Wednesday Briefing: Maria Howell Sounding, TDC Absenteeism, Taxing Painters Hill, Home Builders’ Next Paradise

Today: Mostly cloudy in the morning then becoming partly cloudy. Areas of fog in the morning. Highs around 80. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Tonight: Partly cloudy in the evening then becoming mostly cloudy. Lows in the lower 60s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Details here.
Today’s document from the National Archives and the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Today’s tides: at the beaches, at the Intracoastal Waterway.
Drought Index73
The OED’s Word of the Day: quisquous, adj..
The Live Community Calendar
Today’s jail bookings.

Today’s Briefing: Quick Links

• First Light
• In Flagler and Palm Coast
• Flagler Jail Bookings and Sheriff’s Crime Reports
• Announcements
• In State Government
• In Coming Days in Flagler, Palm Coast and Beyond
• The Day’s Best Reads
• Editor’s Tweets
• Fact-Checking the Knaves
• Palm Coast Construction and Development
• Local Road and Interstate Construction
• Cultural Coda

“The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in [a] passage from St. Paul, based upon the view that ll sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending toward mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.”

–Bertrand Russell, from ““Marriage and Morals” (1929). [Click on the image or the link to buy the book.]

Previously:

Glory’s obscenity | Atheism v. Bach | Describing music | Dostoevsky’s truth | Clemenceau on artists | Henry Cabot Lodge | John Lennon | Homesteaders | Cakes and discrimination | Civil liberties | Nuance in America | Careless supremacy | Orange sentence | Ephemeral present | E.O. Wilson on atheism | Ponce de Leon | Bill Kristol’s liberalism | Life’s evening | Male friendships | Solzhenitsyn’s power | Voltaire on tolerance | McMurtry on Hemingway | Under arrest | LBJ’s white trash | Lewd plant names | Nabokov’s trains | Mass shootings | Schubert | Carbon atoms | Moynihan on liberals | Ruzickova on Bach | Mexican Fiestas | Epitaphs | Einstein’s Bach | Updike’s Lebanese | Age of Religion | States’ Rights | Bette Davis

In Flagler and Palm Coast:

Note: all government meetings noticed below are free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated. Many can be heard or seen live through each agency’s website.

The Sheriff’s daily incident reports and jail bookings are posted here.

In Court: Docket sounding is scheduled for 9 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse in the case of Maria Howell, the 20-year-old Palm Coast woman who, when she was 18, is accused of molesting a runaway girl who was 14 at the time. Howell was ready to plead guilty in October and would have served probation. Circuit Judge Dennis Craig rejected the plea, saying he wanted some prison time. Docket sounding is the last step in proceedings before a trial is scheduled. See the background story here.

The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7:45 a.m. at 201 West Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.

The Flagler County Technical Review Committee meets at 9 a.m. in the First Floor Conference Room of the Government Services Building, Bunnell.

The Tourist Development Council, scheduled to meets at 10 a.m. at the Government Services Building in Bunnell today, was again cancelled for the second month in a row and for the third time in the last four months.

Special meeting of the Flagler County Commission, 1 p.m. at the Government Services Building, Bunnell. In response to Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, the commission will hold a public hearing to consider the adoption of resolutions establishing the Painters Hill Seawall Special Assessment District and the Dune Restoration Project Special Assessment District, and to consider adoption of Temporary Construction Easements and Voluntary Assessment Agreements for seawall construction, emergency protection berms and other beach repairs.

The Flagler County Contractor Review Board meets at 5 p.m. in board chambers at the Government Services Building, Bunnell.

The Palm Coast Planning Board meets at City Hall at Town Center at 5:30 p.m.

The Flagler Home Builders Association breaks ground at 11 a.m. on a a new home and new design at 306 Grand Landing Blvd. in Palm Coast called “Paradise,” a design that will be available to the public in the fall of 2018. The brand new design by architect David Grussgott will feature the latest in home innovation and Florida style living and is being built by association members under the supervision of Tony Amaral Jr. After the groundbreaking, follow along with the build at www.flaglerdreamhome.com. Photos will be updated weekly so you can watch the construction progress from clearing to close.

Belle Terre Elementary’s Kindergarten Holiday Concert is at 9:15 a.m. at the school cafeteria.

Rymfire lementary’s Kindergarten Holiday Concert is at 9:25 a.m. at the school cafeteria.

Flagler County Democrats hold a Blue Bag Forum in the Flagler Democrats’ office, 2 Office Park Dr. (off of Club House), Suite D in Palm Coast at noon. Join the informal group as they discuss today’s issues and plan for the future. It’s fun, informative and important. All are welcome. Just bring an open mind (and a lunch if you wish).

Blood Donations: The Big Red Bus will be at the following locations this week:

• Wednesday: Metro Diner, 250 Palm Coast Parkway NE, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Thursday: Walmart, 174 Cypress Point Parkway, Palm Coast, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Thursday: Town Center, Fantasy Lights in Palm Coast, 5:30 to 9 p.m.
• Saturday: Walmart, 174 Cypress Point Parkway, Palm Coast, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Ongoing: the 12th Annual Fantasy Lights Festival at Central Park in Palm Coast’s Town Center, hosted by the Rotary Club of Flagler County: 6:30-9 p.m. each night. Fantasy Lights is a free, self-guided walking tour around Central Park with 40 large animated light displays, festive live and broadcast holiday music, holiday snacks and beverages. A favorite for the kids is Santa’s Village with a collection of elf houses festively painted and nestled among the lights, warm fire to roast marshmallows or create s’mores, and encircling the village is Santa’s Merry Train Ride.

Announcements:

Public Hearings for Surfview, Los Lagos and Las Casitas postponed a second time, to January 22, 2018: Several public hearing items on the agenda for the Monday, December 18 regular meeting of the Board of County Commissioners have been postponed until January 22, 2018. This is at the request of attorneys representing the applicant for the Surfview, Los Lagos and Las Casitas developments. Flagler County Attorney Al Hadeed determined the postponement is proper due to the requirements of constitutional due process as articulated by the courts of our state and the particular facts and complexities of these land use agenda items.
At the open session on Monday, County Administrator Craig Coffey will add a memo to the start of the agenda backup materials for these items. This action will allow for a vote on the record and determination to adopt this postponement with a continuation to the time certain of January 22. The standard procedure is that public hearings on land use are held in the evenings to allow for broader participation. The memo also serves to confirm that Hadeed did not discuss the matter with the County Commission in advance of its drafting.

Skip A Week: A Message from the St. Johns Water Management District on Not Mowing Your Lawn: One of the great things about living in Florida is the beautiful weather we have most of the year. A flip side of our year-round warm weather is not remembering that our lawns and landscapes take a winter break and naturally go dormant, reducing their need for irrigation. This year the St. Johns River Water Management District is joining in the Skip a Week campaign developed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District to encourage efficient irrigation practices specific to winter months. This campaign focuses on studies showing that lawns need only about three-quarters of an inch of water every 10 to 14 days during the winter, and less if it has rained. Irrigating every other week during December, January and February (skipping a week) could save more than 1 billion gallons of water in our District alone. That’s a lot of water! Watering too much makes lawns less able to survive dry conditions, encouraging shallow, weak root systems, leading to weeds, pests and diseases. In addition to the Skip a Week campaign, our winter watering restrictions of one-day-per-week on designated days allow sufficient irrigation to maintain healthy lawns. You’ll know if your lawn needs water when blades fold in half, turn blue-gray or leave footprints.

In Florida and in State Government:

Note: Some proceedings below can be followed live on the Florida Channel. Most legislative proceedings can be followed through the Senate or House websites.

PAROLE ISSUES ON TABLE: The Florida Commission on Offender Review is scheduled to meet and discuss numerous parole cases related to crimes committed in the 1970s and 1980s. (Wednesday, 9 a.m., Betty Easley Conference Center, 4075 Esplanade Way, Tallahassee.)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE NUMBERS EYED: The Criminal Justice Estimating Conference will discuss issues related to the criminal-justice system. (Wednesday, 10 a.m., 117 Knott Building, the Capitol.)

ATHLETIC TRAINING AT ISSUE: The Florida Board of Athletic Training is scheduled to hold a conference call. (Wednesday, noon. Call-in number: 1-888-670-3525. Code: 4552635641)

—-Compiled by the News Service of Florida and FlaglerLive

In Coming Days in Palm Coast, Flagler and the Occasional Beyond:

The Day’s Best Reads:

Editor’s Tweets

Palm Coast Construction and Development Progress Reports

Updates of ongoing permitting, construction and development projects in Palm Coast usually run here, along with a link to the city’s Week in Review. But the Week in Review, under the guise of being modernized, has become flashier and power-point like while becoming less substantive and dumbed down. We may or may not link to it in future. Here’s a summary of the latest developments as of Oct. 6

Click to access Oct-6-2017.pdf

Road and Interstate Construction:

• Florida Department of Transportation Road Project List

Cultural Coda

Hindemith: Der Schwanendreher

Previous Codas:

• Brendel Performs Schubert’s A Major Sonata No. 22, D. 959

• The New York Philharmonic in a 2016 Performance of Dvorak’s New World Symphony
• Alexander Gavrylyuk Plays Bach İtalian Concerto
• Daniel Lozakovich, at 12 Years Old, Performs a Beethoven Violin and Piano Sonata
• Jacquet de la Guerre: Sonata in D minor for Violin and Continuo performed by House of Time
• Evgeni Koroliov Performs Claude Debussy Préludes
• Turkey’s Fazil Say Plays Mozart’s Alla Turca, Then His Own
• Guitarist John Williams at the BBC: The 2016 Documentary
• Sviatoslav Richter Plays Schubert’s Great Piano Sonata No 13 in A major, D 664
• Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto Performed on Sax by Amy Dixon
• Maria João Pires Performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K 453
• When Mickey Mouse Jammed Out Carmen and Other Favorites
• Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s Trio for Piano, Oboe and Horn, Op. 61
• The Sublime Valses Poéticos by Enrique Granados, Performed By Albert Flotats
• Complete Performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique: Leonard Bernstein, Orchestre National de France
• Yeol Eum Son Performs Charles Valentin Alkan
• A Crazy Encore by Yuja Wang at Carnegie Hall
• Phillip Sear Performs a Waltz By Neapolitan Composer Franco Alfano
• “Stranger Things” Cello Medley – Nicholas Yee
• Discover the Great Daniil Trifonov
• Afro-Venezuelan Shostakovich
• Bill Murray’s Mark Twain Prize: The Full Monty
• Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major: Robert Levin and the Transylvania Philharmonic
• Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 1, KV 478
• Eleanor Rigby, performed by Sirius Quartet
• Mozart: Tamiri’s aria from Il re pastore: Elina Shimkus & Sinfonietta Riga
• Mariko M on the Cello, Mariko Terashita, violin, Perform Limerock
• Bohuslav Martinu: First Sonata for Flute and Piano
• Andras Schiff Performs All Six of Bach’s French Suites
• Paul Lewis plays Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major, Andantino
• 14-Year-Old María Dueñas Fernández Performs Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at 2017 Competition