It took almost a year since he was pushed out of the job he’d held for 11 years as county administrator in Flagler days into 2019, but on Nov. 5, the Okaloosa County Commission voted unanimously to confirm the appointment of Craig Coffey as deputy county administrator. He started work on Nov. 12.
Coffey will be paid almost $30,000 less than his ending salary of around $163,000 in Flagler, and he’ll have to answer to County Administrator John Hofstad. He was chosen out of 142 applicants after being turned down for a series of top government executive jobs including, Gainesville, Marco Island, Clay and Hernando counties.
He’d been dogged by controversies in his final year in Flagler and been the subject of a no-confidence vote by local public unions and blistering criticism from the sheriff over what became the burial ground of Coffey’s tenure: the Sheriff’s Operations Center he’d maneuvered successfully to buy–as an abandoned hospital–in 2013 and turn into a government building, only for sheriff’s employees to fall ill there. The sheriff abandoned the building in June 2018, though a consultant earlier this month concluded that the building is repairable.
In Okaloosa, a county in the far west panhandle of the state, Coffey will be replacing Greg Kisela, the current deputy administrator, who is retiring in December. His hiring appears related to Okaloosa’s interest in having an experienced hand in several issues that mirror Flagler’s. Okaloosa’s population is twice that of Flagler and it is twice as large by area, and, despite Flagler’s reddening state, it is far more conservative than Flagler, its population is younger and better off.
“Mr. Coffey has been an administrator for a number of years, almost 20 years,” Hofstad told his commission, “most recently in Flagler County here in Florida, a coastal county with issues very similar to Okaloosa County, where he was the county administrator for almost 12 years. Has a wealth of knowledge in beach renourishment related issues, he did the jail expansion while he was in Flagler County, as you know we’re dealing with that issue here in Okaloosa as well, and then the short-term rental issue, Craig led the charge for that for our managers’ group on the state level.”
The commission agreed to pay Coffey and its existing deputy administrator simultaneously for up to a month.
Coffey was in the audience with his wife, Ginger. They got a round of applause. The couple had been living at a house at 10 Trail Run in Flagler Beach since 2009, but at the end of August sold the house for $420,000.
Okaloosa Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel spoke words of sympathy for Ginger Coffey who, she said, “is having to make a move with her 16 year old all the way across this part of the state but I think you’re going to love our area.”
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Fredrick says
I feel so sorry for them…..
CAPTAIN says
I wouldn’t Brag about hiring Coffey
Flyingbird says
Now the Devil can screw UP Ocaloussa county like he did to Flagler county with the debt and horrible purchases he made, Bings landing the Sears building the Hospital.etc etc princess estate etc etc .
Fed Up says
Wow! Looks like that county up in the panhandle is an extension of our our county. Agenda 21 at its finest….Government and United Nations controlling us all.
John Dolan esq. says
Coffey will not be missed by me. In my opinion the worst County Administrator Flagler has ever hired. He was just a hatchet man and a divider, along with Joe Mayer. Good Riddance!
Mike Cocchiola says
I’m glad Coffey has found a good home. I didn’t agree with all of his decisions, but he put his heart into Flagler County and I applaud his dedication.
Land of no turn signals says says
He’s their problem now.
Pogo says
@God does have a sense of humor
coffey has been hired by one of flagler county’s clones on the gulf; a Tea Party infested swamp by the sea where Peckerwood rednecks and the christian taliban obediently starve themselves while sending cruds like gaetz, rubio, and scott (and their sideshow clown act) to washington and afflict floriduh with the ilk of desantis, moody, et. al. – just like flagler county. Now he can pick the pockets of people who deserve it equally well:
Mike Huckabee’s Epic Fight to Keep Beachgoers Off His Patch of Florida Sand
“Not long after his failed 2008 presidential bid, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee bought a beachfront plot in the Florida Panhandle and built a three-story, 10,000-square-foot mansion, with six bedrooms, seven-and-a-half bathrooms, and a pool. By planting his flag in the Florida sugar sand, Huckabee was escaping Arkansas income taxes and joining other rich Republicans who owned houses in this particular part of Walton County, including Karl Rove. The beach house was a sign that he’d made it. As he explained in an email to a state senator years later, “Having grown up dirt poor in Arkansas, I never thought I’d see saltwater in person, much less live on a beach.”
There was just one problem: Huckabee built his dream house on a public beach, a spot where some of the more than 4 million spring breakers and tourists who come to Walton County each year had been parking their lawn chairs and fishing poles since time immemorial. That meant the Fox News contributor had to share much of the 115-foot-long spit of sand in front of his $6 million house with those who helped pay for it—the people who watch his TV show. And he didn’t like it one bit…”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/mike-huckabees-epic-fight-to-keep-beachgoers-off-his-patch-of-florida-sand/
And more
https://www.google.com/search?-b-1-d&q=huckabee+private+beach&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf6O3YifLlAhXCjFkKHSLBCAcQBQgsKAA&biw=1408&bih=678
All of that made me laugh when Flagler Live first posted this news of coffey, but some of the comments that now appear are even funnier. Republicans are an eternal mother of irony.
Jane Gentile-Youd says
Coffey was a bi-partisan screw up. The commissioners who let him do their job are every bit as much to blame for the messes they approved . Coffey was given the green light by his cohort Al Hadeed who needs to go next in my unqualified personal opinion