps of other major cities like Portland, Minneapolis and San Jose. Nixing parking minimums is part of a slate of reforms in Austin to loosen city land-use regulations and allow more housing to be built amid the city’s severe housing affordability crisis.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, March 24, 2024
Warbirds Over Flagler Fly-In at County Airport, the 2024 Flagler Wellness Expo, Caryl Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom,’ at City Repertory Theatre, the DeLand Outdoor Art Festival, a few words about Glenn Gould.
Religious Charter School Case Could Demolish Church-State Wall in Public Education
On April 2, 2024, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could reshape rules even further: whether to allow a Catholic charter school to open its doors, which critics say would all but demolish the line between church and state in education.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, March 23, 2024
Free Youth NCCAA Sports Clinic at Holland Park, Warbirds Over Flagler Fly-In at Flagler County Airport, Caryl Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom,’ at City Repertory Theatre, Akira Kurosawa, “Dersu Uzala” and Siberia.
Kate Middleton’s Photo Was Doctored. So Are a Lot of Images You See Today.
The most charitable interpretation of Kate Middleton’s doctoring of a family image is that she was trying to remove distracting or unflattering elements. But the artefacts could also point to multiple images being blended together. This could either be to try to show the best version of each person (for example, with a smiling face and open eyes), or for another purpose.
Commentary
Why Millions of Americans Still Believe the 2020 Election Was ‘Stolen’ From Trump
Two thirds of Republican voters (and nearly 3 in 10 Americans) continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and that Biden was not lawfully elected. In fact, this “election denialism” is one of the major differences between those who support Trump and those who voted for his rival, Nikki Haley.
How Christians Misused the Bible to Justify Slavery
How had religions supposedly dedicated to propagating the word of a compassionate and loving God become so intricately involved in slavery’s “appalling evil”? The answer is rooted in a grotesque misuse of the very words of the Bible. Of the many ways that Christians have invoked the Bible to justify their actions, none has exceeded in cruelty and willful ignorance their appropriation of the “Curse of Ham” to justify slavery.
Does Hosting Major Sports Events Like Olympics or World Cup Pay Off?
Host countries appear to suffer from increased tax burdens, low returns on public investments, high construction costs, and onerous running cost of facilities after the event. Communities can also be blighted by noise, pollution, and damage to the environment, while increased criminal activity and potential conflicts between locals and visitors can take a toll on their quality of life.