In Unusual Break with Meeting Customs, a Flagler Beach Commissioner Blasts Another Over Campaign Claims

Then Commissioner Ken Bryan, who sits between Belhumeur and Mayor Suzie Johnston, spoke. He was enthused about a new culture and arts initiative in the county, Flagler Beach’s potential as a historic district, the bench-construction project in Veterans Park he’s spearheading. Then he turned to his notes and said he had to speak that last item. He started with those ominous words once associated with crime or terrorism and now more loosely used as markers of commonplace surveillance: “When I see something, I say something. If I see something that I think is inappropriate or something that’s not being done right, I will bring it to your attention. I’ll talk about it.”

Without mentioning his fellow-commissioner’s name, Bryan then spent the next five minutes defending his own record and approach to the job and excoriating Belhumeur’s campaign rhetoric and campaign signs in bitter but controlled terms that at one point seemed to have Bryan on the verge of tears.

“As a member of this commission, I find it very disappointing and offensive that we’re being portrayed in various medias as officials who are extravagant and complacent, and who are not accountable,” Bryan said. “This is wrong. And in my opinion, this is not true. This is not who we are.”

Bryan’s “see-something-say-something” approach isn’t without public precedent: in January 2021, he addressed the Flagler County Commission in equally strong terms that, without mentioning his name, condemned County Commissioner Joe Mullins for sponsoring bus transportation for Flagler residents who went to the Jan. 6 demonstration that turned into an attack on the U.S. Capitol. “It’s unfortunate that some of the same individuals who took the same oath of office like I did, and as you did, violated that oath to organize and lead dozens of protesters to our nation’s capital, to participate in a heinous attack on our country,” he said at the time. He spoke of his oath when addressing the Flagler Beach commission on Thursday as well.

He went on last week: “The idea that individuals would have the audacity to publicly portray this body as being complacent and extravagant spenders in my opinion is disrespectful to all of us, offensive, and nothing more than self-serving political games. I’m truly disappointed and sad that individuals will stoop to this level. I hope it will stop. I look forward to working with the rest of my commissioners for the rest of my duration.”




Belhumeur sat within inches of Bryan, stone-faced. “I was kind of dumbfounded at that point, didn’t know it was coming,” he said. “I didn’t want it to turn into anything that looked like it had anything to do with politics.” Nor did Belhumeur address the comments afterward. (moments later at the end of the meeting, Bryan stood up, as did Belhumeur, neither looking at the other, each walking off in a different direction.)

“I tried to be as diplomatic as I can without being really attacking anyone,” Bryan said in an interview today, “but I found the signs to be offensive to not only the sitting commissioners as well as the city manager and the managers who work very hard to try to provide services to the city.” He was insistent: “It had nothing to do with the campaign. If the campaign wasn’t even there I’d have still made those statements.” He conceded that absent the campaign, there would have been no signs bearing the language that drew Bryan’s criticism.

“I stand by anything I every said during campaigning or any other time,” Belhumeur said in an interview. “I’m certainly not doing anything for political gain, as I thought I heard. I always denied being a politician, that’s what my first sign says. I refuse to be one. I’ll speak my mind, and I’m sorry if it offends him. That’s my belief and a lot of people who will be voting for me feel the same way.” Asked to define what he meant by not being a politician–since an elected official is by definition a politician–Belhumeur said: “When I start making it about me that’s when I start being too much of a politician and I won’t do it anymore.”

The election for Flagler Beach City Commission is in one week. Incumbents Belhumeur and Jane Mealy are in the running, as is James Sherman, a relatively young newcomer who works in Embry Riddle Aeronautical University’s registrar office. Two of the three will win regardless. (See: “Flagler Beach City Commission Election Profile: 2 Incumbents Speak Experience as a Newcomer Promises.”)

Bryan is openly supporting Sherman (“VOTE !!! James SHERMAN” he wrote on his Facebook page in mid-February). It’s not unusual. Commissioners routinely back candidates openly and fervently, as former Mayor Linda Provencher backed Suzie Johnston for mayor (she won), as former Commissioner Joy McGrew backed Eric Cooley for commissioner (he won). But there is a rule, not quite unwritten, that what gets said on the campaign trail stays on the campaign trail: elected officials may not use their position–at meetings, in official correspondence, at forums where they represent the city–to campaign either for themselves or others.




It’s different on the campaign trail, as it was at a campaign forum last month where Mealy sharply and repeatedly blistered Belhumeur’s claims that the city was overspending, whether on fire trucks, garbage trucks or other city equipment.

For the past dozen years, none of the commissioners have used commission time to directly address campaign matters, though there have been more personal clashes between commissioners–including an infamous confrontation between Mealy and then-Commissioner Steve Settle over administrative meddling in 2010 (Settle subsequently had a confrontation with Belhumeur that tipped Belhumeur into running against him), or Settle’s attempt to have then-Commissioner Kim Carney removed as chairman. But for the most part, the Flagler Beach commission has been everything the Palm Coast City Council, the School Board and the County Commission have not been for the past couple of years: a model of civility and functionality. If there was friction between commissioners, they kept it away from the dais.

Not last Thursday, as campaign rhetoric became the springboard of Bryan’s statement, if not his own veiled campaigning for Sherman by proxy. Bryan spoke of taking his responsibilities seriously, knowing it’s “impossible to satisfy everyone, but you make decisions based on doing the right thing and in the best interests of the majority.” He said city residents want their own fire and police departments, and their own elected officials–meaning: they want their own city. “Although we’re a small city, we still have big expenses and responsibilities in order to be sustainable and to provide the best service that we possibly can for the safety of our citizens that they expect and they deserve it,” he said. “In order to be to provide our city staffs and the necessary tools to do their jobs. expenses must be obligated.”




Two years ago, he said, water and sewer rates rose sharply because “for years, city leaders for whatever reason” did not keep up with bills. (The statement was not entirely accurate: combined water and sewer rates were flat for several years, jumped 38 percent in 2008, then were flat again for six years in the aftermath of the Great Recession, when most local governments tried to limit burdening residents with additional fees. The combined rate then started rising again: 7 percent in 2015, 13 percent in 2016, 20 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in 2018. The rates are still rising. See a chart here.)

“You don’t wait for equipment failures or someone to get injured before you replace necessary tools for our staff that do a great job in our city. We’re a small city with big expenses,” Bryan said.

Vehicles, buildings and equipment must be sound, which he said hasn’t been the case for stretches of years. “Only recently have these issues started to be corrected,” he said, before firing the first direct salvo at Behumeur: “This is not extravagant spending.”

Mealy had said the same thing in different words at a candidate forum: ““It might sound good,” Mealy said, “but there [was] an awful lot of stuff that didn’t get done and we’re now catching up. Takes a lot to run this city.”

Belhumeur’s reelection campaign is themed against “extravagant spending,” implicitly implicating his colleagues–and explicitly so when he talks about being the odd man out at budget time. He’s voted against city budgets on various occasions during his two three-year terms. He’s done so in the full knowledge that his dissents have never risked hampering the city’s operations: commissioners make their positions clear at budget workshops. So he always knew that budgets had their necessary majorities, enabling him to dissent without risk to the budget, and with some benefit to his stance as a fiscal conservative he could then parlay into campaign messaging. But he said his reference to extravagance have had nothing to do with the sewer plan’s ongoing upgrades and associated costs.

“All the garbage trucks are Mack trucks with chrome bumpers and polished wheels, I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said. “The opposite of modest I believe would be extravagant.”




“I said something about the rotation of vehicles being to fast, that’s part of what he was saying, something about sending people out in dangerous vehicles. Well, just because it’s seven years old doesn’t mean it’s dangerous if it has 20,000 miles on it,” Belhumeur continued. “I just think we need to change the spending habits that’s been going on pretty much since Bruce  left and Larry came.” Bruce Campbell was the city manager before the late Larry Newsom.  “Everything had to be extra like we were showing off. It’s like you’re trying to keep up with the Joneses or something.” 

Bryan appeared to take the Belhumeur campaign rhetoric personally. “For nearly two years I along with others up here have made tough but thought out decisions on how to enhance the conditions and lives of Flagler Beach residents and the future,” Bryan said. “I make a point to personally study each issue and the potential impact that it might have on not necessarily the community, but the individuals. So I take my vote very seriously, and it’s accountable.” Belhumeur, who is not among the county’s elected slackers when it comes to preparing for meetings, considers his approach no different than Bryan’s.

Bryan doesn’t think his approach last Thursday risks breaking the commission’s streak of civility and collegiality. He said he was the one who brought forth the city’s ordinance strengthening the civility and decorum rules at commission meetings, and he expects the panel to continue as it has. “I have no ill feelings against Mr. Belhumeur or anyone else,” he said, remarks Belhumeur echoes in return.

“Hopefully it’ll be water under the bridge and we can all move on in a professional manner. I certainly plan to do that,” Bryan said. “I’m too old to hold grudges, I’m 73 years old.”

None of the other commissioners addressed the Bryan statement at the meeting. Commission Chairman Eric Cooley told FlaglerLive, “Ken did have some valid points and I respect his right to address that under his comment period 100 percent.”

The Bryan segment is below.